From the pages of the Dupont Current: Dee-Dot is launching a trial program in Georgetown under which residents will be allowed to park their cars in front of their own driveways. The plan, of course, is part of a longrunning effort by Georgetowners to mitigate their longrunning parking crisis. So the idea here is that Dee-Dot will, like, issue special permits to driveway people and take the necessary precautions to guard against abuse of the program.

The biggest drawback of the program is that it essentially privatizes public space. One great thing about street parking is that whether you’re driving a Mercedes or a Hyundai, that open spot is a first-come, first-served proposition. Driveway-front parking adds a big element of privilege to what was once a level playing field—especially in G’town, where those with driveway rights are likely to be pulling out with some pretty sweet rides. But there’s more than just egg-headed equality theories at work here: Consider a scenario in which a driveway person on a busy Saturday night hops in his Saab and prepares to pull out of her personal space. The brake lights will signal to other motorists that there’s a space opening up. As soon as the Saab pulls out, someone else will be lining up to take the spot. One of the following scenarios will result: (1) The person realizes it’s a driveway and moves on to seek another spot; (2) The person just says fuck it and takes the spot, setting up a possible towing situation; or (3) The Saab person gets out of the car and explains how this piece of public space is actually his.

According to the Current, however, one of the main objections from residents is that the program will end up diminishing the number of parking spots available in the neighborhood. The paper didn’t explain the reasoning behind this position, and it’s a bit hard to figure. Sure, some cars that get permitted for driveway-front parking could be longer than the width of the driveway, thus encroaching on other spaces. But that seems like a minor concern. Another possibility is that driveway people might buy another car because of the guaranteed space. Or they’d turn their driveway into a garden and park full-time in their guaranteed street spot. But those scenarios would simply result in a wash: One additional space, one additional car. Any thoughts out there on how you add parking spaces and diminish them at the same time?

After a series of well-publicized pedestrian deaths, walkers’ safety is a hot local topic. So the fact that only about 40 people attended Thursday evening’s public meeting on the citywide pedestrian plan probably reflects inadequate publicity for the event, not a lack of interest. Still, there was a significant gap between the planners and the walkers.

Part of the misunderstanding stemmed from the consultants’ reliance on jargon. Representing the Toole Design Group, Colleen Mitchell referred to “sidewalk deficiencies” (that means there aren’t any), “work zones” (construction sites), and “deliverables” (whatever the consultants get paid to produce). But the fundamental issue was that the pedestrian plan, whose final version should be ready in October, emphasizes engineering fixes, while the citizens’ priority was enforcement of existing traffic laws.

Called at the new Columbia Heights Recreation Center, the meeting began about a half-hour late, with Adrian Fenty’s arrival. The mayor read a few “talking points” he admitted to not having seen before delivering them, demanded applause for new Transportation Department Director Emeka Moneme, and then headed for the door. It was left to three consultants and a few DOT employees to explain further.

Essentially, the meeting presented some survey data and four citywide maps. The latter depicted those sidewalk deficiencies, recent vehicle-pedestrian collisions, about 25 “pedestrian study areas,” and dangerous sites where large numbers of walkers regularly encounter “high deficiency roadways.” The last map’s top six problem areas, depicted in bruise-colored purple: Maine Avenue SW, Washington Circle NW, Florida Avenue NW near North Capitol Street, East Capitol Street near Benning Road, and two sections of Minnesota Avenue, one near the Metro station of the same name and the other near Howard Road.

When the subject was opened to questions, the planning vernacular vanished. People just wanted to talk about how hard it is to cross the street, which a online survey done by the city had already indicated as pedestrians’ top concern. As if on cue, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham arrived to say that the D.C. Council plans to transfer 43 traffic control officers from the police department to the transportation department, add another 20, and give them all the power to ticket traffic violations. This may not change anything—how will people on foot catch errant motorists?—but it drew more applause than Moneme.

In its most recent issue, the InTowner fronts news stories on the deployment of police officers on foot patrols and a neighborhood dustup on P Street NW. Strong editorial decisions, those. Cop deployment and noise problems on commercial corridors are staples for loyal readers of the 38-year-old monthly.

Only the InTowner’s most dedicated readers—and I’m one!—caught the scoop buried deep inside, past the P.L. Wolff editorial, past the crime blotter, and past the community announcements. As it turns out, your quirkiest community rag has dipped into the field of accountability journalism, under the following headline:

“Mayor’s Pledge That Potholes Will be Filled Within 48 Hours Overly Ambitious; Vast Numbers & Weather Conspire to Thwart Good Intentions.”

The story describes how the InTowner set out to test Mayor Adrian Fenty’s promise that potholes registered with the mayor’s call center would be fixed within 48 hours. So the paper got to work, calling in a nasty little crater at a location unspecified in the story. The I team waited 48 hours and the pothole was untouched. DDOT blamed the weather, stating that the street was too wet to handle a pothole repair.

