Photo by J-Rod85 on Flickr.

Counting our chickens: State and local officials have started discussing how to spend the stimulus money. Maryland’s John Porcari says they’ll prioritize repairs over new projects, which is the right choice; VDOT head Pierce Homer wants to pay for repairs and some of the delayed projects, meaning potentially more freeway widenings or new freeways. Most likely, according to COG transportation planner Ronald Kirby, the Purple Line won’t get any of this money. Update: Or maybe it will. Nobody really knows yet.

Screw nature: $200 million to repair the Mall’s grass and keep the Jefferson Memorial from sinking underwater got cut from the stimulus. MoCo is cutting port-a-potties from Rock Creek Park in winter. And auto manufacturers have confirmed they plan to use public bailout money to keep suing the public for imposing higher clean air standards (via Ryan Avent).

Wires have their high points: That Bombardier wireless streetcar technology looks pretty cool but, writes Manifest Density, it’ll probably be quite energy inefficient, likely wasting 20% of the power it consumes.

Thanks for reading, Examiner: It looks like the Examiner noticed GGW’s weekend links about the emergency DMV rule for federal judges. Reporter Bill Myers called the DMV, who said “the emergency order sprang from ‘a situation’ recently,” but wouldn’t elaborate.

Cut transit and people stop riding transit: Maryland Politics Watch’s Marc Korman reluctantly stopped riding MARC after recent service cuts (and falling gas prices). No word yet on whether he’s changing his name to I-95 Korman.

Lose the LOS: Streetsblog SF explains how Level Of Service (LOS) warps traffic engineers’ thinking and blocked important improvements in San Francisco. city and state planners are trying to dethrone LOS as the primary driver of traffic decisions.

Midwest vs. DC smackdown: President Obama mocks the Washington region for its inability to handle some snow; City Desk’s Andrew Beaujon says he’ll take this over Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan anytime.

Stop hatin’ on K Street: Yglesias points out, “‘K Street’ is a synedoche for the influence peddling business, but it’s also an actual street,” which is definitely not full of lobbyists over in the Mount Vernon Triangle. “You wouldn’t want to actually crack down on K Street, leaving out all the bad people on other streets but hitting the new Busboys & Poets coffee shop.”

And: A new Colesville Wendy’s will site the building close to the sidewalk, but still will face a mostly blank wall to the street; Imagine, DC almost loses his wheels after meeting GGW contributors.