Breakfast links: Outdoor people and places

Car-Free photos

WABA’s Eric Gilliland posted his photos from yesterday’s Car-Free Day. Did you go? How was it?

Anti H Street festival

One “local gadfly” in the H Street neighborhood almost got the festival cancelled. He questioned the signatures (necessary to close streets) at the last minute. (Frozen Tropics via City Desk)

Better pictures of the huge bike

DCist got a hold of more images of the proposed public art in Adams Morgan. With a wider angle view, the bike looks less grotesquely huge, and there will be benches. I’m still not such a fan, and apparently neither are the DCist commenters.

High taxes for blight but not vacancy

The DC Council removed the high, punitive tax rate from vacant properties, but kept it for “blighted” ones. The intent of the law was to hit landlords who are just letting properties rot and become crime magnets, but also hit the owners of buildings who just couldn’t lease or sell them in the bad market. Expect the neighborhood controversies to continue over which properties the government classifies as “blighted.” (WBJ)

MWAA now a road-widening agency?

MWAA wants to use some toll revenue from the Dulles Toll Road to widen Route 606 in Loudoun. Meanwhile, it’s proposing raising tolls to pay for the Silver Line. Fairfax supervisors want the revenue to go to the Silver Line and actual toll road projects first, not to the widening of cross highways in Loudoun. (Fairfax Times, Joshua Davis)  (Tip: Joshua Davis)

A little relief on BRAC

DoD has extended the deadline for BRAC moves, relieving some of the pressure from the looming mandate to move tens of thousands of employees from Metro-accessible office buildings to the transit-poor Fort Belvoir. Jim Moran has been fighting the rules that force many agencies that aren’t big terrorist targets to move to buildings set back 82 feet from the street or more, which prohibits most urban locations. Arlington Chair Barbara Favola says there are lots of other ways to make buildings secure besides putting them in unwalkable areas. (WBJ)

NTSB: Fix the mystery track circuits

The NTSB still hasn’t figured out exactly what caused the June Red Line crash, but has made some recommendations to transit agencies concerning the automated signals. Metro is already doing frequent testing of the signals. This news also probably means manual train operation will continue for a while longer.

Grants grants grants

The FTA awarded $100 million in grants to make transit agencies greener. The MTA got $522,000 to replace halon and Arlington Transit $1.5M for new buses. Unfortunately, WMATA was not one of the recipients. … Other energy efficiency stimulus grants have been coming out from other agencies as well, like Department of Energy grants to various states. (Housing Complex, WBJ, Justin, Gavin Baker)

And…

the Hyattsville Arts District is slowly transforming the area, but very slowly (Post) … Tonight is “DCHenge,” the day the sunset will line up perfectly with DC’s lettered streets (City Desk) … Some cabbies are sriking against a medallion system to limit the number of cabs, but which they fear will drive up costs. (Post)