CommuterPageBlog

Not to be Too Ghoulish

Today could be one of the deadliest of the year... seriously. According to the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, or WRAP, nearly half of all traffic-related fatalities on Halloween can be attributed to alcohol.  Last year there was a 15% rise in fatalities in the District and that certainly catches people's attention.

To counter this rise in drunk driving and alcohol-related deaths WRAP is once again sponsoring the SoberRide program, what I think is one of the most creative and surest ways to keep our streets safe. SoberRide is all about giving an option to those who've had too much to drink. Simply, if you or a friend have had too much all you have to do is call 1-800-200-TAXI. The dispatcher will then send the nearest cab from a large number of companies to pick you up and take you home. That cab will take you from wherever you are to your home up to a $50 fare. If the ride is so far that it costs more than that (and that would be a pretty lengthy ride) then you are responsible for the amount in excess of $50. Oh yeah, you have to be 21 years of age or older to use this service. You can call beginning tonight at 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Since it's inception in the early 1990's SoberRide has given free rides home to tens of thousands of people who have had to much to drink. That means that these people were not trying to drive home and risking their lives and yours out on the highways. It's a great program because you don't have to plan ahead to use it... if you or someone you care about shouldn't be driving, then don't. Just call 1-800-200-TAXI and make the streets a little safer. By the way, don't forget to give the driver of the SoberRide cab a nice tip for their effort.

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Not sure if you saw this but late last week District officials announced that the city is on track to complete 40 miles of bike lanes. That would be like riding from here to Annapolis on dedicated bike lanes. In all, 8 miles of bike lanes will have been installed in 2008, more than any single year to date according to DDOT officials. They say that that keeps them on track to meet their goal of installing 60 miles of bike lanes in 10 years. At the same time they announced that cyclists should have a secure place to park their bikes now that DDOT workers have installed the 1000th bike rack within the city. Congratulations to all and keep up the good work. Now, if I could just figure out a way to stay warmer while hitting 30 miles and hour going down hill on Connecticut Avenue.

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Don't forget to "Fall back" this Saturday night, Sunday morning when daylight savings time kicks in. The beauty of this is that if you forget you'll be an hour early to that meeting on Monday morning. The downside to the time change on both ends of the year is that it changes the way the sun hits the eye and leads to a suprising number of crashes out on the roads.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Keeping Your Hands Clean and Checking Your Bags

The good and caring folks at Metro are handing out free bottles of hand sanitizer at select rail stations as a way to, in their words, "raise awareness of easy ways to reduce the chances of passing germs as the fall flu season begins." The handouts actually started yesterday but will continue today and tomorrow on the following schedule: beginning at 4 p.m. on both Wednesday, October 29, at Franconia-Springfield and Braddock Road and Thursday, October 30, at Forest Glen and New Carrollton.

There will be a total of 2,000 bottles to hand out so don?t be surprised if you are left to wash your hands on your own dime. In addition, Metro will set up a number of information booths where it will dispense health information such as: "Good health habits include washing your hands often, covering your mouth and nose with your elbow when coughing or sneezing, avoiding touching your eyes, nose or mouth, avoiding close contact with those who are ill and staying home when you are sick."

I think I like the "stay home when you are sick" advice the most. The funny, interesting thing to me is that my sister, a bit of a germaphobe if there ever was one who never passes up the chance to use one of these hand sanitizers, has already had two colds this season, one of which lasted for two weeks.

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Even though the terrorist attacks of 9/11 happened more than seven years ago and the subway bombings in Rome and London occurred several years ago Metro has decided that now is the time to start checking bags. Officials say, in carefully worded statements that have probably been checked through the legal department a number of times that they will not be profiling passengers but will be selecting them at random. Once again passengers are having their civil rights challenged all in the name of a show that "something is being done to fight terrorism." In my humble opinion I feel like that's all that this is... that the bad guys would be able to find out which stations have the searches and would simply go elsewhere.  I'm all for safety and for doing what we can to fight against the evil doers but really don't think that this bag search policy is going to do anything.

