Traffic rants

[Kendric Beachey]

On Tue, 21 Nov 2000, Jeffrey Watts wrote:
> Washington DC wins my personal award for Most Visitor-Unfriendly City.  I
> can easily see why DC has such a high murder rate -- I had such a hard
> time finding a street sign (any street sign) that I would have popped a
> cap in some dude's ass if he got in my way after 30 minutes circling
> around looking for the road I wanted.  It's a good thing I'm a patient
> traveller.

Forget trying to drive a car around in DC.  There's no need when the subway
system ("The Metro") is so good.  Where it won't take you, the bus probably
will, and if it doesn't, just take a cab and let a local, who's familiar with
the area, deal with the traffic.  Visitors especially don't need cars if they're
staying in any decent hotel, because most of them have shuttle vans that will
take you to the nearest Metro stop (if you can't just walk a few blocks).

My wife and I went to DC for MLS Cup last month (yay Wizards!), and we never
drove the whole time, even though we actually flew into Baltimore, which is 50
miles away.  The rail system there is so well developed that for a measly five
bucks you can take a light rail train from the Baltimore airport directly to
Union Station (!) in Washington, from which point you can take the Metro to
wherever you want to go.

Seeing how good mass transit can be when it's well-designed really was an
eye-opener for me.  As long as we idiots here in KC keep voting down light
rail, we will be cutting our city off at the knees, keeping it from taking the
next step into becoming a truly important and cosmopolitan city.  Here's hoping
Mayor Barnes' light rail proposal doesn't turn out to be vaporware.  It'd be
her one chance of winning back my respect.  (I swear it was a scene right out
of Bill Gates' playbook this fall..."Don't vote for Chastain's light rail
proposal!  Wait and see what we come up with sometime next year instead!")

-- 
Kendric Beachey
ak at kc.rr.com