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[cpzilliacus]

Despite all the signage, there are occasional incidents of trucks getting stuck in NYC as well.  There is only so much that the signs can do.

Bridge hits in NYC and LI (such as on the parkways) are quite and frustratingly common.  I personally think some truckers (usually locals) just can't resist the risk to save a little time.

If the cost was a little higher (as in a reckless driving ticket and a CDL suspension), I think the problem would be corrected quickly.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Is Pennsylvania worthy of such a prominent D.C. avenue? A ranking of 50 state-named roads.

[cpzilliacus]

WTOP Radio: No trucks allowed: Enforcement stepped up on area parkways

No trucks allowed. That’s the message United State Park Police want to get across to truck drivers who use the National Park Service’s parkways in the D.C. area.

“Our roads were made to be scenic tourist roadways,” says Lt. Roxanne Brown-Ankney — commander for the traffic safety unit for the U.S. Park Police — of the George Washington, Clara Barton, Rock Creek, Suitland and Baltimore-Washington parkways.

[1995hoo]

Washington Post: Is Pennsylvania worthy of such a prominent D.C. avenue? A ranking of 50 state-named roads.

He could have added the generally-unknown Puerto Rico Avenue. I know it's not a state, of course, and that's precisely why I find its existence odd—there's no Guam Avenue or American Samoa Avenue or whatever.

[oscar]

The author's musings are interesting, but we're not about to redo the D.C. street network just to give currently big states like California and Texas their due. He acknowledges the importance of whether the state existed when the L'Enfant street plan was prepared, but that really seems to be the overwhelmingly dominant factor -- the first states got first dibs, all the latecomers got leftovers.

He does have a point about the Mid-Atlantic and most of the southern states in the original 13 getting short shrift compared to their northern counterparts -- but then, aside from Virginia, at the founding how prominent were those states among the original 13?

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Is Pennsylvania worthy of such a prominent D.C. avenue? A ranking of 50 state-named roads.

He could have added the generally-unknown Puerto Rico Avenue. I know it's not a state, of course, and that's precisely why I find its existence odd—there's no Guam Avenue or American Samoa Avenue or whatever.

But D.C. does have an Ontario Road and a Quebec Street!

Typical for D.C. Quebec Street is chopped up into several disconnected segments.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Is Pennsylvania worthy of such a prominent D.C. avenue? A ranking of 50 state-named roads.

He could have added the generally-unknown Puerto Rico Avenue. I know it's not a state, of course, and that's precisely why I find its existence odd—there's no Guam Avenue or American Samoa Avenue or whatever.

Alaska Avenue, N.W. predates its admission as a state by many years.  The 7th Street/Georgia Avenue (70) streetcars used to terminate at Georgia & Alaska (not Georgia & Eastern).

[1995hoo]

Washington Post: Is Pennsylvania worthy of such a prominent D.C. avenue? A ranking of 50 state-named roads.

He could have added the generally-unknown Puerto Rico Avenue. I know it's not a state, of course, and that's precisely why I find its existence odd—there's no Guam Avenue or American Samoa Avenue or whatever.

Alaska Avenue, N.W. predates its admission as a state by many years.  The 7th Street/Georgia Avenue (70) streetcars used to terminate at Georgia & Alaska (not Georgia & Eastern).

Didn't know that, as its admission as a state was before I was born. Thanks for the info. I can picture the Morris Miller liquor store at that intersection because my father used to go there to stock up two or three times a year when I was a kid, but I have not been to that store in many years and not since I've been of legal drinking age.

[davewiecking]

Apparently not taken into account is that the current Georgia Ave, which extends far into Maryland, is not the original use of that name in DC.

[froggie]

Apparently not taken into account is that the current Georgia Ave, which extends far into Maryland, is not the original use of that name in DC.

No, but it does get mentioned in other related stories (I believe it was referenced on GGW)

[Henry]

Interesting read there, especially when the avenue where the White House is located has no instances in which it ranks first (but it does rank second on at least two lists).

[cpzilliacus]

Apparently not taken into account is that the current Georgia Ave, which extends far into Maryland, is not the original use of that name in DC.

No, but it does get mentioned in other related stories (I believe it was referenced on GGW)

I know that what is now Md. 97 extended at least as far north as Brookeville in Montgomery County by the time of the James Madison Administration.  When British troops burned Washington in 1814, President Madison fled to Virginia and then north into Maryland, and the Town of Brookeville became the "U.S. Capital for a Day."

[davewiecking]

My point was that until 1908, the road with the name of Ga. Ave. was a different road entirely-one now named Potomac Ave.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Washington-area motorists are losing their ‘gunslinger’

For 21 years, Lon Anderson has considered himself a “gunslinger” against traffic jams, a “gladiator” against drunken driving and the “staunch defender” of nearly 4 million beleaguered motorists.

As director of public and governmental relations for AAA Mid-Atlantic, Anderson has been the Washington region’s most visible and influential motorist advocate, verbally flogging area governments to crack down on unsafe drivers, fix dangerous roads and ease some of the worst gridlock in the nation. His weapon: catchy, go-for-the-throat sound bites that the media — and lawmakers — simply can’t ignore.