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Here's an argument against the argument against red light cameras: In Montgomery, Alabama the number of traffic accidents have gone done since the city installed red light cameras. The city installed seven red light cameras this past Spring and has found that the number of crashes across the entire city has gone down by almost 800. Of course the police Captain who released the numbers says it's hard to pinpoint the exact reason for the reduction. He also says that numbers can be made to prove any point you want to make but, lacking anything different that's being done in the city to reduce crashes, thinks that the reason must be because of the red light cameras. Fair enough although it's not too scientific.

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Speaking of cameras...  those clever people across the big pond in the United Kingdom have developed a camera system that can track driver's speed for a distance of up to 30 miles. Apparently the cameras communicate with one another after reading the tags on a vehicle and can calculate the time it takes a car to go from one camera to the next. That means that if you know where the cameras are and slow down when approaching them that you can't make up time by speeding until you get to the next camera.  It's probably a better deterrent in the long run than single cameras it just seems so... so... sneaky.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Counting down to Nov. 4

Want to avoid long lines on Nov. 4? If you live in Virginia and you work, say, in D.C., you can vote absentee "in person" until this Saturday.

Here in Arlington, folks have been lining up this week to do just that -- they are using the regular voting machines... and contrary to some crazy rumor, YES, the votes count! (I don't know where this bad info came from!) The lines here are running about 45 minutes to an hour. I voted absentee myself a few weeks ago.

As for Nov. 4, please try to walk, bike, take transit or carpool! Things will be crazy enough around here! In Arlington, we have only 26 square miles but we have 51 polling places... hopefully close enough so that you really can walk or bike. Here's hoping that enough folks will take a car-lite approach and we can avoid traffic gridlock on the 4th. See our 2008 Election Survival Guide>>>

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Diana Sun is Director of Communications for Arlington County, a walking commuter, bicylist, and happy resident of the urban village of Clarendon.

Odds and End Lines

I am not a big fan of the fall season. Yes, we get a brief splash of vibrant color on the trees and then everything goes gray for months. Besides, it's wet and it's cold and it can even get a bit slushy. It makes it even harder to convince people that waiting at a bus stop where there is no cover, or walking three blocks from Metro station to job site, is a good idea when they have the option of driving in and parking in an enclosed garage. Personal comfort does weigh heavy and does play a major role in a lot of people's commuting decisions when they have options.

OK, that's my little bit of sunshine for today.

The good folks at the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission, PRTC, report that ridership of their OmniRide commuter bus service rose by some 30% during the first quarter of this fiscal year. This is the group that provides local and commuter bus service in Prince William County, the City of Manassas and the City of Manassas Park. In July through September 2008, PRTC carried more than 560,000 commuters, or an average of 8,955 commuters per day. That is a huge bump and comes during a time when gas prices were actually coming down. These are interesting numbers and desire not just a high five but also some further investigation into what is happening to drive such a large increase in ridership when the fiscal incentive seemed to be diminishing.

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Here's a headline that might sound familiar: "Longer Yellow Light Tied to Fewer Wrecks." No, it isn't from the local Fairfax newspaper from a few years back but rather from the Arizona Republic. Seems like the city of Chandler conducted a one-year experiment to see what would happen if they increased the amount of yellow time in the traffic light cycle by one half a second. The results surprised a number of people, including the transportation engineers and several members of the city council. In several intersections where the amount of yellow time was increased by just half a second the number of crashes decreased by at lease 50%. That was enough to make them consider making the changes permanent in the test intersections and to consider looking into other intersections where crashes are a problem.

It should be noted that there are specific local, state and federal guidelines that must be followed although the amount of yellow time allowed is usually within a range based on the speed limit on the opposing roads and other factors. Even still it seems that there continues to be clear evidence that drivers will react better when approaching an intersection if they are given enough time to do so.

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We've all heard about variable toll pricing and even high occupancy tolls where the cost to drive a stretch of road or use a bridge or tunnel is higher when the demand is greater. It's been around for a few years and seems to be gaining momentum. Now, the city of New York is experimenting with smarter parking spaces. The premise is very much the same as that for all of the examples above; drivers would pay more to park at these spaces, located in neighborhoods with very high demand, like Adams Morgan and Rosslyn, during peak hours such as from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Actually, it's the kind of thing being done in the neighborhoods around Washington Nationals stadium on game nights.

