Breakfast links: Go for safety

by David Alpert • July 12, 2010 8:38 am

Photo by James Calder on Flickr.

Safety fixes approved: WMATA got approval from the FTA to spend the federal and locally-matched capital dollars that Governor McDonnell almost derailed. They can now obligate projects to rehab tracks, fix escalators and elevators, repair rail cars, update old bus location devices, and more. The 7000 series railcars are awaiting Kawasaki either complying with Buy America requirements or getting a waiver. (WMATA)

Bus thief made a convincing driver: That man who stole a Metrobus Friday and then drove his regular route knew the route and bus operation so well that he had passengers fooled, until he hit a tree and then took off on foot. (Post)

Hot and on the wrong track: It's tough to keep cool in high-90s weather. It's especially tough in a train whose doors keep opening (Post) ... A Blue Line train got misrouted onto the Orange Line at Stadium-Armory. (Examiner)

East Falls Church accepted: The Arlington County Board voted to "accept" the East Falls Church plan. "Accepting" vs. "adopting" lets them get 4-6 months more of public input on specific details, but agrees to the overall framework. (FCNP)

Riemer only endorsed challenger: The Post made endorsements for Montgomery County Council primaries, recommending Smart Growth candidate Hans Riemer and three incumbents at-large (Trachtenberg, Elrich and Floreen). They also endorsed Roger Berliner for reelection and Royce Hanson for the upcounty open seat.

Parking czar?: Gabe Klein talked streetcars and more in his Friday chat. He said he's looking to appoint a "parking czar" to coordinate DDOT's parking projects, a much-needed step given how DDOT has been virtually ignoring its performance parking pilots.

ARTful improvements: ART is adding a route, #45 between Rosslyn, Arlington DHS at Sequoia Plaza, and Columbia Pike at Four Mile Run Drive, beginning July 6, plus a few schedule changes on other lines. They will also post stop numbers at every bus stop so riders can enter them into the real-time location system. (Gavin)

Public street, no photography: MPD detained a photographer for taking pictures of a traffic stop on a public street in Georgetown. Supervisors backed up officers who falsely insisted the photographer had no right to take pictures. (Photography blog via DCist)

Have a tip for the links? Submit it here.

14 comments

Tags: links

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.

Comments
Add a comment »

1. This stolen bus story gets stranger and stranger.

2. Police are getting dumber and dumber.

3. ART is getting better and better, but I think their communication is poor. Even as a frequent reader on this site I didn't realize about their prediction service.

by charlie on Jul 12, 2010 8:58 am • link • report

Interesting chat on DDOT. I can't believe how no substantive responses came out of the substantive questions that were asked regarding the streetcars. Very telling.

by Lance on Jul 12, 2010 9:12 am • link • report

Arlington's #45 sounds like an illegal immigrant express straight to the welfare center.

Of course Arlington spends the most on welfare per capita then other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth.

by Oliver on Jul 12, 2010 9:23 am • link • report

Wait. Did we know about Kawasaki's Buy America issue previously? What happens if compliance cannot be reached?

Honestly, I'd much prefer if Metro went back to the drawing board with the 7000-series cars, and came up with a more modern (articulated) design.

by andrew on Jul 12, 2010 9:28 am • link • report

@andrew

Kawasaki has extensive experience in building rail cars for American transit agencies, and thus with meeting the provisions of the Buy America act. They've supplied cars to the Long Island Railroad, SEPTA, MARC, the NYC Subway, Metro-North, MBTA, and others.

I'd imagine this is more about paperwork than an actual substantive problem with the bid.

by hmmmm on Jul 12, 2010 9:43 am • link • report

Hmmm, all the pressure was on McDonnell not to delay the Kawasaki order and delay the Silver Line, but it turns on FTA themselves are not ready to move forward with those cars.

McDonnell's commitment of money is allowing about $220 million of what appears to be routine maintenance and life-cycle replacement of equipment to go forward. Good news for sure, but it will be hard to gauge Metro's performance in using that money, which is almost 75% of the total funding in this deal.

by Lou on Jul 12, 2010 9:46 am • link • report

@Lou

Kawasaki is asking for a delay of 1 month (to August 13, 2010) for their documentation. I can assure you that had VA denied funding, the delay in procurement would have been much longer than 1 month.

by Alex B. on Jul 12, 2010 9:54 am • link • report

I'm glad Arlington is getting another north-south bus route. Maybe I'm biased because I used to live on Columbia Pike and work in Orangington, though.

by Tim on Jul 12, 2010 9:55 am • link • report

@hmmmm Right. Which is why this seems like an awfully strange thing for them to be getting hung up on.

by andrew on Jul 12, 2010 9:59 am • link • report

The "buy America" clause is inherently weak and is usally waived. When it isn't waived, it really doesn't mean anything. Why? Because the companies involved get pass the requirements by doing the finising work, the final assembly or in many cases the final painting or inspections on American soil, but do the bulk (95%) of the work elsewhere (usually Mexico) and ship the product here for its "buy America" polish and to stamp the "Made in America" sticker on it.

Many States and the Fed Govt have buy America clauses but waive huge portions of them because frankly, we don't build these things anymore, or the cost to buy America over the cost to "buy 50%" America is so fundamentally skewed that projects would get canceled if they followed through. I worked on a GSA project one time, the 100 million dollar that obviously had a buy America clause. The HVAC system which cost 8 million dollars was 100% assembled in Mexico, shipped across the border to TX to the companies US plant for final commissioning 3 days of testing) and then shipped to DC.

Yes, buy America is a sham.

by nookie on Jul 12, 2010 10:21 am • link • report

Must...not...feed...trolls....
AH! Can't do it!
Oliver is clearly trying to make us think that "welfare" means checks to needy families. In fact, the per capita spending figure cited on the blog (that itself linked to an Arlington Gazette article, that itself was reporting from yet another source) includes much more than that. As a commenter noted elsewhere, Arlington is far too expensive for welfare recipients and consequently the county has very few people using that program here (and in any case, those dollars are NOT raised from the Arlington taxbase. (directly).)

Tim, I don't think Orangington ever caught on. Thank goodness. This is because those neighborhoods already have names and don't need another, internet-geek invented term. You might as well pepper your posts with random Mongolian words. It's as effective.

by Josh S on Jul 12, 2010 10:34 am • link • report

Quite disappointed to see a Post endorsement for Floreen, who in her term on the County council has been a stooge for developers.

by intermodal commuter on Jul 12, 2010 10:41 am • link • report

I'm sorry to say this but it might take several large cash settlements until MPD and security forces in DC realize that you cannot detain or harass someone for taking pictures.

by aaa on Jul 12, 2010 10:58 am • link • report

Is there any discussion anywhere of not having all doors (on platform side) open at all stations? Of course in Europe you need to press a button to get the door to open.

So at NY avenue on a hot day, not every door would open pouring hot hot hot air into the train, overloading the AC and wearing out the door mechanisms and motors.

And of course opening all the doors lets out the heat in the winter, and lets in the rain whenever.

by DavidDuck on Jul 12, 2010 11:12 pm • link • report