"blah blah blah...sightlines...blah blah blah...historic...blah blah blah...financial crisis...blah blah blah...scofflaw cyclists"

This will be the answer to any serious proposal to build a floating roundabout.

by MM on Aug 27, 2012 8:41 am • link • report

That bike roundabout is awesome.

by MLD on Aug 27, 2012 8:52 am • link • report

re Uniontown...

I wonder if the folks who posted here in defence of Uniontown owner, proclaiming they would still patronize her business after she was found to have taken delivery of 65 kilos of coke have the stones to apologize to District residents for publically stating they didn't care what kind of poision she put on the streets?

To those who did, I am sure she was grateful for your help in defraying her legal bills.

by freely on Aug 27, 2012 9:23 am • link • report

@freely

Some of us don't see too much difference between the "kind of poision she put on the streets" and the kind of poison that was 'freely' and legally available inside Uniontown and every other establishment with a liquor license in the United States. Some difference in degree, perhaps, but not in kind.

by Dizzy on Aug 27, 2012 10:06 am • link • report

Looks like the roundabout needs some signs to remind chumps not to turn left in order to cut off 180 degrees of the circle.

by ah on Aug 27, 2012 10:19 am • link • report

Thats a new one, equivocating 140 lbs of cocaine, a highly illegal and highly addictive narcotic with a street retail value of 14 million for which she will spend ~20 years in jail for trafficing... with beer.

If somehow thinking beer is the same as a schedule 2 narco helps one justify continual patronage of felon drug trafficers business, then fine, but I would doubt that even the most ardent MADD members would disagree.

You might of had a point had you said cigarettes, which kill far more than the combined yearly deaths of alcohol and cocaine, but eqivocating beer and cocaine is silly.

by freely on Aug 27, 2012 10:33 am • link • report

Couldn't that roundabout have been accomplished by building a circular bike path at-grade *in* the circle, and building a few underpasses to connect to it?

by andrew on Aug 27, 2012 10:38 am • link • report

Putting something that is probably at or below sea level even further down would be an invite to standing water or very expensive storm water removal efforts.

by NikolasM on Aug 27, 2012 10:44 am • link • report

@ah
Looks like the roundabout needs some signs to remind chumps not to turn left in order to cut off 180 degrees of the circle.

Why? Looks like there's tons of room and bike traffic moves pretty slowly. In fact it doesn't look like if they care if people go the "wrong" way given that there is no signage.

by MLD on Aug 27, 2012 10:49 am • link • report

Yay for Capital Bikeshare in Alexandria. That will be a great addition to get people from the Metro to Old Town. I just hope the stations are big enough.

by Adam L on Aug 27, 2012 10:53 am • link • report

Three Virginia parkways get new numbers.

And VDOT is, as usual, completely dropping the ball on the renumbering of the roads. They are completely randomly replacing numbers, while leaving others. On the "split" of the Fairfax County Parkway and the Franconia-Springfield Parkway, where they installed new signage a few months ago, they have now replaced the 7900 with 289, but left the 7100, while it has been changed on the side of the road.

They did a similar thing with the exit of I-95. You could go to 7100North, and 286South. It baffles me that they can get out a truck and close I-95 to replace one number, but not the other.

Along the Fairfax County Parkway about half the signs have been replaced, while the others have not.

by Jasper on Aug 27, 2012 10:54 am • link • report

Restaurants have long been linked to crime. They have a lot of cash flow with often primitive accounting. Very nice places have been used for money laundering purposes by organized crime. It's not unusual to find gambling in a back room or owners anxious to find illegal ways to deal with cash flow problems. I'm surprised more restaurants aren't busted.

by Rich on Aug 27, 2012 11:10 am • link • report

@freely

"schedule 2 narco" is a creation of the drug war, as is its "highly illegal" status and its street value. These are legal and positive concepts, not moral or normative ones.

I'm not particularly strident on the drug issue, and I'm about as far from a MADD supporter as you'll find (I want the public drinking age lowered to 18 and MIP decriminalized), but alcohol kills far more people yearly/daily than cocaine.

