Let's declare war on calling transportation arguments "war"

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Let's declare war on calling transportation arguments "war"

by David Alpert • January 12, 2009 3:44 pm

Maryland Politics Watch has a roundup of the Purple Line debate with the inflammatory headline "MTA Declares War on Chevy Chase." In the lede, MPW's Adam Pagnucco calls the DEIS "a Declaration of War on rail opponents in the Town of Chevy Chase."

Civil war cannon in Maryland. Photo by Rob Shenk on Flickr.

As far as I know, the MTA does not want to kill, maim, or take as prisoner any rail opponents in Chevy Chase, nor do they want to destroy the town or force it to sign a peace treaty. Instead, they simply want to build a train line. In fact, the residents of Chevy Chase are even allowed to ride it! Can we stop with the inflammatory "war" rhetoric please?

There's a word for not accepting the town's arguments: "disagreement." Is the Town of Chevy Chase "declaring war" on North Chevy Chase, because North Chevy Chase greatly dislikes the Town of Chevy Chase's Jones Bridge bus alternative?

In other war news, Virginian officials reacted with some understandable dismay to the closing of almost all Potomac bridges to auto traffic. Always eager to inflame the car-pedestrian divide, AAA's Lon Anderson and a few community email list participants trotted out the Civil War analogies. And always eager to play along, the Post's Eric "War on Drivers" Weiss wrote a whole article about it.

Reader Stephen Miller just submitted a post about AAA's reaction. He wrote,

The bottom line is that two million people are going to crowd the Mall for the nation's largest gathering ever and AAA thinks we should leave the bridges open for private auto traffic. The issue isn't, as AAA frames it, "security impinging on mobility." Sure, the security will restrict car mobility. But if it weren't, the traffic would even more severely restrict the mobility of the other 1.8 million people not in private cars. As Beyond DC notes, the issue is efficiency. With two million people cramming the Mall, where does AAA think the cars are going to go?
Think of it this way: 1.3 million people commute to Manhattan daily, and most of them don't drive because, if they did, the traffic and parking would be insane. Now imagine almost twice that many people cramming into a space the size of Central Park. Still, AAA thinks that everyone should be able to drive their own car to downtown DC, if they wanted to.
Obviously cars can be a useful and often necessary way of getting around, but this Inauguration is an extraordinary situation. Yet when faced with reality, AAA sticks to dogma about keeping as many automobile lanes as possible open at all times.
(And if you find AAA's stance unreasonable, there are alternative car clubs, competitive on cost and quality. Try Better World Club, which the Car Talk guys recommended over AAA since it doesn't lobby for highways.)

9 comments — Share	— tags: AAA, inauguration, Maryland, press, Purple Line, traffic, Virginia, windshield perspective

Madaleno opposes Jones Bridge BRT in public, supports it in private (Jun 17, 2009)
Town of Chevy Chase takes ball, goes home, calls referee a cheat (Jan 21, 2009)
Tell Maryland MTA you support the light rail Purple Line (Dec 12, 2008)
Residents support the Purple Line at Bethesda/Chevy Chase hearing (Nov 19, 2008)
Stand up for the Purple Line in November (Oct 3, 2008)

Comments

Still, the closing of all inside-the-beltway bridges is going to put a serious crimp on non-Inauguration-related local travel and mobility, not to mention some business. The biggest losers here are those who live in Virginia and work in D.C. (or inside the Beltway in Maryland), and who do not get the day off. Even if Metro is a normal option for these workers, they'll be facing a serious people-crunch that'll affect their ability to get to/from their jobs (or wherever else they have to go that day).

by Froggie on Jan 12, 2009 4:49 pm

Agreed. An event like this strips bare the irrationality of a lot of pro-car arguments. To wit: since there will be a few places to park, all must have a right to believe they can get one of those extremely limited parking spots, and all must have the right to try. It's like the car version of the American Dream: everyone's entitled to dream about that perfectly located streetside parking spot despite the fact that by definition only a miniscule percentage of those driving will obtain it.

That Post article is pure irrationality-indulging trash.

by Reid on Jan 12, 2009 5:00 pm

While we're paying attention to inflammatory language, can we also have a moratorium on the use of "czar" to mean a government civil servant who is put in charge of something? Russian Czars were really bad despots. For Jews of Russian/Ukrainian descent, the term "czar" is just as offensive as "Fuhrer".

by Ward 1 Guy on Jan 12, 2009 5:36 pm

John Kenneth Galbraith explained the use of the word "czar" many years ago. Economic planning is by definition un-American, so we can't call our planners planners. The word czar suggests something sufficiently reactionary that there is no danger of being called subversive.

by Ben Ross on Jan 12, 2009 7:04 pm

I drove to Bush's inaugural in 2001. It was the easiest and smoothest experience ever, after the ceremony I went home and was on my couch watching the parade. I did have a parking spot downtown near the mall so I decided to take advantage of it. This year is different as my building will not allow parking; however I am sure there are tons of spots under buildings that many people were counting on using for Tuesday. However I can understand the bridge closings, but closing 395 and 66 at the beltway is overkill. Honestly will this event be anything bigger than your average 4th of July? I am betting on no. As for me, it is going to be a cold bike ride in...which I expect to be the easiest form on transportation that day.

by RJ on Jan 12, 2009 7:37 pm

This event will draw FAR more people than any previous inauguration, or any 4th of July. It will not be comparable.

by BeyondDC on Jan 13, 2009 12:47 am

RJ - Given the multiple ways this is historic, the mood in the country right now, the very strong appeal of seeing the first black president, the records established for Clinton's '93 inauguration (~800,000 visitors), and the fact that the guy could fill 100k seat stadiums multiple times a day for the same canned speech *before* he was elected...

I think the only way we'll see less than a July 4th celebration (~300,000 visitors) is if it occurs in the deposition phase of a strong ice storm which takes out the powergrid, Metrorail, & highways. I would put the 5%-95% error bounds of my guess at 500k-5million. Either way, I suspect around 2-3 million area residents will be deciding right before the event, based on crowd sizes & weather.

by Squalish on Jan 13, 2009 1:28 am

Yeah, the 4th of July expectation is a little pessimistic. However, I just can't buy into the multi million estimates. First off the economy: If you don't live locally or have a couch to crash, attending this event is going to be very expensive. Second, standing room: basically the Mall can only hold so many people. Roughly, from Grant Statue to Washington Monument can hold, at best, a tightly packed crowd of a million. Third, getting in: Metro can only haul in so many people before noon and already there is some evidence that a number of expected busses are much lower than expected. If even if there are 3-5 million people swarming the city, I highly doubt many of them could even make it in the city with all the various transportation barriers that have been put into place. Finally just by looking at Hotels.com there are plenty of rooms available in the metro DC area for the night of the 20th, . So my revised estimate will be 750-1.2.

by RJ on Jan 13, 2009 9:24 am

The funny thing about the people in Chevy Chase who are against the purple line is that if they already had rail transit service and MTA was proposing to eliminate it, they would very likely just as incensed as they are about the opposite scenario.

by rg on Jan 13, 2009 9:52 am