Greatest Greatest Hits: Your favorite posts of 2015
You liked to read and talk about the Purple Line, bicycle crashes, and development in 2015. Here’s a look back at the stats for what posts got the most (and least) traffic, comments, and sharing this year.
The number one most-read post of the year was Peter Dovak’s terrific map of what the regional transit map could look like if the Purple and Red Lines become a reality (sadly, now only a hypothetical alternate universe reality).
Most shared: The top tweet honor went to Chris Hamilton’s “10 steps to take 100,000 cars off DC’s roads” (what a shareable title!) and Matt Johnson’s “See America’s light rail and streetcars at the same scale”.
Most liked, besides Peter’s transit map, was Ottawa has a four mile ice skating highway (Dan Malouff) and our April Fool’s joke, Nation’s first bicycle HOT lanes planned for Mt. Vernon Trail.
Most comments: What did you all comment on most? Apparently, Maryland transportation, with 355 comments on “Hogan stalls on Purple Line, calls it too expensive and 246 on A driver killed Tom Palermo in Baltimore, but road designers deserve some blame, too,” by Jeff Lemieux.
That latter post continues the trend of having a highly-discussed, high-traffic about a bicycle crash each year. Last year, there was the driver hitting Evan Wilder and throwing his bike into the back of a pickup truck — the most-commented post of the year. In 2013, we had “It must have been your fault. C’mon. You are a biker,” Zach T’s story of getting hit by a turning driver, having police not believe his story, and proving his side with surveillance video.
The top posts by category
You didn’t only read and talk about light rail lines in Maryland and drivers in Maryland hitting cyclists, though. We write about a lot of topics, including transit, development, education, walking and biking, public spaces, roads, government budgets, and much more. Here are some posts from this year in each high-level category that scored highly in traffic, comments, and/or shares:
Buildings (including development, zoning, architecture, retail, and preservation):
- When it redesigns its campus, Gallaudet hopes to pioneer architecture for the Deaf (Neil Flanagan)
- Mayor Bowser says she wants a new football stadium at RFK (Brian Flahaven)
- DC’s housing affordability crisis, in 7 charts (Claire Zippel)
- 9 things people say at zoning hearings, illustrated by cats (Dan Keshet)
Education:
- If you can’t get kids to a mental health clinic, bring the clinic to a school (Natalie Wexler)
- Education in multiple languages gives kids a big boost, which means high demand for DC’s programs (David Alpert)
- Here’s a school-by-school look at DC’s high school graduation rates (Natalie Wexler)
Government (including politics, budgets, and demographic data):
- Congress gives Metro riders an early Christmas present (Ben Ross)
- Mary Cheh wants to change the definition of assaulting a police officer. Here’s why that’s important. (David Alpert)
- John Oliver explained DC statehood and it was brilliant (Abigail Zenner)
History:
- Hidden clues reveal an old road that disappeared from DC (Eric Fidler)
- Here’s a map of the highways that almost ran through DC (Jonathan Neeley and Dan Malouff)
- How U Street almost became strip malls and office parks (Payton Chung)
- Anacostia’s larger-than-life Big Chair is full of neighborhood history (John Muller)
Walking and bicycling:
- A driver killed Tom Palermo in Baltimore, but road designers deserve some blame, too (Jeff Lemieux)
- Oregon plans to rebuild an iconic tunnel for bikes and pedestrians (Ned Russell)
- Here’s what keeps people from riding a bike (Michael Andersen)
- My godmother died where a new sidewalk design made her walk in traffic (Richard Hoye)
Photography (including Flickr roundups and WhichWMATA):
- Seven spectacular photos of last night’s stormy sky (Dan Malouff)
- The open road in the Flickr pool (Matt Bechak)
- WhichWMATA Week 45 (Matt Johnson, a special edition)
Public spaces (including parks, plazas, and the environment):
- Go ahead, wade in the memorial (Tim Krepp)
- The secret park by the White House could be great, if people knew about it (Dan Malouff)
- Why isn’t College Park a better college town? (The contributors)
- The sound of children playing bothers some Columbia Heights residents (Julie Lawson)
Roads (including traffic, highways, and taxis):
- 10 steps to take 100,000 cars off DC’s roads (Chris Hamilton)
- A Maryland road widening will be more costly than the transit it replaces (Ben Ross)
- The AP bans the term “ride-sharing” for Uber & Lyft (Abigail Zenner)
- Virginia candidates wrongly criticize plans to toll I-66 (David Cranor)
Transit:
- Maryland’s governor thinks the Purple Line is too expensive but wants to build a $10 billion maglev. Huh? (David Alpert)
- Will the Purple Line appear on the Metro map? (Peter Dovak)
- Twenty-five gorgeous but non-famous US train stations (Dan Malouff)
- Metro detected track problems but did nothing until a train derailed. This has become a sadly familiar pattern. (David Alpert)
What posts stick out in your mind from 2015?