Breakfast links: Bike lane blockers that drive away will be mailed fines
Image by Joe Flood licensed under Creative Commons.
DC will pilot mailing bike lane fines to drivers
Under a pilot program set to launch in late January, DC announced it would begin mailing $65 tickets to owners of vehicles who block bike lanes. This change will allow parking control officers to issue tickets to owners of vehicles that drive away before the ticket is printed. (Anna-Lysa Gayle / WJLA)
National Airport’s new concourse is moving forward
National Airport is making progress on a new concourse and expanded screening area set to open in 2021. It will replace the airport’s current method of busing Gate 35X travelers to their planes. (Lori Aratani / Post)
DC is waiting to see if rat birth control bears any fruit
DC extended a pilot program that began in May to sterilize its rat population using a new type of sweet bait that renders consumers sterile. DC is continuing to evaluate the program, but the Arizona company that makes the product announced a 77% drop in the ratio of juveniles to adults in the District. (Jodie Fleischer, Rick Yarborough, and Jeff Piper / NBC4)
Urbanist items top this wish list for Virginia’s General Assembly
Local leaders in Northern Virginia list funding for the commonwealth’s Housing Trust Fund and for regional transportation projects as the top items on their wish list from the newly elected Virginia General Assembly. (Alex Koma / WBJ)
An MD cycling advocate helped fund the Bikeways Network
Kim Lamphier, a Maryland cycling advocate who passed away in August following a battle with cancer, was the driving force behind the state’s $3.8 million pledge to fund the Bikeways Network Program for the next two years. Governor Larry Hogan funded it after initially vetoing in May. (Kate Masters / Bethesda Beat)
After a low, DC hate crime prosecutions rose in 2019
Local officials and activists welcomed the news that the US attorney’s office charged seven incidents from 2019 as hate crimes compared to only five across both 2017 and 2018, their lowest point in at least a decade. Momentum is building to strengthen the city’s hate crime law. (Michael E. Miller and Steven Rich / Post)
DC may name the little brown bat as its ‘state’ mammal
At the encouragement of several Girl Scout Troops, the DC Council will hold a public hearing on January 27 on whether to designate the endangered brown bat as the official state mammal. The bats are found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and each can eat up to 1,200 bugs per night. (AP)
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