Michael Perkins of Greater Greater Washington live-tweeted WMATA’s meeting about the budget. You may recall that in order to balance the budget, a series of service cuts have been proposed. Presumably Michael will do a write up at GGW soon with more details, but in the mean time here are some of his most important tweets:

@perkinsms Catoe: 20 cent fare increase would eliminate service reduction

@perkinsms Graham is really concerned about 20 cents as compared to 10 cents.

@perkinsms Graham lone vote against 20 cent fare increase amendment

@perkinsms Graham: we should not needlessly agitate the riders with our proposals.

Dear Mr Graham,

Transit is how we the residents of your city get around. Good transit is not a luxury for us; it is a requirement. Every minute we lose waiting for transit that comes infrequently is money out of our pockets. If service cuts go so far that the transit doesn’t come often enough, it will mean we’ll all have to buy cars or use taxis, which is much more expensive and much less efficient. Every time you cut service or raid the capital budget for operating money, you make our transit system worse, which makes our lives worse.

Please stop trying to do our pocketbooks a favor. In the long term you’re not helping them anyway, because it will cost us more to get around if the transit system sucks. We’ll pay the 10 extra cents, for goodness sake.

In conclusion, IT AGITATES US TO LOSE SERVICE!

Hugs and kisses,
BeyondDC

Update: GGW writes about the meeting in post Graham blocks giving riders choices for budget, with the main point being that Graham didn’t only oppose the fare hike, but in fact opposed even holding a public hearing to get feedback on the idea. GGW asks readers to email Graham at grahamwone@gmail.com (as well as DC’s other representative on the WMATA board neil.albert@dc.gov) and “ask them to stop treating riders like children”. BeyondDC thinks some emails are a great idea.

Residents of Harrisburg playing along the Susquehanna River waterfront.

As a ridiculous city geek, one of my all time favorite things to do is to hit the road (or rails) on a Saturday, find some interesting city or neighborhood I’ve never visited, and explore it. Photograph the local architecture, have lunch at some hole in the wall cafe, check out the downtown shopping… loads of fun.

Living on the east coast offers a bountiful list of targets. Not only do we have lots of bona fide big cities in close proximity, but there are plenty of interesting smaller cities and towns in between. So here is the BeyondDC list of top day trips for urban exploration. To qualify, a destination has to be within approximately two hour travel time from DC (but outside our immediate metro area), and has to be an urban destination – I’m not talking about resorts or outlet malls here.

Before beginning, one quick note about the most obvious omission: Philadelphia does probably technically qualify, but it’s on the outer edge of our geography, and it’s too huge to really appreciate in one day. While it might be fun to hit South Street bars one night, if you’re out to get a sense of the city’s urbanism (the point of this exercise) then it is going to take more than one day to get out there, do your thing, and get back. So while Philly is a great town that deserves plenty of adoration, it’s off this list.

Number 10: Hagerstown
Like a miniature Baltimore, if Frederick is a miniature Washington. Hagerstown spent the first half of the 20th Century as Maryland’s number 2 city, and it’s got the bones of a place that feels like it could have been much bigger had things had worked out differently. Oh, and if you really want to outlet shop, you’re covered.

Number 9: Ellicott City
Tucked in a little canyon way out on the far side of Howard County there’s an adorable little main street, with no discernible residential town around it. It’s one of the weirdest things in Maryland. Ellicott is surprisingly substantial, and has one of the most awesome / terrifying independent toy stores you will ever find.

Number 8: Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg would be the result if a Bond villain hired a fleet of helicopters to transport Old Town Alexandria from inside the Beltway to a spot half-way to Richmond. It’s basically the same size and shape, except the main commercial street runs parallel to the river instead of perpendicular to it. And while you’ll have to venture into the suburbs for it, they have the closest Sonic to DC.

Number 7: Winchester
The main commercial center of colonial-era Northern Virginia. Nuff said.

Number 6: Harrisburg
A downtown with tall buildings, a river with gorgeous bridges, rowhouse neighborhoods, a state capitol, and a train station with plenty of traffic. What’s not to love?

Number 5: Charlottesville and Staunton
The former has one of the nation’s most successful pedestrian malls and most famously beautiful college campuses. The latter has an unbelievable stock of big 19th Century buildings and an incredibly unique train station. Throw in a stop at Monticello and you’ve got an architectural tour de force.

Number 4: Frederick
A worthy end to the wealthy corridor of neighborhoods and cities that begins with Georgetown and Northwest DC, Frederick is gorgeous and stately. And its creekfront is something you won’t find anywhere else in the region.

Number 3: Annapolis
Where did they test the baroque street grid before DC? Where can you find not only 18th, but 17th Century buildings? Where is the oldest still-used capitol building in the US? Annapolis is awesome. If you can find the streets that are less touristy, even more so.

Number 2: Richmond
I don’t care what anybody says, skyscrapers are cool. On top of them, Richmond has a great residential neighborhood (The Fan), an avenue that could rival any in DC (Monument Ave), and an absolutely magnificent train station (Main Street Station). Shockoe Bottom and Carytown are also worth a look.

Number 1: Baltimore
Even though Baltimore is a major city, since it’s both closer and smaller than Philadelphia you can see a big chunk of it in one day. Start downtown and pick a direction. You can even use transit.

Honorable Mentions: York, Harrisonburg, Leesburg, Martinsburg, Easton, Wilmington.

Diagram by SkyscraperPage.

The Burj Dubai opens for business today, officially becoming the world’s tallest occupied building. Its 2, 717 feet make it over 1, 000 feet taller than the previous record-holder, so it is likely to remain the champ for decades to come.

The diagram at right is courtesy the really-excellent SkyscraperPage database, and shows to exact scale (in order from left to right):

• Burj Dubai.
• Previous record-holder Taipai 101, which is 1, 671 feet tall and opened in 2004.
• The Sears Tower, tallest building in the US, which for record-keeping purposes is 1, 451 feet tall but has a telecommunications antenna going up to 1, 730 feet.
• The comparatively diminutive Washington Monument, which stands 555 feet tall. For about 5 glorious years after its completion (until the Eiffel Tower opened in 1889) the Washington Monument was the tallest tower in the world.

Back the normal grind as of Monday 1/4. I will eventually post pictures from San Diego, but who knows when. It takes a lot of work to go through them.