The idea is based on the suggestion in a book from a few years ago by UCLA urban planning professor Donald Shoup called "The High Cost of Free Parking." It is used to discourage people from circling the block but having one or two spaces available in a given block. Shoup was looking for an 85% "curbside parking occupancy rate."

It's a good idea that will likely spread to a neighborhood near you and me.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Can We Use Our Streets Differently? NYDOT Shows The Way

Can we use our streets differently? Yes we can! And according to Neil Takemoto at the always wonderful Cool Town Studios (The Most Innovative Gov Agency in the U.S.?, October 22, 2008), the most innovative government agency in the U.S., New York City's Department of Transportation, shall lead the way.

Says Neil: "If you’re looking for a model of a government agency that’s looking out for creatives, your first stop should be New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT), as has been stated several times on this site. Behind every progressive organization there’s a leader, and that’s DOT Commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, who not surprisingly commutes to work by bike. Kudos to Streetfilms for providing this interview that every transportation decision-maker or advocate should watch."

The 11-minute StreetFilms video is a must for planners and citizens alike who have hope that we can further continue to transform our cities into places with complete streets. Streets that emphasize all users including pedestrians, bikes, and transit - not just cars.

Some highlights include:

• Traffic calming of the future. Drivers take their physic cues from the newly created plazas and slow down because the spaces are designed for people not cars. Drivers do adapt.
• Bus only lanes are provided and painted terra cotta and given soft barriers to demarcate the lane. On-street fare collection reduces waiting time.
• Bike only lanes, pedestrian plazas and the Summer Streets Pedestrian-Only Saturdays are all great examples of how this innovative agency is setting the pace.

And Neil provides these other links:

• Streets to plazas examples.
• Summer Streets pedestrian-only Saturdays.
• The pedestrianized Broadway Boulevard.
• The Streets to Plazas Program, one of the most compelling programs in the U.S., but not mentioned in the video, which goes to show they’re focused on results.
• Click here for the Sustainable Streets plan she mentions at the end which summarizes the DOT’s vision.

Enjoy and lets make sure we start doing more of these things right here in our own region. Kudos to NYC DOT.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and a Metro/biking commuter from Rosemont in Alexandria

Planes, Trains and Advertising

Airlines and transit agencies such as Metro are struggling to make ends meet. Yes, their budgets are based on different assumptions but in each case the amount of revenue or funding coming in isn't enough. The high price of fuel has recently made things worse. One of the solutions is to increase the amount of advertising revenue that can be obtained by making more and more space available for those hoping to reach the passengers. Airlines for example have a very desirable audience in that they carry those who are traveling on vacation and therefore seem to have disposable income or those who are traveling on business and can potentially be making buying decisions for their companies on a number of levels. On transit systems the advantage to advertisers is that they can reach the same audience with their message over and over again as passengers take the same route ten or more times a week. The need to raise additional revenue has gotten so bad that even the Ride-On bus system in Montgomery County, Maryland caved in and ended its ban on slapping ads to the sides of its buses. Of course, in this economic climate, many of the ads now on the sides of Ride-On buses are those trying to solicit advertisers to buy space.

Airlines are considering selling space on the sides of planes although that would seem to reach a rather limited audience. They are also considering things like slapping ads on the sides of carry-on bins, onto the napkins that come with soft drinks and cocktails and even onto the backs of seats utilizing those little cloth or paper doily things. In short, anything that can have a logo or slogan stamped onto it is fair game.

I am not a big fan of advertising... I was very unhappy when the American Movie Classics channel on cable began chopping up perfectly good flicks in order to sell advertising time. They always seem to cut into the movies at the worst time. There's nothing worse than watching a key scene in Cool Hand Luke that ends up like this: (Strother Martin): "What we have here is a failure to..." (Ad for erectile disfunction drug): "Call your doctor if the effects last longer than four hours."

At the same time I guess I would rather be subjected to a few unwanted ads than to have to dig into my wallet for more money. If Metro can figure out a way to get advertisers to pay for some of the infrastructure improvements that are necessary instead of raising fares then I would have to support it.  Please, though, find some companies other than those selling software to the government or adult education classes at local colleges/universities. How about some video ads for vacation packages to Aruba or the Cayman Islands?

