Winding Down
Dear Winders:
As the year winds down, and especially as we slog through the lost
week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, fewer and fewer of us have
the time and energy to be long-winded. Nearly all blogs on the Internet
have fewer and shorter entries, and nearly half of them go on vacation
entirely. Contributors to themail are no different, which explains why
this issue and this introduction are both so short. Next week, when the
eggnog has run out, the government has resumed making mistakes, and the
year is young and fresh, we’ll get back to serious talking. But if you
have any year-in-review thoughts, try to get them in for Sunday’s
issue.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Making Washington “Greener”
Ed T Barron, edtb1@macdotcom
A little late for this holiday season but a tip for next year. There
are new sets of lights for trimming Christmas trees and other holiday
decorations. These new indoor/outdoor light sets use LED (light emitting
diode) bulbs about the size of a small raspberry. They’re very
attractive, put out no heat at all and, best of all, use only 5 percent
of the electricity to power a standard sized light set. Safer than those
hot standard-sized bulbs, they only appeared on the market in November.
They’ll likely will be ubiquitous before the holidays next year. A
string of 35 lights costs about the same as a good set of indoor/outdoor
standard sized lights. It’s a good way to cut down on energy usage and
make the Washington area "greener."
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I heard an announcement on the news that Metro is considering
increasing peak fares to encourage people to travel during off-peak
hours. Insanity! Peak-hour travel is, for most people, nondiscretionary.
People who are riding Metro during peak hours are already making the
socially conscious decision to forego the convenience of private
transport for mass transit. So now we are going to penalize them by
increasing the fare? Excuse me!
The role that Metro plays in the transportation system is not just to
get people from point A to point B. It also reduces traffic congestion
and lowers fuel consumption, making our entire region more efficient.
Increasing off-peak fares is profoundly illogical when the system is
viewed as a whole. Given the needs of the region, policies ought be
going in the opposite direction: expand capacity and reduce peak fares.
Absent a coordinated region-wide strategy to reduce the need for
peak-hour travel, eliminating peak-hour fares completely makes far more
sense than increasing them!
This proposal was undoubtedly part of the conversation about how much
of Metro revenues have to be generated from fares. I am completely
sympathetic to Metro’s need for more revenue, but Metro does itself
and the public a disservice by throwing up this smokescreen for a
revenue-raising maneuver. A well informed and properly motivated public
would be an asset in the revenue debates, while thousands of pissed-off
peak riders would be a serious liability.
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As others have pointed out, charging premium prices during rush hour
is not going to entice folks to adjust their schedules to less costly
times of the day, given that Metro’s version of rush hour now
constitutes the bulk of the workday. Cost aside, the service during
non-rush hour is so unreliable that one can’t depend on it for getting
to work, meetings, or other time-sensitive events. Whenever we stay
downtown after work for dinner, a movie, etc., we end up having to wait
ten to twenty minutes for a train home on the Red Line, even if it’s
only 9:00 or 9:30 p.m. And running errands at midday is not much better.
If Metro truly wants to increase ridership and spread it out throughout
the day (and evening) then more, not fewer, trains are needed at all
hours. Make them shorter, if necessary, but don’t make people wait so
long that they don’t even consider Metro for an off-hour trip into
town. And get people out of their cars on weekends by offering a flat
fare, say $1.00, no matter what the destination. New York does it the
entire week, as does Chicago, Paris, Buenos Aires, etc. Why can’t
Metro?
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[Adding to Dorothy Brizill’s list of people who were nice, themail,
December 24] Juan Scott of Construction Compliance Office in DC (I may
have his office wrong -- I called so many) who, after repeated calls to
various departments, was able to get the construction project at 6th and
H Streets, NW, curtailed at hours during which many of us sleep. To
Coyote Ugly who, after the story aired on Channel 4 (thanks to themail
and the attention my comments received) stopped using their rooftop. (I
confess I fear that on January 1, 2007, when the nonsmoking rules go
into effect for bars, that Coyote Ugly will send the smokers to the
roof, and the noise and pollution will be greater. For now, I have hope
they still want to be a good neighbor.)
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Cecilio Morales on a Very Modest Proposal
Jonathan R. Rees, jrrees2006@verizon.net
I agree totally with Cecilio [themail, December 24] on wanting an end
to police cruisers flashing their lights routinely, but my reason is
that these light lack consistency. One car will have on just one color,
one will have two, one will have three, one will have the lights in a
solid mode and another in a flashing mode. It is more than confusing, it
is nerve racking, and makes me feel more uncomfortable than safe.
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[Re Ed Barron’s “Right Hand, Meet the Left Hand,” themail,
December 24] The bus terminal is in Montgomery County, Maryland.
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CLASSIFIEDS — FOR SALE
Kennedy Center Gift Certificate and HP
All-in-One Printer
Josh Gibson, joshgibson@alumni.ksg.harvard.edu
$50 Kennedy Center gift certificate, expires March 24, 2007, for sale
for $45. Hewlett Packard HP-PSC 1210 printer/scanner/copier and six
print cartridges, for sale for $75. See picture at http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?docname=bpu00691&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN#N254.
See review at http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/testdrive/article.php/2168941.
If interested in one or both, please contact me.
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