As you point out, tobacco is another comparison to keep in mind, and its addictiveness easily rivals that of cocaine.

by Dizzy on Aug 27, 2012 11:26 am • link • report

Dizzy,

There's not a little difference in degree, there's a huge difference in degree. And even if one argues that coke should/shouldn't be legal, that's not a particularly relevant distinction in this case. It is illegal, and therefore trafficking coke brings all the assorted problems of illegality. We saw the same thing with booze/bootlegging during prohibition. None of this is particularly relevant to the properties of the substance, other than the fact that it is in demand.

That's the kick in the pants about this, as it relates to the neighborhood. Here, you had a bar/restaurant in an underserved area seemingly doing great business - yet the whole thing falls apart on drug charges. Was the bar being propped up by illicit cash? Was the pent-up demand shown with the crowds enough to sustain the business? Only time will tell - hopefully someone else can have success in that space.

by Alex B. on Aug 27, 2012 11:36 am • link • report

Alex,

My point was in response to freely's demand that "the folks who posted here in defence of Uniontown owner...have the stones to apologize to District residents for publically stating they didn't care what kind of poision she put on the streets?"

My response is that some of us don't feel we need to apologize, because in our view, the ultimate fault lies with the U.S. drug enforcement regime, not with the owner of Uniontown. The "assorted problems of illegality" are consequences of the legal regime, not of the substance, as you yourself admitted ("None of this is particularly relevant to the properties of the substance"). So if anyone should be apologizing, it is those propping up an obviously failed regime.

The size of the difference in degree is debatable, but that is the not particularly relevant distinction in this case.

Your comment is telling: " Here, you had a bar/restaurant in an underserved area seemingly doing great business - yet the whole thing falls apart on drug charges." We've seen this pattern time and time again, especially in underprivileged and minority communities. Perhaps one day we'll realize that the problem is with the drug charges themselves.

by Dizzy on Aug 27, 2012 12:18 pm • link • report

but since running for president he seems to have backed away from those policies

Isn't that true for almost everything he says?

by Vicente Fox on Aug 27, 2012 12:42 pm • link • report

Dizzy,

That's fine, but my point about making commentary about the larger war on drugs is that it's not relevant to this case - the scales are totally different. People didn't celebrate the success of Uniontown as some response to the drug war.

Now, I don't agree with freely that supporters of Uniontown need to apologize, but that doesn't mean you can easily segregate Uniontown's successes and failures.

by Alex B. on Aug 27, 2012 12:52 pm • link • report

@MLD: Why? Looks like there's tons of room and bike traffic moves pretty slowly. In fact it doesn't look like if they care if people go the "wrong" way given that there is no signage.

Because it blocks the people already on the circle or the people trying to get on but stuck behind left turners. Besides, it's not a roundabout if it goes both directions, it's just a free for all.

by ah on Aug 27, 2012 1:10 pm • link • report

@Alex B.

I think the war on drugs is extremely relevant to this case - and, specifically, to the continued status of Wards 7 and 8 as regions of concentrated poverty, with all the attendant social ramifications thereof.

You're absolutely right that you cannot easily segregate Uniontown's successes and failures. You also cannot segregate EOTRs successes and failures - i.e. why Uniontown was such a big deal in the first place - from the social policies in which they have occurred.

by Dizzy on Aug 27, 2012 2:08 pm • link • report

Restaurants have long been linked to crime.

The essential problem with DC and its culture is that they associate local businesses with being criminal enterprises, so that anyone who owns a business is considered a suspect, and if you do something other than have a job in the public sector, it's assumed there's something sketchy about you.

by JustMe on Aug 27, 2012 4:36 pm • link • report

Memorial Circle definitely needs to be improved (for cyclists, cars and pedestrians), but this proposal isn't the way to do it.

@MM: Sightlines are an important concern at Memorial Circle. It's part of the ceremonial entrance to Arlington, and while the circle isn't exactly beautiful, this would detrimentally impact the views from Lincoln to the cemetery.

Any improvement will likely have to be at least visually neutral, and this particular idea is far from that ideal.

by JW on Aug 27, 2012 5:45 pm • link • report

Singapore high rise has en suite elevator auto garage to bring your car up to you:

http://www.autoblog.com/2012/08/25/luxury-singapore-high-rise-offers-elevated-en-suite-parking/

by Tom Coumaris on Aug 27, 2012 9:12 pm • link • report