Politics

Thanks for fooling with us

by David Alpert   •   April 1, 2012 11:43 pm

We enjoyed putting together some April Fool posts for you this year. We've decided to change the name of the site from Greater Greater Wells back to Greater Greater Washington, but you can continue to enjoy our April 1 homepage here.

How many of the changes to the site could you pick out? At right is the day's Twitter avatar, preserved for your enjoyment.

Thanks go to our many contributors who put in ideas for jokes, whether for the Weekend Links, elements of the Red Line story, and ideas we weren't able to fit in during the day.

A number of other local blogs revealed some surprising and foolish news. The Cleveland Park listserv revealed a new in-home concierge trash pickup service for DC; for those who don't subscribe to the list, details should soon be posted here. WashCycle reported that Maryland plans to build a high-speed rail line which it would then immediately abandon to create a rail trail.

Three pyramids suddenly appeared in Burtonsville, Dan Reed revealed, and DC Metrocentric broke the news about a million square foot development on Roosevelt Island, in the Potomac.

Besides the "passengerless cars" we reported on, Google took another step in their driverless car program by partnering with NASCAR to develop autonomous race cars.

Planetizen noted that a San Francisco pop-up store has qualified as historic. Cleveland, unable to afford a bicycle sharing program, launched a bicycle stealing program.

New York introduced a left-handed turnstile, says Transportation Nation, Project for Public Spaces started a new campaign to give public spaces rights just like people and corporations, and Philadelphia announced new sidewalk lanes for people texting.

In not-fooling April Fool news, DC's political Twitterati concluded that, as it happens, the 2014 primary election in DC will actually fall on April 1, unless the council takes action to modify the ridiculously early primary date they established beginning this year.

Did you see entertaining articles not listed here? Post them in the comments.

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.