Links
Weekend links: Getting serious about parks
Photo by The Great Photographicon on Flickr.
Tourmobile's end "likely": The Park Service confirms it's "unlikely" to renew its Tourmobile contract, but is mum on plans after that. (Perhaps the Post found this out from Lydia DePillis?) 
A tale of two parks: At Upshur Park, new trees are withering of thirst and the grass caught on fire, while Hamilton Park, new trees thrive. The difference is that volunteers were recruited to water the trees in Hamilton. (Post)
Numerology of bus transit: Some bus route numbers are random, some are historical artifacts, and some reveal vast information about the bus network. (Human Transit)
DC's gays live closer to downtown: DC's gay couples tend to live closer to downtown whereas the city's lesbian couples are more evenly distributed through the city. (Post)
Maryland and counties duel on Smart Growth: Gov. O'Malley may invoke executive powers to enforce a statewide Smart Growth plan. Critics say he's usurping the counties' planning prerogatives. The state, however, is ultimately on the hook for financing much of the infrastructure that sprawl necessitates. (Post)
Floridians run for their lives: With its wide arterial roads and shortage of sidewalks, walking in Florida can be a harrowing experience. Bus riders are especially vulnerable when they disembark at stops lacking sidewalks and crosswalks. (NYT)
Suburban poverty rising: In some metropolitan areas, poverty in the suburbs is higher than in the city (to the extent they have a "city"). All 10 areas with the worst suburban poverty all have very poor transit service. (AOL Daily Finance, Ben Ross)
The ultimate environmentally destructive highway: Bolivian president Evo Morales wants to build a destructive highway right through the Amazon; residents are marching against the plan. (Al Jazeera, Matthias)
Capital cities unfairly reviled: Coast to coast, citizens complain about the capital city when they're really taking aim at the federal government. This applies to Ottawa, too. (Ottawa Citizen) ... At least Ottawans can elect their own Members of Parliament.
And...: London is building 2,012 garden beds in which residents may grown food. (Inhabitat) ... The "virtual tunnel" between the Farraguts will be called "Farragut Crossing." (TBD) ... New York finally installed its first on-street bike corral. (Streetsblog)
Have a tip or cryptic bus number for the links? Submit it here.
 | Eric Fidler has lived in DC and suburban Maryland his entire life. He likes long walks along the Potomac and considers the L'Enfant Plan an elegant work of art. He also blogs at Left for LeDroit, LeDroit Park's (only) blog of record.   |
Comments
VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- Understanding can help cyclists, drivers better share the road
- Half-hour Metro headways are not acceptable
- "Degree density" maps show region's east-west divide
- Give up your seat on the bus or train to those in need
- Planners are the new public health officials
- Anti-transit ideology endangers Silver Line
Mon May 21
Wed May 23
12:00 pm Live chat with Matt Yglesias
Wed May 30
10:00 am Bike-ped safety enforcement hearing
This anti road movement of course considers an entire area off limits- rather then any particularly bad routes - which makes no sense.
See my other blog Freedom of Medicine and Diet- labels regarding "Coca", "Tobacco versus Coca" etc
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 20, 2011 1:33 pm
by aaa on Aug 20, 2011 1:43 pm
"NPS Killing Tourmobile free market jobs!"
[hint for Examiner headline]
Look, nobody wants to ban Tourmobile from the Mall. They're a great option for a lot of people, especially families and elderly people. All the NPS needs to do is allow other modes of transportation on the Mall. City buses and streetcars, perhaps another metro stop, bike-sharing, (pedi)cabs and a decent way for tourbuses to load and unload. As far as I'm concerned, the latter two are a great way to make some money.