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Metro is rolling out--literally--new buses this coming Monday, the 27th. The red and silver buses will include 60-foot long articulated or accordion buses and will be used on the U8 line, which runs from the Capitol Heights Metrorail station in Prince George's County, Md., to Benning Heights in Southeast Washington. In the first week of November the system will begin testing a couple compressed natural gas (CNG) buses on the 5A route that runs from the L'Enfant Plaza rail station to Dulles Airport. The thing that really impresses me is that the CNG buses can carry as many as 103 passengers, including passengers who stand. There is nothing like seeing shiny new transit buses out on the roads to make you feel like things are good and right in this crazy world.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Teens + Cars = Prayers

This is National Teen Driver Safety Week and it couldn't come at a better time. This is the time of year that many young drivers are faced with a number of distractions such as Homecoming and senior dances. On a personal level it's hitting very close to home because my 16-year-old son just got his license this past Friday and I am scared to death. I say a prayer every time I know that he is going out somewhere on his own that he will remain focused, that the desire to find a "better" song on the radio or the iPod doesn't divert his attention from the road or that a ringing phone containing a call or a text message doesn't lead him to look down at a time when he should be looking forward.

There are a number of good laws that have been passed to help teens limit the temptations and the distractions. I know that I have tried to get the message(s) across to my son that by law he is not allowed to have any non-family members as passengers and that he is not allowed to talk or text with his phone for a period of time. I also know that kids don't always listen and that they feel that they can get away with things from time to time. Peer pressure is great on kids this age and having a car to drive creates potential problems that most of them haven?t faced regardless of how well they can do the actually driving part of this challenge.

Despite all of the driving classes that young people take to learn how to drive, the best lessons come from parents setting good examples. As my kids became drivers over the years I became more conscientious about how I was driving when they were in the car. I knew they were watching what I did and comparing it to what they were learning. I really focused on things like keeping a safe speed and a safe trailing distance. I tried to limit the number of times I criticized other drivers so as not to encourage any form of road rage but I did point out when drivers were doing things that put others at risk. Oh yeah, I also made sure that I signaled every turn and that was one of the more difficult things to remember.

The fact is that this is a very dangerous time. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, young drivers, 16 to 20 years old, were involved in approximately 1.6 million, or 26 percent of all automobile crashes nationwide in 2006. Additionally, 7,975 people were killed in crashes involving young drivers. Getting a license can be a wonderful time for young people by giving them a sense of independence like they haven't had since they learned to ride a two-wheeler. It's sort of a rite of passage but it's also a time of great responsibility; a responsibility that must be taken very seriously. Cars can kill people and new drivers must have respect for everyone else on or around the roads and that includes pedestrians as well as other drivers. Awareness campaigns such as National Teen Driver Safety Week can help bring these issues to a higher level but the preparation for teens getting behind the wheel should have been going on for a long time before it actually happens.

LINKS: 
Choose Safety for Life (Maryland program)
Ford Driving Skills for Life (sponsored by Ford Motor)

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

A Rose by Any Other Name

How do you think our Metro system smells? If you use several stations are there some that smell better than others for whatever reason? I've always thought that our Metro stations have been rather benign when it comes to the odor factor and I don't think I'm alone. However, there are those who are very sensitive and there are other subway systems around the country and around the world where odors are a big problem. No, I'm not just talking about the guy who's obviously been running to catch the train and then spends the whole trip standing right next to you with his arm elevated in order to hold on to a ceiling rail.

The problem of order is of such concern on the Berlin, German system that officials are experimenting with a number of scents to mask what some have described as being an odiferous combination of wet clothes, pizza and stale air. They will begin testing rider's reactions to various combinations of eucalyptus, citrus and jasmine next month In Paris they have been using scents to mask offensive odors since 1999 and, according to Deutsche Welle, are mixing one and a half tons of a fragrance they call Madeline (after the station there as well as the pastry, but not the little schoolgirl) into cleaning fluids every month. To them, and hopefully those in Berlin, it has improved the quality of life. I must admit that I was shocked that such an effort had not been applied to the buses. Call me finicky but I find the smells that exist on some buses to range from odd to off-putting to the point where one might start to look under the seats or in corners to see if someone had left a lunch bag or a fraternity prank. Our subway might not be offensive but some of those buses could use a bit of citrus or Madeline.

