The next day we conducted a poll, asking whether the County Board made the right decision. About 62 percent of 3,280 respondents said yes, while 38 percent said no.
Over the weekend, the Washington Post published an article entitled “How D.C. spent $200 million over a decade on a streetcar you still can’t ride.” The article details a decade-plus-long string of delays, questionable decisions and cost overruns.
You see them on local streets, usually in commercial districts: double-parked trucks making deliveries to local stores and offices.
Sometimes the trucks completely block traffic, as can be seen in the photo above, taken yesterday in Rosslyn. Other times, just a lane of traffic. In both cases, other drivers are inconvenienced and forced into a potentially hazardous situation: switching lanes mid-street or driving into an opposing lane of traffic.
In actuality, the Saturday before Christmas is usually the biggest shopping day of the year. And with Cyber Monday and e-commerce encouraging online shopping, and Small Business Saturday encouraging shoppers to support local businesses, Black Friday may be losing its luster.
We wanted to check with those who are actually heading out to the malls and shopping centers today: how big are the crowds?
According to AAA Mid-Atlantic, holiday travel will be virtually unchanged this year, down 0.2 percent compared to 2014.
That’s despite lower gas prices and better weather — it’s supposed to be mostly sunny and cool this week, compared to the snowstorm that was predicted around this time last year.
The reaction to the news that Arlington County is ready and willing to help resettle Syrian refugees was largely positive on social media.
Despite a mixed bag of comments, our post on Facebook garnered more than 600 likes, making this one of our most-liked stories of all time.
A photo went viral this week, showing a sign at a Nordstrom store.
“We won’t be decking our halls until Friday, November 27,” the sign said. “Why? Well, we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.”
Chronic delays, minor incidents fouling up entire rush hour commutes and long waits on the weekends have become the norm with Washington’s once-gleaming subway system. It’s the result, many say, of deferred maintenance and a lack of investment in the system’s upkeep.
Metro says it’s trying to catch up, but even the maintenance is causing problems. This weekend alone, “reconstruction of the Metrorail system” will result in “service adjustments” on every line other than the Green Line. The Orange, Silver, Blue, Yellow and Red lines will all see 24 minute headways between trains.
Columbus Day may be a federal holiday, but it seems that with every passing year it becomes less relevant. Arlington County offices, for instance, remain open on Columbus Day. Purely anecdotal evidence — the volume of rush hour traffic on I-395 — seems to suggest that Columbus Day is the least observed federal holiday, at least in terms of workers taking the day off.
The root cause of this is Columbus and his legacy: the soldiers he led to the New World enslaved, raped, slaughtered and otherwise destroyed native populations. In recent years, the reality of Columbus’ harsh treatment of natives has increasingly outweighed his accomplishments in the collective consciousness.
While Hurricane Joaquin is looking like less of a threat to the East Coast, a nor-easter is bringing heavy rain to the region today and showers throughout the weekend.
Is the forecast changing your plans? Let us know how you’re coping with the lousy weather.
Following resident outcry from those who didn’t want the Lee Highway fire station to move from their neighborhood, and from those who didn’t want it to move to theirs, last week the Arlington County Board approved the creation of a task force to study the issue and come up with a recommendation.
Now, the county is also conducting a survey of residents via its “Open Arlington” website. The survey, which closes on Oct. 6, is intended to “gather input on the proposed project criteria and the possible direction this task force may take.”
Most people say they enjoy reading the comments, even though they might not agree with what’s being said. A vocal minority, however, say they dislike the comments — they don’t like the general tone and disagree with many viewpoints.
The one constant: everybody seems to have an opinion and no one can be dissuaded from reading the comments, even if they profess to not liking them.
That’s a paltry 0.4 percent increase from last year, with 743,200 residents expected to drive to their vacation destinations, 62,500 expected to fly and the rest expected to take trains and other modes of transportation.
AAA says there would have been more locals traveling this year, had Labor Day not fallen on Sept. 7, the latest possible day it can occur. Historically, that dampens holiday travel.
