An artist's rendering of above-ground Metrorail track through Tysons Corner. Image courtesy Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project

IMAGINE YOU HAD a beloved family dog. It had lived a long, long life, and it brought your family joy — even if it sometimes spawned an argument or two about whether it ought to be digging in the yard.

Earlier this year, the dog died. You had a funeral for it. You buried it in the yard. You grieved for it. Then, months later, it appeared at your doorstep, wagging its tail and looking for dinner.

That must be how it feels to be someone who worked on the project to extend Metrorail to Dulles Airport. Earlier today, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, in a stunning turnabout, told officials that the federal government would allow the project to move into a final design phase, The Post's Amy Gardner and Lena H. Sun report.

The effort had been brought to a standstill in January, when federal officials cited a laundry list of concerns — rising costs, the ability of the Metro system to integrate the 23 miles of new territory, the ability of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority to manage the construction — to support their decision not to provide $900 million in federal funding that was the oxygen the project needed to survive.

Metro to Dulles was dead. So dead that Tysons Tunnel, the tenacious group of residents and businesspeople who opposed the plan because it would snake aboveground track through Tysons Corner, withdrew its federal lawsuit seeking to block the project.

That kind of dead.

Its resurrection has set keyboards a-clacking around the area.

Continue Reading "It's Alive! Reactions to the Dulles Rail Resurrection" »

WHO ARE THOSE FOLKS on Metrorail with the badges in the crisp new duds? Stand back, hepcats — the Metro Transit Police force is steppin' out in style.

A press release put out this afternoon detailed the force's new look:

It consists of a blue pant with gold and blue piping and a white dress shirt. The trim on the pant leg was designed to match the royal blue and gold stitching on the department's official patch.

"The new uniform enhances the professional image of our police department, which is recognized across the country as being a leader in transit policing," said Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn, according to the press release.

A Metro spokeswoman didn't have figures available on how much the uniform refresh cost the perennially cash-strapped transit agency.

UPDATE, 4:45 p.m.: From Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato: "The cost estimate for the transitioning all 420 Metro Transit Police officers to the new uniform is $291,000."

WHEN M. MARIE MAXWELL, 37, decided in 2000 that she wanted to buy a house in the District, the archives specialist at the National Archives did the most thorough type of research possible: She moved into her future neighborhood to check it out in person.

"I wanted to try to find something affordable," Maxwell says, "and I figured I could probably find something if I was very familiar with what block it was on."

After a year of renting in Shaw, Maxwell purchased a 1,000-square-foot house there and has been pleased with her decision ever since. But if the Internet had held eight years ago what it does now — you know, everything from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" clips to the lowdown on condos under construction — Maxwell might have had an easier time peering into her real estate future.

Now, her blog, In Shaw (An Historically Gentrified Blog), helps other could-be neighbors get to know her area. Like most other Web scribes, Maxwell writes about what matters to her. Sometimes that includes the history of her house or the peas she's growing in her garden. But more often than not, she offers musings on community news and local lore, which amounts to holding a virtual looking glass up to the Shaw scene.

It's a beautiful day in the bloggerhood when potential D.C. homeowners or renters can scour the Internet to find answers to almost any question they might have about
their future digs. Neighborhood blogs may be geared toward folks who already live in a given 'hood, but that doesn't mean you can't use them to find out about where to move in and around the Beltway.

Continue Reading "Blogs in The 'Hood: Exploring Real Estate Hot Zones Online" »

IT'S EARLY MORNING. You walk onto a Metro train to start the daily slog to work. You're sleepy. Maybe a little hungry. And then, you hear the distinctive sound of someone doing the verboten: Eating on a Metrorail car.

It's just this kind of situation that a reader named Su e-mailed us about. Here's Su's story:

I was taking the Metro last week and as soon as I entered, I found two ladies and a man eating their breakfast from Dunkin Donuts. It was very disturbing, since Metro riders aren't used to seeing anybody eating inside the Metro.

Every person that walked in would double check them, because they were loud too, but no one said anything.

What should I have done?

We put the question to Metro public relations director Lisa Farbstein.

Continue Reading "Mailbag: What to Do With an Eater on Metro" »

METRO CHIEF JOHN CATOE wants Marcia Anderson, the onetime Metro supervisor who stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the transit agency's coffers, to pay for her crimes. Literally.

Anderson pleaded guilty today to wire fraud charges in U.S. District Court. According to Metro, Anderson stole more than $560,000 and altered paperwork to cover up her pilfering. She spent the money, published reports say, on real estate, computers and pricey cars.

"This one person, out of their greed, took Metro dollars from the public and cast a negative reflection on this agency and on the other 10,000 employees who work here," Catoe told The Post's Lena H. Sun.

"We're determining what other assets she has," he said. "We're going to go after every piece. She has to pay this back."

Apparently, that's what a judge thought, too. According to WTOP's Adam Tuss, as part of a plea agreement, Anderson agreed to pay back all of the stolen money.