The Mall should not be commercialized, but it can not be handled as if it were Yellowstone with only five entrances. The NPS has to acknowledge that the Mall is in a large city, both a destination as well as pass-through for many, and that it can not monopolize activities on the Mall.
by Jasper on Aug 20, 2011 3:07 pm
by Frank IBC on Aug 20, 2011 4:25 pm
This is well outside DC, but a successful light rail system in Norfolk could help nudge the process along for light rail and streetcars in Northern VA and DC.
by AlanF on Aug 20, 2011 5:18 pm
I love how local governments go batso about usurpation of local planning sovereignty, but somehow the State is supposed to pay for all the infrastructure and services that their locally sovereign decisions will end up requiring. An unfunded mandate that goes up...
by jnb on Aug 20, 2011 7:32 pm
Bolivia has one of the world's worst road systems, severely crippling their ability to have much of an economy- hence you have little grasp of reality.
That we hear so little regarding Evo Morales and his efforst to legalize Coca leaf speaks volumes about those that you would rather mislead us about, along with your own grasp of right and wrong.
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 20, 2011 8:37 pm
Frank-
Your posts suggests I have touched a nerve- the road is supported by indigenous peoples that want economic development, rather than continually being the Vatican's possession as it has been since the 1600s, being told to burn their coca fields while allowing in the adulterated and misbranded cigarettes.
That the opposition is against any road anywhere in the area reeks of a foreign plot to undermine Bolivia- which certainly goes on with the "laws" banning Coca leaf from international markets.
So do all of the 'progressive' 'urbanist' types that buy into such claptrap though of course have no problem at all with the continuing mega boondoggle of the cigarette market protection (drug war) started via freemasonic Theodore Roosevelts's unconstitutional 1906 'pure' foods and drugs act. grandfathering cigarettes while giving the USDA to arbitrarily ban competing plants without any requirement of science- a racket costing over 100 million deaths by banning the safest stimulant Coca for the sake of the most dangerous- Virginia Bright Leaf.
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/harvey-wileys-1906-us-food-drugs-act.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/05/freemason-t-roosevelt-approved-wiley.html
That Coca leaf is illegal and adulterated misbranced cigarettes are legal everywhere speaks volumes about the political reality which you would rather remain hoodwinked.
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 20, 2011 8:41 pm
And you are extremely misinformed. It is the indigenous peoples who are opposing the road project. The road is being built by a Brazilian company.
Also, it is perfectly legal to grow, and consume coca in Bolivia. It's just illegal to refine it into cocaine (although corrupt officials often turn a blind eye to the drug trade). This didn't start with Evo Morales. It has always been the case in Bolivia. And the amount of tobacco grown inside Bolivia is tiny compared to the amount of coca grown.
And you're also misinformed about the (US) Pure Food and Drug Act. The prohibitions of various drugs (opium and cocaine in 1914 and marijuana in 1937) are completely separate from the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Pure Food and Drug Act simply required that there be truth-in-labeling regarding ingredients used in medicines.
by Frank IBC on Aug 20, 2011 9:11 pm
No. It set up a double standard, requiring labeling for some drugs such as cocaine but not others as caffeine and nicotine; it completely exempted tobacco by limiting the act's jurisdiction to substances within the US pharmacopeia- from which tobacco was only deleted one year earlier; it gave the USDA the power to ban any substance from interstate commerce containing whatever the USDA deemed dangerous, without any science requirement- hence facilitating a massive conflict of interest (the USDA was created to promoted domestic agriculture), resulting in the USDA-AMA-APhA assault on freedom of medicine and diet against coca and for tobacco- a decision with massive negative consequences.
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/04/coca-as-tobacco-habit-cure.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/criminal-mercantilism-public-health.html
Sure there is local opposition to the Bolivia road- but its being most misleading to discount the foreign influence.
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 20, 2011 10:38 pm
If more took a serious look at this criminal cigarette alcohol protection racket and did the right thing, we would all have lots more funds for all sorts of different infrastructure projects.