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I was very unhappy to read a few weeks ago that Metro was losing money and that customers were losing some potential benefits because of the failure of a contractor to live up to its contractual obligation and of Metro to hold the appropriate feet to fire to get the work done. I assume that this means that Cubic Transportation Systems won't be able to implement an idea like the virtual tunnel either until 2010. In most high-tech companies the lack of ability to get things done right and to get them done correctly means that they don't stay in business long. In the case of Metro and Cubic it just means about $15 Million of tax- and fare-payer's money that is being flushed into the Anacostia River or some other repository. It probably doesn't help to have the board chairman of WMATA admit to The Washington Post that Cubic dominates the industry, is difficult to deal with, and that there isn't a whole lot that can be done.  This is about a lot more than just the virtual tunnel but that is exactly the kind of no or low-cost that Metro should be pursuing with the help of its contracted SmarTrip Card partner to make happen sooner than later.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.

Going Multimodal: Rails and Trails

I didn't try any new transit during the four days that were "Try Transit Week," but I made up for it earlier this month by making a multimodal trip by light rail and bicycle from my house in Baltimore to my brother's house in Severna Park, Md. Even though the entire trip was well outside the Capital Beltway, it inspired some thoughts that I hope are worth mentioning in this blog.

One thing the trip reinforced is how important access to information is in getting more people to use public transportation. I had never been on Baltimore's light rail, much less taken a bicycle on it. I'd never seen the station where I planned to board the train, or the bike trails I planned to use at the Severna Park end. So I had to figure out where the rail lines go, what the policy is regarding bikes, how to get to the station by bike on the Baltimore end, and how to get to the bike trail on the Serverna Park end.

The whole thing worked out fine, and having done it, I really think that's a good way to make a trip down that way. (Or all the way to Annapolis if I want to go that far.) It would be pretty easy to do it the SECOND time. But that learning curve is definitely an obstacle, especially for making a one-time trip as opposed to figuring out a daily commute to work.

It wasn't difficult to find information online about the light rail system, run by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA). I had some first-time jitters, picking my way along unfamiliar streets to the train station, figuring out the farecard machine, wondering if there was going to be enough room for the bike. (MTA allows bikes on the system "except on crowded trains.") I had to figure out where to put myself and my bike on the train. There's no designated place that I could see. On my trip southward, I figured out a way to do it so that people could get by and I was using two seats. On the way back, an MTA employee directed me to a different spot, but there I was taking up three seats and crowding two others. It could be there's a more clever way to do it -- I didn't see any other bicyclists I could learn from -- but I felt very much in the way. I'm glad that bikes are allowed at all, but it would be an improvement if there were a designated place to put them. Perhaps they could take some of the seats out of the last car on each train and configure it in a way that several bicycles would fit efficiently. Having a place that bikes belong would also eliminate the anxiety of wondering if a train meets MTA's  definition of "crowded," or what should happen if the train gets more crowded as it goes along. WashCycle recently had a post about bikes on trains that touches on this, and also a post about bike on transit rules in the DC area.

Despite the uncertainty, the rail portion of the trip worked out fine. Likewise, once on the the bike trails south of the city, there was no problem. The biggest problem was the "multimodal" part -- connecting between the two.

As I now know, there are at least two easy ways to make that connection. I knew I eventually wanted to be on the Baltimore and Annapolis (B&A) Trail. "Baltimore and Annapolis" is a bit of an exaggeration. It may go to Annapolis on the southern end, but the northern end is in Glen Burnie, Md. There's an easy-to-follow connector to the BWI trail, a loop circling BWI airport. That will get you closer to Baltimore, but still far from downtown. I'm sure it's possible to bike to the city from there, but it would mean sharing the road with urban traffic.

That's where the light rail comes in. The southernmost light rail stop, Cromwell Station, is less than a block from the northern end of the B&A trail. If you want to spend less time on the train and more on the bike, you can connect at the Linthicum station, which is a block or so from the BWI Trail.

