One rainy weekend last month I helped friend of BeyondDC Craftgasm sell her awesome DC-produced map-themed stationery at the Arts on N Street market. While there, I took a few breaks to snap some pictures with my pocket camera.

Who doesn’t love photos?

Four years ago I was worried about Adrian Fenty. I feared that he lacked vision and would cave to parochial concerns. I feared he would be a NIMBY mayor.

I’m glad to say I was wrong. With the streetcar project making strong progress and bike lanes all over the city, I’ve become a Fenty fan. He hasn’t been perfect, but his overall record shows clearly that he supports urbanist goals. I am completely comfortable giving him another term to accomplish even more.

Then there’s his opponent, Vince Gray. Greater Greater Washington has put up a spirited defense of Gray, which I’d like very much to believe is accurate. And maybe it is. Maybe Vince Gray has learned his lesson on streetcars, and maybe some of his statements about bike and bus lanes were out of context.

I just don’t know. I hope so, but I don’t know.

Just like it’s hard for me to believe Fenty when he says he’ll suddenly become a nicer guy if he’s reelected, it’s hard for me to believe that Gray will suddenly become an urbanist.

The best I can hope for from Vince Gray is that if he is elected he’ll pull an Adrian Fenty and prove my fears misdirected. On the other hand, I already know for a fact that Fenty supports my opinions on urbanist issues.

If Gray wins, and it turns out that he has been honest with his campaign promises and his administration produces a better, more mobile, green, and well-developed city, then four years from now I will endorse Vince Gray for reelection wholeheartedly.

But in the mean time, I know for a fact that Adrian Fenty is with me on most policy issues, and simply can’t say with any certainty the same for Vince Gray. Thus, Adrian Fenty will get my vote.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

In today’s edition of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I describe the impending launch of Capital Bikeshare, and why I am looking forward to it.

 

Capital Bikeshare announced today via Twitter that the official first day of service will be Monday, September 20. Previously service was slated to begin “in September”, but the exact day had not been made public.

Photo by flickr user Richard Winchell

Imagine this: A driver in his car approaches a traffic light in downtown Washington. The light is green, so the driver crosses into the intersection but can’t make it all the way across before being forced to stop behind a line of other cars. Before the driver can move through the intersection, the light changes to red. Now he is blocking cross traffic from moving through the intersection in the perpendicular direction.

Anyone who has ever driven, bicycled or walked around downtown Washington at rush hour knows that the scenario described above is replayed in real life thousands of times a day. Drivers routinely “block the box” by inching into a crowded intersection when they have a green light, and then staying there once their light turns red, blocking cross traffic. The practice is tantamount to running a red light, and it is a major contributor to auto and bus gridlock downtown during rush hour.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. We already have red light cameras at multiple locations throughout the city. Why not roll out a hundred more downtown? Block a box? Snap! Picture taken, your ticket is in the mail. Once ticketing became common, it’s logical that blocking the box would not be such a widespread crime.

Any time someone suggests anything that reduces drivers’ sense of entitlement, such as ticketing drivers who break the law, apologists come out of the woodwork to fight the proposal. But in this case, increased ticketing of drivers who block the box would serve to directly improve traffic flow. Unlike cameras aimed at reducing speed or generating income, cameras aimed to primarily ticket box blockers would benefit all other drivers in the city by virtue of reducing congestion. Bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians would benefit as well, since they suffer as much from gridlock and blocked cross walks as anyone.

Increased red light cameras downtown aimed at ticketing box blockers seems like it would benefit everyone, including the majority of drivers, without harming anyone except those who choose to break the law and make congestion worse. Why not do it?

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

I’ll be in Florida until Wednesday, which means there won’t be any blogging until then. Tweets will continue uninterrupted.

In June we learned that Amtrak will soon begin running trains to Norfolk, but that the yet-to-be-built station will be adjacent to Harbor Park rather than in Norfolk’s immediate downtown.

Reader Adam Forehlig follows up on the story by calling BeyondDC’s attention to Norfolk’s station plan, which was submitted to the federal government for consideration in the TIGER2 program (meaning it will compete the Washington region’s bikesharing request).

The plan would develop one of Harbor Park’s surface parking lots into a new multi-modal transportation hub for the city. In the image below you can see the Amtrak platform (at bottom left), light rail platforms (top right), a regional bus facility, and a passenger drop-off area, in addition to station buildings and connecting arcades.

Given the constraints of the site it is an attractive and well-conceived plan, but as I did in June, I still worry that that chosen site is not the right one. If indeed this becomes Norfolk’s main hub for transit then it’s an even bigger problem that it is not located in easy walking distance from downtown.

Norfolk’s proposed Harbor Park multi-modal transportation center.

In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I discuss why it is wrong-headed and sociologically harmful for Gallery Place management to use a “mosquito device” to try and drive away teenagers from the Chinatown entertainment district.