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Greater Greater Week in Review: March 6-12, 2011

by Matt Johnson   •   March 13, 2011 3:17 pm

If you can't read Greater Greater Washington every day, you'll still be able to catch all our posts at a glance with Greater Greater Week in Review.

Photo by pablo.raw on Flickr.

Featured posts:

Kennedy Center guard bullies patron for parking a bike: Last week, a guard at the Kennedy Center threatened to steal my bike if I dared to park it on the sidewalk.

Metro aiming to start "Yellow and Orange Line service increase" in June 2012, without new color: Orange Line riders from West Falls Church to Rosslyn will get more trains, and Blue Line riders at Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn Street will get more direct service into DC around June 2012, based on Metro's latest plans for what I call the "Yellow and Orange Line service increase."

Will preservation be a tool of blatant anti-development?: Opponents of a redevelopment project at Colonel Brooks' Tavern next to the Brookland Metro are turning to historic preservation as their latest anti-building tactic.

Jury finds Maryland liable for failing to include a sidewalk: A Prince George's County jury found the state of Maryland liable for the death of a pedestrian because they didn't install a sidewalk.

Most popular:

Painting "Gray" over "Fenty" on signs now official priority: When Mayor Gray took office, we suggested he ask agency directors not to spend precious funds replacing all mentions of previous mayors with his own name on signs.

Don't let scandal outrage lead to bad policy: Washingtonians are rightly dismayed and upset by recent scandals, including Lincoln Navigators and Sulaimon Brown. We should demand the highest standards from leaders. However, we should also beware that righteous indignation can quickly transform into unstoppable pressure for very bad policies.

Improve the Circulator, but raise the fare: DDOT is eying the Circulator for cuts and/or fare increases. The Circulator has been very valuable and should continue to expand, including fixing problems with the Navy Yard route, but equalizing fares between Circulator and Metrobus addresses a basic inequity while raising needed revenue.

"BRT creep" makes bus rapid transit inferior to rail: Can the US make Bus Rapid Transit work as well as Latin America? Tanya Snyder asks that question in GGW and Streetsblog.

Can the US make BRT work as well as in Latin America?: In the DC area, bus rapid transit is sometimes seen as the choice of people who don't really want transit to succeed.

Other posts:

• Fort Myer gate closure is a chance to review Arlington Cemetery's one-way bicycle limits
• Should cows pay for zoo parking problems?
• Discovery's "secret garden" should be reopened to public
• MWAA: A public authority in even more need of scrutiny
• Silver Spring bike/ped connection nixes trees, ruffles feathers
• Wall at Brookland Metro serves as a canvas for a memorial
• Renovated Safeway at Seven Corners dismisses pedestrians
• Google Transit still "very close"
• SmarTrip improvements on tap for summer 2011
• DC Water increasing impervious area charge, water rates
• Wheaton town square should belong to the public
• Turning the corner in the Flickr pool
• Struck in DC last week: 9 pedestrians, 1 cyclist

Matt Johnson has lived in the Washington region since mid-2007. He has a Master's degree in Community Planning from the University of Maryland and a BS in Public Policy from Georgia Tech. He has worked in the planning field since 2006 and lives in Greenbelt, where he serves on the city's Advisory Planning Board.