I tried both ways. On the way south, I got off at Linthicum. Going back, I went to Cromwell Station. Even though both stations are so close to major bike trails, you can't actually see the trails from the stations or vice versa. And if there's any signage, I didn't see it. At Linthicum, there's an asphalt trail beginning at the platform and leading in the right direction. I had hopes that it would connect with the BWI trail, but it ends at a road, with no signage. I continued in the same direction on the road, keeping my eyes open, and soon saw another asphalt trail. That turned out to be the BWI trail, but again, no signs. Luckily there were some bicyclists there getting ready for a ride, and they set me straight. It's the same situation with the connection at Cromwell Station. The station is a major transit hub, less than a block from a major bike trail, but there's no signage either at the station or on the trail to indicate the other is there. (I knew where the station was, more or less, because I had researched it.) I was surprised that there was no bike rack at the station, although there are plenty of railings to lock a bike to. I didn't see any other bikes there on the Monday morning I returned.

I wonder how many bicyclists use those trails and never realize the connection to rail is there, and how many people drive to the light rail stations without realizing they could easily bike. My brother rode out to the station with me on my way back, and he said "Hey -- Diane [his wife] and I could easily bike here and take the train to Baltimore!" He's lived there for about twenty years, I think, and rides on that trail regularly. By the way, if there were no need for the bike on the Baltimore end, he and Diane could lock up the bikes at the station and avoid the bike-on-train stress. A $1.60 train ride would take them to Camden Yards, within walking distance of the Inner Harbor, and to shopping areas downtown.

So there's a lot of room for improvement in getting the word out about how to make multimodal trips. It's certainly not as easy as getting driving directions from Google or MapQuest, or plugging a destination into the car's GPS navigation system. Hopefully, the tools for planning biking, walking and transit trips will get to that level soon. On a positive note, I was pleased to see proposed designs for Metropolitan Branch Trail signage, including very clear signage at Metrorail stops indicating where the trail is and what it is. That's the direction we need to go to get the most out of transportation infrastructure we already have.

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Joe Chapline is web manager for Arlington County Commuter Services

Lessons Learned and Becoming a Better Person

Yes, it has been a long time since I wrote something. For those who wrote to me directly asking about my health and the future of this column I thank you and I also apologize for what may have been a brief and/or incomplete response. I have been in the hospital for the past month having, and then recovering from, rather major surgery and the rehab that followed because of the toll that the inactivity caused. It has not been a very good time and I hope none of you ever have to endure it. At the same time it has been a real eye-opener to me when it comes to basic things like walking around and fending for one's self. I have had to rely on a number of good people to help me during this time and I can't possibly thank them enough for their efforts, paid or otherwise. I must also thank the good people at CommuterPage.com for holding this space until I got back. I hope to not let them or you down by keeping this column informative and even entertaining.

The thing that I find interesting is that some of the things I have railed about in the past, such as handicapped parking and the rights and responsibilities of pedestrians will have new meaning and new importance as my recovery continues. Not being able to walk without the use of a walker, a wheelchair or crutches for the next several months means that I will become a user of a temporary handicapped parking permit. I'm sure that I will have more to say as a user as time goes by and I hope that the reports about the way others use or abuse these spaces turn out to be exaggerated if nothing else. I'm sure that I will also have my eyes opened to issues like handicapped accessibility in the form of ramps or lifts. This is not something that I ever imagined having to go through but I also hope to learn a new respect for those who have been dealing with it for years and for whom there is no end in sight.

During the time I was in the hospital the economy took a nosedive. It has been almost surreal to watch all of this happening. One of the first things I noticed was that Metro managed to get a report published that it was short some $11 Billion in needed capital repairs and expansions. At first I thought "good luck and good timing" but then I realized that it was probably not a bad thing for the agency to get its needs front and center at a time when a good number of people would be forced to find ways to get around other than by car because of the need to cut household expenses.

Of course, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped by almost half during the past five or six weeks and that has meant lower prices at the pumps even though it looks to me like the consumer price has only dropped by about 25%. It is amazing how the oil companies and the station owners who do their bidding can get the prices up almost immediately in reaction to any disturbance in the supply either here or overseas and yet it takes them forever to reduce those same prices. I'm sure it will be tough for the Exxon/Mobils of the world to get by without making a $33 billion quarterly profit.

Yes, dear readers, I am back and I am still bothered by many of the same things. Thanks to each of you who wrote me while I was away; I hope I don't let any of you down.

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Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter, observer and commentator on the Washington region's transportation issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com. Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first name and city/neighborhood.