The Dulles Station thing is wacky. By that logic, shouldn't all passenger cars also be kept at a great distance from the terminal? You can pack a lot more explosives into the rear of a Town Car or Excursion than you can carry onto Metro.

by ah on Dec 23, 2010 9:28 am • link • report

Wow. IS there any excuse MWAA will make to move that station further away? employee access. Viewshed. Too much construction. Terrorism?

Guys, if you don't have the money, say so.

But fucking over the entire reason you are blowing $7 billion dollar -- rail to dulles -- seems incredibly stupid. And weaseling out on every opportunity seems weak. If you were trying to save money, well, don't build it, and man up and so so.

Or better yet, just end the train near the long term parking lots and make everyone take a shuttle bus in.

by charlie on Dec 23, 2010 9:28 am • link • report

The coverage of Rhee's successors forgets that Rhee's underlying policies were little different from that of her predecessor. The difference was her arrogant, often self-defeating style. The pros and cons of those policies still deserve serious debate....private management is often a failure and, overall, charter schools do no better than public schools. Some of the schools that went charter had previously done fund raising, etc. and their areas long had been destinations for parents staying in the District. There probably needs to be more attention to instructional methods, which have been neglected in the effort to put everything on the backs of teachers, with assumption thay are either good or bad.

by Rich on Dec 23, 2010 10:37 am • link • report

speaking of reminiscing about streetcars, i stumbled into the Feb 1981 Harper's article about the american streetcar scandal (youtube) (wiki) -- The Great Transportation Conspiracy: A juggernaut named desire -- it adds a few more details that you may not know about yet (it's behind a paywall, but there's a weird/sideways pdf copy here).

i spend a lot of my time advocating for rail-based transit, in part b/c i think it produces a positive feedback loop of interest/investment, and i think bus-based transit is degrading, etc. but this one graph would seem to suggest that even electrified buses ('trackless trolleys') were preferred by riders. i know if i have to ride a bus in SF, i prefer the electric ones:

Electrified trains and trackless trolleys are not only cheaper to run than automobiles, they are substantially cheaper to run than diesel buses. Riders tend to prefer them to buses.

this quote explains why i believe TheCityFix/Shell/Volvo are always promoting buses, in particular, non-electric buses -- they drive car sales:

The buses, besides being built and supplied by GM and the oil companies, never had the same appeal for riders that the electrified transit systems did, and merely added to the allure of the private car.

apparently this Harper's reporter, after poring over court documents and interviewing lots of transit folks, saw the same thing as me, and he saw it 30 years ago.

[Erik Weber, who often writes/crossposts here at GGW, writes for TheCityFix.]

it wasn't just taxpayers that wanted to keep their streetcars -- it was the cities/transit agencies themselves:

"We were having great difficulty in convincing the power companies to motorize and give up their streetcars," [Irving Babcock, president of the GM truck and bus division,] testified. ... Cities refused to give up their rail lines voluntarily, despite the presence of these showcases and the best efforts' of GM salesmanship.

another supporting line for the buses-instead-of-streetcars-yields-increased-car/oil/rubber-sales argument:

But there were indications from the investing companies themselves that they expected their profits to come not from bus operations at all but from the sale of their products after electrified transit was destroyed.

and this is just a kind of cutting, funny dig at LA:

Perhaps the most striking example of what happened is in Los Angeles, which has become a frightening mutation of human life produced by the automotive gene.

i suspect streetcars in DC will be a huge success, and Gabe Klein will be the talk of the town once again.

by Peter Smith on Dec 23, 2010 11:00 am • link • report

typo - Screetcar head Scott Kubly

As good a pick Tommy Wells is for committee chairman, I'm a little apprehensive that Kwame Brown is giving Marion Barry a committee & that he'll control a couple hundred thousand dollars.

by mch on Dec 23, 2010 12:00 pm • link • report

RE: Dulles Risk

To copy/paste what I included when I sent in the tip:

Nevermind that casualty rate of bombing the Metro & terminals: rather small number of people standing on the nearby train cars & in the nearest ticket lines.

Casualty rate of detonating a bomb beneath downtown: greater number of people on more crowded train cars plus people in the towers above.

Of course, both of these disregard the strong foundations of the buildings, tunnel system, and any ground in between; and that it's almost inherent that the bombs being detonated would be luggage-sized at best... that's quite small in the grande theme of things.

by Bossi on Dec 23, 2010 2:08 pm • link • report

Enthusiastic second to Eric's suggestion that Prince George's abandon Council privilege in land use. That's where corruption begins - as long as the Planning Board is emasculated by local political pressure and payoff of any kind, the chaos, underinvestment and bad habits will continue.

by Ralph Bennett on Dec 24, 2010 9:21 am • link • report