For at least two days Washington has been a transformed city. On Monday the crowded streets of downtown felt like blocks lifted straight from Manhattan. Never has K Street seemed so vital, or cool. The throngs of visitors powered Metro to its highest ridership day ever on Monday, a record that was surely smashed today for the actual inauguration. Unofficial estimates of the Mall crowd range from 1.8 million to 4 million. I-395 and other Interstates were as crowded as ever, but with pedestrians in place of cars.

The city has been, in short, an amazing place to be.

And oh yeah, there was Obama.

More later, including photos. I lucked out and was able to enjoy tickets to the Silver area for the swearing-in.

Light rail tracks in The Hague, Netherlands.

From the Washington Post:

The Montgomery County planning board today endorsed a light rail system for the proposed Purple Line, choosing it over a rapid bus system for the suburb-to-suburb transit link.

In its 4 to 1 vote, the panel also backed a route along a popular walking and biking trail that traverses Chevy Chase and a country club before it crosses into Silver Spring and Prince George’s County.

The planning board is the county’s first public agency to officially take a position on the system. Its recommendation is expected to be ratified later this month by the County Council after more than 20 years of debate on the proposed 16-mile rail line. The Prince George’s County Council previously endorsed light rail.

The proposal ultimately will land on the desk of Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), who will have to decide whether to pitch light rail or a rapid bus system to the federal government as he seeks transportation dollars.

Light rail along the Georgetown Branch right-of-way is the right decision. Good work, MoCo. Now let’s see the County Council and Governor keep it up.

CommuterPageBlog is operating a twitter feed to get out info on Inauguration day transportation issues. The idea is it will be updated live as the day goes on. Since users can receive twitter updates via text messages on their phone, there will be no better way to keep up on January 20.

For the CPB posts explaining how to use the system, go to Follow CarFreeJan20 on Twitter for Inauguration Updates and (if you want to help with updates) Simple Instructions For Twitter Inaugural Volunteers. For the feed itself, go to twitter/CarFreeJan20.

The Atlas of True Names is a world atlas that breaks down the etymology of place names. So “Virginia” would be “Untouched Land”, or something like that. The atlas has been making the rounds on the internet since (at least) it was linked by the Strange Maps blog in December.

Seems like a fun exercise.

I live in Ballston, in Arlington. From what I can find online:

Ballston: Shortened from “Ball’s Town” – named after the Ball Family, which owned the land when it was rural – Ball is a diminutive form of Baldwin – Baldwin means “speedy conqueror” or “fast victory”. So Ballston translates to Place of Fast Victory.

Arlington: Named for the Arlington plantation which occupied it in rural times – named for the Arlington estate in Northampton, England – named for its occupant Baron Arlington – Baron Arlington was originally Baron Harlington, having lost the H accidentally in paperwork – Harlington is a latter version of Herlingdone, the name of a town at the time of the Norman conquest – Herlingdone breaks down to “down occupied by the family of Herewulf the Anglo Saxon” – Herewulf breaks down to mean “army of wolves”. So Arlington translates to Place of the Family of the Army of Wolves.

Anybody up to do some others?

As I walked home from work last night I spotted this bike affixed to the Ballston bike pit:

Forgive the cell phone quality picture.

Someone, presumably (hopefully) the owner, has covered the thing top-to-bottom in wiser not wider stickers, advertisements from the Arlington Coalition for Sensible Transportation opposing VDOT’s plan to widen I-66 inside the Beltway.

Whoever our mysterious cycling decoupager is, they’ll be glad to know that since the latest round of budget cuts, only one of the three segments due to be widened is actually funded. They may not, however, be so pleased about some of the other cuts, such as the plan to cut transit operating funds, resulting in reductions to existing services. Though VDOT has listed highway maintenance as its highest priority, apparently maintaining the state’s existing transit investments is not viewed as important. Currently, all sorts of new road construction is being funded, including that one segment of I-66, while the state is literally slashing the funds that would keep existing transit service up and running. A facepalm moment if ever there was one.

VDOT is holding a public meeting this evening at the Fairfax County Government Center to receive feedback on its budget cuts. Officials from some of Northern Virginia’s institutions will be there to lobby for equal treatment for transit operating and highway maintenance (among other things). Anyone who wants to join them should be in Fairfax by 7:00, or should e-mail both DRPT and VDOT.

There’s been a lot of criticism over the decision to close the VA-to-DC bridges to auto traffic on inauguration day.

It’s really pretty simple.