Continue Reading "Ex-Metro Official Pleads Guilty to Stealing $560K" »

WHO DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING: A new marketing campaign featuring a bobbleheaded likeness of Pope Benedict XVI aimed at promoting Metro as a means to get to his appearance at Nationals Park next week didn't go over very well with the Archdiocese of Washington.

The archdiocese's objection, though, is a bit more nuanced than you'd think.

"Our concern is that this was a bad bobblehead," Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, told The Post's Lena H. Sun. "You had unauthorized merchandise, and you had a misdressed pope."

Sun explains: "The bobblehead in the Metro video wears a red skull cap, known as a zucchetto, and a red cape. 'Popes don't wear red skull caps,' and they don't wear red capes, only white ones, Gibbs said."

Metro pulled the ad yesterday after the archdiocese complained, Sun reports. (But since nothing ever truly dies on the Internet, you can view it via YouTube above.)

Continue Reading "Metro Yanks Ad Featuring Pope Bobblehead" »

Photo of riders at L'Enfant Plaza on Monday evening by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the big test for Metro: the first baseball game at the new Nationals stadium that started at 7:10 p.m. on a weeknight — which meant fans would be traveling at the same time as evening rush hour riders.

I decided to dive in to the prospective craziness to sample it firsthand. But from this rider's vantage point, the big test ended up feeling more like a quiz. One that the teacher didn't collect or grade.

Maybe it was because the weather dipped into the upper 40s by evening — a bit chilly to sit in an uncovered ballpark. Maybe it was because the NCAA college basketball championship game was scheduled for the same night. Whatever the cause, the trip to the stadium on Metro wasn't that crowded. And, due in large part to the transit agency's efficiency, it was easy as pie.

Continue Reading "Mission: Nats — An Easy Ride on Metro" »

SUNDAY WAS A BIG DAY for Metro and a busy night for some city agencies as the Nationals broke in their new stadium.

Crime was present, but low-level, according to information from the D.C. Police. Sixteen arrests were made outside the stadium on Saturday and Sunday, WTOP reports, but those nabbed were charged with offenses like scalping tickets and selling T-shirts and baseball caps without a permit.

More than 100 cars were towed from the neighborhood around the ballpark, WTOP quoted a spokesperson for Mayor Adrian Fenty's office as saying. Some of the cars towed apparently had appropriate parking permits, but were parked on streets with visible "No Parking" signs.

Metro, meanwhile, announced today that it transported 21,492 people to and from the Navy Yard station, the stop closest to Nationals Park. The transit system's total ridership on Sunday was 332,737 — considerably higher than the average Sunday haul of 207,735 passengers.

» "16 Arrested Near Nats Park Over the Weekend" [WTOP]

Photo of fans walking down Half Street SE toward the stadium Sunday by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post

JUST IN CASE you haven't heard what just about every news outlet in Washington is reporting, a confluence of big events this weekend will make parts of D.C. feel like the 10th circle of hell for the crowd-averse.

Tomorrow is the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival (although the tourists have already started seeping into town) and the National Marathon, while Sunday is the day that Nationals Park opens to the delight of baseball fans.

Traffic and parking will be nutty. Frustrating. Tear-your-hair-out, gouge-your-eyeballs horrendous. You were warned. But many of you will head into town anyway, gluttons for punishment that you are.

So here's the advice that Karyn LeBlanc, spokeswoman for the District's Department of Transportation, gave The Post's Eric M. Weiss: "Take Metro, take Metro, take Metro." Don't try to drive. Don't try to park.

Continue Reading "Prepare for D.C. Traffic Nightmare This Weekend" »

YOU KNOW IT'S CHERRY BLOSSOM season when you arrive at a Metro station and find every faregate clogged by someone who doesn't understand how to input their farecard. In my case earlier today, it was a family of four who were bodily blocking the three entry gates at Capitol South.

I thought about explaining to them how the cards work. The fact that I didn't might make me a terrible person. But I was in my heading-to-work mental zone, so I slid past them, touched my SmarTrip and plodded down the steps to wait for an Orange Line train out to Court House. I noticed there was a Blue Line train to Franconia-Springfield already at the platform.

That's when Dad, a blond man in his 40s who bore a striking resemblance to Woodrow Wilson, figured the dag-gum faregates out.

"There's a traaaaaaaaaaain heeeeeeere!" he shouted as he bounded past me, scampered down the stairs and lunged for the train. Mom and the kids, mind you, were still disentangling themselves from the faregates above and didn't have a prayer of making the train.

So Dad proudly, triumphantly, skidded onto the train, stood in the doorway and defiantly stuck his foot in the path of the railcar's doors. The doors closed in every entryway but his. In his, only one of the two doors shut, as if the car was winking.

With visions of a busted train delaying my commute dancing in my head, I sprang into action.

Continue Reading "Around Town: The Tourist and the Metro Car Doors" »