The fake food is awesomely obnoxious. Looks just like a metro car anyway.

by ah on Aug 10, 2010 10:18 am  

Metro is obviously increasing fares in an attempt to get more money from federal workers, who don't pay for transit. Therefore, they're just trying to get more money from the federal government.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you want more money from the federal government, just ask for a federal subsidy! It's far more direct that way, and it doesn't screw over those of us who actually pay for the service we use.

by Tim on Aug 10, 2010 10:26 am  

"despite the Supreme Court gun ruling"

Really?! Well some will say because of. Both impossible to prove.

by RJ on Aug 10, 2010 10:44 am  

"But if Congress doesn't act, the maximum federal transit benefit will decline, forcing many to pay out of pocket for some of their commute cost."

Don't act! Don't act!!

by varun on Aug 10, 2010 10:57 am  

As far as seat saving goes, one time this lady with a neck brace came on the metro, and asked someone to give up their seat, which they did gracefully. But then after 5 stops, and the other person had gotten off, she took off her neck brace, and threw it in her bag.

by Paul C on Aug 10, 2010 10:59 am  

The entire WalkScore reminds me of Standard and Poors circa 2007. Why are we obsessed about creating indexes for something that shouldn't be indexed.

I live in Rosslyn. Should i get a low walk score b/c I live across the river from Georgetown; a high one because I can walk to Rosslyn (although it is still a dead zone), or a low one because there is a big hill to get up to Clarendon?

by charlie on Aug 10, 2010 11:45 am  

One occasionally sees the park police driving on the Wilson Bridge trail as well.

by Froggie on Aug 10, 2010 11:54 am  

@charlie

What do you mean "shouldn't be indexed?"

What's wrong with creating a metric to measure what's accessible within a certain walking range? Furthermore, what's wrong with refining that metric to be more accurate and reflective of true walking conditions?

I don't see the correlation to S&P, it's not like these are bond ratings or that there's a real importance attached to these numbers - they're analytical and to be taken with a grain of salt. That doesn't mean, however, that they are completely useless.

Is your assertion that definitions of walkability and/or accessibility should be entirely qualitative?

by Alex B. on Aug 10, 2010 11:55 am  

I love the slew of comments whenever the homicide rate is mentioned... it's because of the gun law! It's because Lanier/Fenty are great!

Yet, like clockwork, everyone forgets to mention the only thing that you can truly correlate with the homicide rate in DC: The declining homicide rate in nearly every American city.

I'm sure that won't stop Fenty from taking credit for it, as usual.

by Jamie on Aug 10, 2010 12:07 pm  

I always thought that it was ironic that the transit benefit for federal workers does nothing to encourage feds to live NEAR where they work. An employee who lives on Capitol Hill who could walk or bike to my office would receive no benefit, while those people who live in MD or VA have their metro/MARC/VRE expenses paid for. Ironically if I could translate the extra $100-120/month I get for Metro fare into cash, I might be able to afford to live within walking distance of where I work.

by DC_Chica on Aug 10, 2010 12:12 pm  

@Alex; just wait until the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, one of the true sources of evil in America, starts suggesting your insurance rates should be based on your WalkScore(tm).

And in their own post, there are admitting what a fail their previous effort was.

This may be heresy around here, but sometime you don't need computer programs to help you with data collection. Go take a walk outside.

by charlie on Aug 10, 2010 12:18 pm  

My walk score is based on proximity to a library for the blind, a pharmacy mistakenly mapped in from another state, a Spanish-language evangelical bookstore, a hardware store that is actually just a money-laundering operation, a yoga studio (no disrespect, it's just not what I'd call a "fitness center") and a corner convenience store that sells junk food and diapers. Since I live midway between Columbia Heights and Petworth, they're missing two CVSs and a Target, a Yes! Organic market, a Giant, two latino supermarkets, two Saturday farmers' markets, a Washington Sports Club, and about 25 restaurants.