1. Literally millions of people are expected to come to the inauguration. Many, many more than on a typical weekday, or to any past inauguration. Planners predict this will be the most attended single event in American history.
2. There is not enough road or parking capacity to accommodate even a significant fraction of those people by car. If the bridges were open to cars, the result would be utter and complete gridlock, not only because there would be more cars than road capacity, but because once cars crossed the bridges, there would be no place for them to go. In order to provide places for people to stand to watch the proceedings, downtown streets have to close. These closures begin almost immediately on the DC side of the Potomac, so any cars that successfully crossed the bridges would run immediately into a wall.
3. The only way to accommodate the massive numbers of people is to turn the bridges and highways into transitways. There will be thousands of buses and taxis from all over the country that will use the highways and bridges to get into the District. By focusing on moving transit rapidly, the overall capacity of the road system is HIGHER. In this situation, allowing cars on these roads and bridges would harm overall mobility because everyone would be stuck in the world’s largest traffic jam. Restricting use of private autos is the only way to actually get anybody in or out.

So, a few suggestions:

• Go to CommuterPage and learn about your options.
• The single best way to get anywhere on inauguration day is probably via a private tour bus. If you’re coming from the Midwest, you’re in luck.
• If you live outside the Beltway, take the train. Be aware that if you’re taking Metro, trains will fill up at or near the end-line stations, and if you’re taking MARC or VRE, you’ll need to buy your tickets ahead of time.
• If you live inside the Beltway, don’t plan on using Metro. For the most part, trains will be full by the time they get to you. Instead, plan on using some of the expanded bus options or cycling. Cyclists will be allowed on the pedestrian-only streets, and will be allowed to cross some of the bridges that are closed to cars. Most of the regional bus systems, including MetroBus, are running additional buses on the trunk corridors into downtown. Additionally, taxis will have more movement freedom than private cars, so they are an option for some, but they’ll likely be in high demand and short supply.

Long story short: It is impossible to fit that many cars into that tight a space. The system isn’t set up to handle this sort of crowd, so we have to jury-rig a new temporary system that has drastically higher capacity. The only way anybody will be able to get anywhere on such a unique occasion is to use unique transportation options. Unfortunately, that excludes the private automobile.

When last the Silver Line was in the news, it had received approval from the FTA bureaucracy but still needed sign-off by the road-happy Secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters. As of Wednesday, January 7, the Silver Line officially has such sign-off, and can be considered approved by the FTA.

Now begins a 60-day public comment period, after which Congress will (presumably) release the $900 million Federal grant. The grant is money from the FTA budget, so it is not expected to be withheld by Congress. We are *this close* to a done deal.

In other rail news: Montgomery County is close to officially supporting light rail for the Purple Line.

“Screw normal zoning it doesn’t work anyway.”

– A friend of BeyondDC, working in the Planning office of a suburban jurisdiction.

I’m fond of saying that architects shouldn’t consider themselves to be artists. They’re not like sculptors, who are concerned exclusively with creating beauty; they’re more like silversmiths, artisans concerned with making beautiful the functional tools of our civilization. We have to live and work inside their creations. With the exception of rare buildings like the Eiffel Tower that function as sculpture writ large, I think architects who place abstract art above all else are not very good architects.

So I had to laugh a little bit when I opened the Express this morning and found this:

For the record, most architects out there know the difference. Most are talented and utterly dedicated to improving our collective built environment. But as someone whose Urban Planning degree included two years concurrent with architecture students, this hits frighteningly close to home regarding the thought process that at least one architecture school works to instill in its students.

I haven’t commented on Mayor Fenty’s hiring of former ZipCar exec Gabe Klein as new DDOT boss because aside from the fact that he worked for ZipCar I don’t know much about him, and don’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been said. He seems like a progressive choice, but without a background in policy, how do we know?

Well, somebody knows. In Klein’s role at ZipCar he interacted with Chris Hamilton, Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog, and one of our region’s most forward-thinking transportation experts. Hamilton is as dedicated to multi-modalism as anybody; his department is behind the awesome car-free diet ad campaign. On CPB, Hamilton has this to say about Klein:

Mr. Klein, who lives in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, understands that people living, working and playing in a great urban place like Washington, DC expect more of their transportation system than just focusing on cars.

With Gabe Klein leading DDOT, one can imagine a future in which the District is mentioned along with cities like Portland, Seattle and NYC for innovative, multi-modal, people (not car) oriented transportation solutions. This is going to be fun.

Having known Gabe since 2003 when Arlington partnered with Flexcar and his Zipcar to pioneer the use of orange-poled, on-street carsharing spaces here on the east coast, we know that Gabe is the consummate entrepreneur and builder of public-private partnerships.

I trust a guy like Chris Hamilton to know what he’s talking about. Having never worked for a public DOT, Klein will no doubt go through a learning curve, but if Hamilton is on record saying Klein is the guy to lead DDOT into a new multi-modal future, I believe him.