Breakfast links: Safer and more affordable

Hit, kill, run

Are hit-and-runs on the rise or is it just coincidence? A driver hit and run a pedestrian in Prince George’s County yesterday, off Central Avenue near the Beltway. As with most PG crashes, it’s at a fairly pedestrian-hostile intersection. (Post)  (Tip: no credit)

Cycle tracks in College Park?

Prince George’s County wants cycle tracks on Route 1 in College Park, but removed language in the plan that would encourage replacing on-street parking with a cycle track, instead just calling for large enough “preferred cross-section dimensions” for US-1. (TheWashCycle)

Affordable housing activity

Alexandria is losing affordable housing, and big budget cuts could make things worse (Examiner) … New Montgomery County Planning Board member, developer, and affordable housing advocate Norman Dreyfuss says he won’t be predictable on the Board (Gazette) … Three developers present very similar plans for building mixed-income housing on the former site of now-moved Justice Park in Columbia Heights. (DCmud)

Off the job for 9 years, come back, derail a train

The Metro train operator who derailed a train at Farragut North and was later fired turns out to have just gotten back from 9 years of medical leave. Other employees and the Examiner question whether such employees get enough retraining. (Examiner)

MV Square market unpermitted, but should be permissible?

Richard Layman has been following the closure of the Liberty Market at Mount Vernon Square. DCRA says they had no permit, and the rules for “farmers markets” require selling exclusively locally grown food, which that one didn’t; the market says they had a contract, but appears confused about the difference between a contract and a permit. Layman argues that regulations ought to facilitate markets that aren’t “farmers markets” as well. (RPUS)

After the flood

Would the Park Service ever let the GW Parkway look like this photo of the Mt. Vernon Trail after last weekend’s floods? USDOT says bikes are transportation equal to cars.

How are Kenyan riots like the snowpocalypse?

Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing software tool developed to track violence in Kenya and used to coordinate disaster relief in Haiti and Chile, also helped map blocked roads and the availability of snowplows in DC. (NYT)