I think they actually underestimate my walkability score, but why should they get any points if it's completely artificial? All these hits are an outcome of how incredibly dense and diverse my neighborhood really is. They rely on a ton of bad data and they don't account for how many things you can accomplish in a single trip, as for example, on your way from the Metro to your house. They are never, never, never going to get that algorithm right. Sorry guys.

by mark on Aug 10, 2010 12:19 pm  

@mark

Did you click the drop-downs for each category to see what is being counted? They only list the closest thing at the top. I agree though, there are plenty of miscategorized items and items that aren't useful. That is an unfortunate drawback of using google listings to power the whole thing, but how else are you going to get even close to a comprehensive listing of what's in your area?

by MLD on Aug 10, 2010 12:24 pm  

@mark: MLD just beat me to the punch. I just WalkScored an address about midway between CH and Petworth, and if you click the dropdown, the grocery stores include 2 Giants and a Safeway as well as a bunch of other markets, and the fitness includes the WSC.

The Walk Score isn't just based on the top item in each group. It's based on all the items there.

by David Alpert on Aug 10, 2010 12:27 pm  

The thing about walkscore is this - yes, there are errors in the data source and the methodology. It's not perfect - no one asserts it to be so, either. mark's assertion that they're never going to get the algorithm 'right' is illustrative - what is 'right'?

However, if I correlate my qualitative understanding of walkability of various neighborhoods (as charlie asserts), it correlates extremely well with Walk Score.

If you just understand what the tool is, how it is calculated, you can understand both the benefits and the limitations of that tool - like any other.

The ideas that it isn't perfect, so we shouldn't try - as well as it isn't completely accurate, so it doesn't provide any useful information at all - are quite unconvincing.

With any information, consider the source, assess the precision and accuracy of the data, and make your own conclusions. This isn't that hard.

by Alex B. on Aug 10, 2010 12:42 pm  

@DC_Chica I always thought that it was ironic that the transit benefit for federal workers does nothing to encourage feds to live NEAR where they work.

Given that most federal offices are in DC, encouraging these folks to live near their offices would just push rents and house prices further out of reach than they already are for most federal workers ... because of the increase in demand for what is a limited supply of housing. Personally, I think things would sort themselves out best of if the feds just stayed out of it. I.e., Pay their workers a fair salary for the work performed, and let the employees decide themselves if they'd rather live far out and save on housing costs ... or live closer in and spend THEIR money that way. It's not like these dollars come out of nowhere. A dollar spent on subsidizing an employee's transportation is a dollar that could have instead been spent increasing their salary ... and putting them in charge of where they want to live.

by Lance on Aug 10, 2010 1:02 pm  

Yeah, I missed the extra information, so that was pretty dumb of me. It is wrong for me to say they'll NEVER get it right. I appreciate the thought they're putting into it but I'm skeptical about that they'll capture .

For example, we walk a great deal more than our friends who live out in Hill East. That's a beautiful and very walkable area, but I am skeptical of the site's assertion that it's more walkable than Columnbia Heights. I don't believe their measurement that "37% of Washington D.C. residents have a higher Walk Score" unless walkability simply correlates to density, which it might.

by mark on Aug 10, 2010 1:21 pm  

@mark; "walkability simply correlates to density". Yep. that's it.

I like density for a lot of reasons. But not when it being shoved down our throat by public health types.

by charlie on Aug 10, 2010 1:31 pm  

@charlie: I'm wonkish about walkabilty and I am genuinely thrilled to live where I do. I guess maybe there isn't one "walk score" that fits everybody.

by mark on Aug 10, 2010 1:44 pm  

Really?! Well some will say because of. Both impossible to prove.

Not necessarily. Are there any recorded incidents of citizens defending themselves with firearms? If somebody attacked me, and I pulled a (hypothetical) gun to ward them off, I'd be sure to call 911 and file a police report. Presumably, my armed status would be noted in the report.

Similarly, an uptick in gun crime relative to the regional average would (weakly) indicate that the ruling has been harmful to DC residents.

So far, I don't think we've seen either of these two things, which I suppose is a good thing (even though I personally like to err on the side of fewer weapons). Still, we still have a way to go toward making DC a truly safe place -- I can't help but think that the supreme court verdict was a huge leap backwards for the district.

by andrew on Aug 10, 2010 1:53 pm  

@andrew, anti-gun-control advocates will often argue that having concealed carry laws means that criminals will consider that victims may be armed more often, which will serve as a deterrent.