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 20, 2011 10:41 pm
by spookiness on Aug 20, 2011 11:18 pm
by Frank IBC on Aug 21, 2011 12:46 am
I do believe that spookiness was referring to any of Douglas WIllinger's blogs. He linked to a few of them in earlier comments as a part of his debate with you.
by Matt Johnson on Aug 21, 2011 12:51 am
by Frank IBC on Aug 21, 2011 1:03 am
The lone comment on his blog entry links to a 2007 WaPo article about how a $100,000 maintenance fix (DPS) would have saved millions in boiler replacements. Most agencies, I imagine, labor under this fatal preference for capital budgets over maintenance. It is certainly the case with DPR. We have to get back to the basics.
Finally it seems Casey is waking up to the fact that unless you water trees they will die, and they have refused to plant trees without written proof they will water. This is years overdue. (Still, there are many many other trees in Nw that have had one, even two plantings that have died.)
From the linked 2007 Post article:
It would have cost just $100,000 a year to remove harmful minerals from the water flowing into all of the more than 400 boilers in the public schools. But maintenance officials say there was never enough money for it in their budget.
As a result, heating systems old and new have been breaking down all over the school district. Administrators had to sink more than $10 million into emergency repairs this year alone, prompted by cold classrooms at 71 schools in February that displaced hundreds of children.
by Jazzy on Aug 21, 2011 8:31 am
My posts about highway right of ways show scans of the old plans, including that lied about blatantly by the WP, and now by yourself. Indeed the WP has already painted itself with blatant lies about the de-mapped DC freeways, particularly that year 2000 map from the debunked Levey article:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/bob-and-jane-levey-refuted.html
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/search/label/Washington%20Post%20Lying
And now you insist there is NO foreign opposition (belied by the existence of the foreigners against Bolivian economic development).
The road issues in Bolivia were brought up initially by GGW- and are related to Bolivia's economy which includes its superior alternative to coffee (let alone the poison from Virginia) of Coca Leaf- growers of which strongly support this highway. An anti road stance against a road anywhere in a large region rather than a particular routing-design etc, is hardly based upon true environmental concerns.
The billions squandered on this despicable market protection racket could fund oggles of infrastructure projects, including the light rail favored in this blog.
Yet you would rather persist in ad hominem attacks, and ridiculous sloganeering, to keep the waste of the hoodwinking.
And you would have us think that infrastructure and economics are unrelated- aka the 1914 Harrison Act banning Bolivia's superior leaf timed with the U.S. completion and opening of the Panama Canal.
Also you owe the people of Bolivia an apology for your sloganeering about chemical haze regarding a leaf that's a superior stimulant to Coffee- reeking of the Roman cultural imperialism plauging the Americas since the 1490s.
by Douglas Willinger on Aug 21, 2011 1:14 pm
And Douglas is the one who owes the people of Bolivia an apology, for trivializing their history and struggle to develop, by making them pawns in crackpot conspiracy theories, and by treating that country as little more than a source for chemical pleasures.
by Frank IBC on Aug 21, 2011 3:02 pm
by Matt Johnson on Aug 21, 2011 5:18 pm
Thank you for understanding.
by Matt Johnson on Aug 21, 2011 6:10 pm
Listen very closely. If you are concerned about the enforcement of the comment policy, contact us by email. We are doing our best to maintain a civil discourse.
If you violate the comment policy again, or dispute it publicly again in this thread, I will bar you from commenting henceforth. This is your final warning.
You have two options:
(1) Return to commenting in a civil manner.
(2) Stop commenting.
by Matt Johnson on Aug 21, 2011 6:23 pm
Thank you for apologizing, Frank. In the future, please make sure to be respectful of your fellow commenters.
by Matt Johnson on Aug 21, 2011 6:38 pm
by VonniMediaMogul on Aug 22, 2011 2:44 am
I hope they re-instate the DC Circulator route year-round. It would be good for the city and convenient for the tourists as well.
by Omar on Aug 22, 2011 4:44 pm
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