He’s accused “money-grubbing” District officials of turning one particularly profitable speed camera into “an old-fashioned, money-making, motorist rip-off speed trap right out of the ‘Dukes of Hazzard.’ ” Public officials in “Rip Van Maryland,” he says, have snoozed while Virginia has added express toll lanes to the Capital Beltway and built the Silver Line Metrorail extension.

[skluth]

Typical for D.C. Quebec Street is chopped up into several disconnected segments.

An appropriate street name for a province that has wanted to do the same to Canada.   

[Henry]

I've always wondered why there has never been a West Capitol Street to complement the existing East, North and South Capitol Streets. Maybe it was never planned in the first place, due to the National Mall being there?

[cpzilliacus]

I've always wondered why there has never been a West Capitol Street to complement the existing East, North and South Capitol Streets. Maybe it was never planned in the first place, due to the National Mall being there?

The National Mall is where a West Capitol Street would have run.

As far as I know, there was never one planned.  Before the National Mall was the Mall, parts of it were swamps, and I believe there was a railroad yard near the U.S. Capitol.

[1995hoo]

The Mall itself used to have two more streets along its length east of 14th Street than it does today. You know where Madison and Jefferson Drives are, the two streets on the Mall side of the museums (not to be confused with Madison Place, which is where the Federal Circuit's courthouse is near the White House). There used to be Washington and Adams Drives along the central part of the Mall inside the two streets that remain today. Both are now crushed-gravel paths. I don't know when they were converted except I believe the work was done by the time Pope St. John Paul II celebrated Mass on the Mall in 1979.

[cpzilliacus]

The Mall itself used to have two more streets along its length east of 14th Street than it does today. You know where Madison and Jefferson Drives are, the two streets on the Mall side of the museums (not to be confused with Madison Place, which is where the Federal Circuit's courthouse is near the White House). There used to be Washington and Adams Drives along the central part of the Mall inside the two streets that remain today. Both are now crushed-gravel paths. I don't know when they were converted except I believe the work was done by the time Pope St. John Paul II celebrated Mass on the Mall in 1979.

It was also done because the NPS (correctly) felt that workers in the surrounding office buildings were using those streets for all-day free parking.

[1995hoo]

WTOP has another installment of the "Ghost Roads" series they began last year (a link to the first installment may be found on the final slide):

http://wtop.com/media-galleries/2015/10/ghost-roads-forgotten-roads-d-c-photos/slide/1/

[ixnay]

There used to be Washington and Adams Drives along the central part of the Mall inside the two streets that remain today. Both are now crushed-gravel paths. I don't know when they were converted except I believe the work was done by the time Pope St. John Paul II celebrated Mass on the Mall in 1979.

http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?8562-History-of-the-gravel-paths-on-the-National-Mall

ixnay

[roadman65]

I also believe that the parking garage beneath the National Air & Space Museum was built to make up for the missing parking spaces that both Washington and Adams Drives' had before they were converted.

If memory serves me correctly, the museum was built circa the time the mall was renovated.  That would make sense.

[1995hoo]

I believe the museum opened in 1976. The parking garage used to be open to the public but was closed in 1986 due to security fears after the Gulf of Sidra incident and related military activity involving Libya. I do not know what the garage has been used for since then.

[AlexandriaVA]

My mother is (was?) a member of the Smithsonian Institute, and she has mentioned to me that there was a time that as a Smithsonian member, she was able to drive and park for free in the garages at least under and around some of museums on the Mall (if not all of them). That would have been the 1980s and early 1990s. My guess is that the privilege went away post WTC (93), Oklahoma City, and the African embassy truck bombings. My understanding is that those events were all big for changes security and design around federal buildings in the DC area, and that 9/11 only accelerated it.

Slightly related, DDOT's Circulator bus now has a route effectively circling the Mall, with an origin/ending at Union Station. And at $1 (and free SmartTrip transfers) much cheaper than the old Tourmobile, which had for a long time had a right of first refusal against mass transit on the mall. The old Tourmobile buses can still be seen in the area, operating under the Martz brand.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Severance guilty in three high-profile killings in Alexandria

3 life sentences for convicted Alexandria killer

FAIRFAX, Va. — Convicted murderer Charles Severance was sentenced to serve three life terms in prison for charges that he shot and killed three prominent Alexandria citizens.

In November, a Fairfax County jury found Severance guilty of 10 counts including murder charges for the deaths of Nancy Dunning, Ron Kirby and Ruthanne Lodato.

Judge Randy Bellows stuck with the jury’s recommended three life sentences in prison plus 48 years and a $400,000 fine. The three life sentences are to be served consecutively meaning that if some of the murder convictions were reversed on appeal or the prison sentences reduced, he could still serve the remainder of his life behind bars. Virginia does not offer the chance for parole to convicted felons.

Bellows said he found no mitigating factors that would offset what he called Severance’s “cruel” acts. The judge spoke of the blood-soaked and bullet riddled bodies left for the victim’s family members to find, of grandchildren who won’t know their grandparents and of lives cut short before rendering his decision.