Of course this is patently absurd, since in the overwhelming majority of DC homicide cases, which are gang violence, both perpetrator and victim are armed. In these cases, the perps not only know with near certainty that their targets are armed, but more than likely, are known personally to their targets and will likely face retaliation.

If even that is no deterrent then I'm not sure why a couple hundred handgun permits to law-abiding citizens would be. The laws just don't have any real bearing on street crime rates one way or the other.

by Jamie on Aug 10, 2010 2:00 pm  

According to the MPD since the Heller ruling there has not been a single crime committed using a legally registered gun. While that certainty doesn't prove that Heller played a role in the reduction of the crime rate I do think it is sufficient evidence to say that the ruling has not resulted more crime as many gun control advocates (including both Fenty and Lainer) predicted it would.

by Jacob on Aug 10, 2010 2:17 pm  

"I always thought that it was ironic that the transit benefit for federal workers does nothing to encourage feds to live NEAR where they work."

There are plenty of other incentives for living near where you work--I think most federal workers would happily trade their hour-long "Free" Metro commute from locations where they can afford housing for a house they can walk to work from, and not take the transit subsidy.

Keep in mind that the subsidy was only $100/mo. until this year, so that mean that anyone living somewhat outside the city was paying marginal dollars of their own for Metro fares.

by ah on Aug 10, 2010 2:19 pm  

@Jacob, I don't think enough permits have been issued yet to say anything at all about the effect.

Personally I've never felt that legalized gun ownership has much effect on crime one way or the other, but it certainly has its risks as far as accidental injuries. In neither of the cases linked was the gun being carried legally, but one would only expect more accidents to happen when there are more people carrying guns.

by Jamie on Aug 10, 2010 2:28 pm  

@ Jamie: I've never felt that legalized gun ownership has much effect on crime one way or the other,

Then why is there so much more gun violence in the US than in other Western countries where gun possession is way lower? Just compare the numbers to Canada or the UK.

More guns, legal or illegal, yield more murders, more gun random accidents and worst of all, more little kids dying because they're playing with mommy's gun.

To me the difference is easy. Walk in DC SE, and you run the risk of getting shot for your wallet. Walk in de Bijlmer in Amsterdam, a banlieu in Paris or some bad neighborhood of London, and you're gonna get stabbed or clubbed. None of the options is great, it's just that you have a way larger chance of surviving a stabbing or clubbing than a gun shot. Similarly, when domestic disputes get out of hand, with less guns around people can do less stupid things. I've seen enough bar violence that in retrospect I am very happy those were in places where guns, let alone concealed guns, are no option.

I will acknowledge that the gun problem exists mostly in large cities, and less so in rural areas. Allthough I don't really know what's going on in the desert near the Mexican border.

by Jasper on Aug 10, 2010 4:03 pm  

@Jasper, I agree that more weapons increases the potential for crime. But in this country, most homicides are not random, and are not the result of incidental gun possession (like a bar fight.) While I agree that having more guns around doesn't help matters, it's not a major driver in our crime rates.

The crime rates are not driven by good people in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are not driven by legal gun ownership. In cities with more lax gun control, how many homicides are committed using legally registered guns?

As long as it remains easy for anyone to get a gun in most of this country, the local laws will make no difference. It's easy to buy a gun, and nobody is searching your car at the DC border.

In Europe, I would imagine it's a lot harder to go to a gun show in the equivalent of Upper Marlboro and buy some semi-automatic weapons without any background check and then drive them home to DC. Local gun laws just don't mean anything when "local" is 10 x 10 square miles and there's no border crossing to get non-local.

The cultures and demographics of Europe and the United States are totally different. For what it's worth, it doesn't sound like everything is hunky dory over there, either.

by Jamie on Aug 10, 2010 4:19 pm  

Oh, the outrage at a temporary increase in transit benefits. If you want feds to live close to work then raise the salaries, which will lead to more outrageous blather.

As for Atlanta, the express buses are a tiny part of a hopelessly inadequate transit system, on top of a woefully overwhelmed road system.

by Rich on Aug 10, 2010 8:52 pm