But like any respectable outlet, the InTowner stayed on the story. It called again after getting the excuse from DDOT. This time, the reporter learned that it would take several days more to bang out the street repair. Why? “[W]e were informed that 48 hours is simply an impossible time frame to meet given that this is now ‘pothole season’ and that there are thousands or reports for repairs pending.”

One detail that the InTowner might have noted in its coverage: A March 1 DDOT press release indicates only that the agency “works to fill reported potholes within 48 hours.” A goal, in other words—not a pledge.

D.C.’s underperforming Circulator bus service has found a way to increase ridership: Swallow the competition. As of March 26, the Georgetown Metro Connection “Blue Buses” that run from Foggy Bottom to upper Georgetown will cease operation, and passengers will be directed to a rerouted Union Station-to-Georgetown Circulator route.

This is officially a “six-month pilot project,” but don’t expect the blue (or sometimes white) buses to return to that line, regardless of the experiment’s outcome. Georgetown Metro Connection’s Dupont Circle to Rosslyn route will continue, at least for now.

The Circulator revamp offers one enhancement but several drawbacks. The bus will not stop directly at the Foggy Bottom Metro stop—Metro passengers are advised to catch it at Farragut Square—and will no longer use K Street to enter Georgetown. Since buses will now travel on congested Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street, and then up Wisconsin Avenue as far as the Georgetown Safeway, the trip will be longer and slower. (More vehicles will be added in an attempt to maintain 10-minute headways.)

The principal improvement is that service will no longer end at 9 p.m. Buses from Georgetown will run to Farragut Square until midnight on weeknights and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The after-9 buses will not continue to Union Station.

The blue buses are underwritten by the Georgetown Business Improvement District, which also contributes a small subsidy to the Circulator. Other BIDs also fund the Circulator, but most of the money comes from D.C. and federal funds.

According to Erik Linden, spokesperson for the city’s transportation department, the Circulator’s east-west route is averaging about 5,000 riders per day. Total ridership for the entire three-route system in February was 142,000, which means 5,071 a day. That number indicates that the Union Station-Georgetown line is providing the bulk of Circulator riders, and yet the buses traversing K Street are rarely even half-full.

Passenger levels should increase on the Mall loop with warmer weather, but the 7th Street line is irredeemable; it would be approximately as useful to halt the buses and just burn the taxpayer cash it takes to run them.

In a e-mail providing the ridership numbers, Linden wrote that, “We are thrilled with the response to the Circulator thus far” and that “We think the ridership numbers are growing at a healthy rate.” Yet the number of passengers doesn’t seem to be growing at all.

February is a slow month, but at its peak Circulator ridership isn’t much higher than 5,071 daily. In April 2006, during prime tourist season, the Circulator carried an average of 6,062 people a day, a number that dipped to 5,899 in May.

In fall 2005, Circulator planner Joe Sternlieb predicted that daily riders on the first two routes would reach 10,000 to 11,000 by the end of 2008. It will take a lot more than sidelining a few blue buses to hit that number.

This sign at Florida Avenue and T Street NW stood under a tarp until Friday, when DDOT director Emeka Moneme and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham unveiled it for a photo op. Nothing new in any of that. But the sign, for some reason, had to be erected twice. “I watched them install the thing once, as I made my coffee, and by the time I got home that night it was gone,” writes Puja Telikicherla, whose house is nearby. “I watched them put it up again, last week.” DDOT spokersperson Erik Linden says he was aware of only one installation.

We’ve always known that Mayor Adrian Fenty is a first-rate promoter. As councilmember, he got to crime scenes along with the police cruisers. As mayoral candidate, he traveled around to meet with other big-city mayors to talk about governing, as if the job were already his. And as honeymooning mayor, he’s coming up with more PR magic.

The latest trick came via the front page of last Thursday’s Washington Post: 200 initiatives for the first 100 days in office. Constituents had to be impressed: Two initiatives per day!

Sure, the story quoted an anonymous councilmember saying that there was nothing new in many of the initiatives. But that detail got buried after the jump, deep in the story. Among the ambitious plans touted on the Post’s front page was the notion that Fenty & Co. would plant 3,000 trees.

Perhaps this particular goal should have been included in the mayor’s recycling chapter. After all, those 3,000 trees are already “in the pipeline,” according to Dan Smith, senior director of communications for the Casey Trees Endowment Fund, a group that is assisting the District with its canopy. Smith notes that the city’s Urban Forestry Administration had ordered the trees prior to Fenty’s ascension.

Even so, says Smith, inclusion in the 100-day plan is a nice gesture. “[W]e do welcome the attention the Mayor is giving to trees by including them in the 100-days goals, by his support for trees that was clear in his campaign platform and in statements he made during the campaign, including at one of our fall community planting events,” writes Smith via e-mail.

And hizzoner has extra incentive to meet his 100-day goal: If Team Fenty waits much beyond its self-imposed deadline (mid-April), D.C.’s tree-planting season (October to early May) will be over.

The District Department of Transportation’s new multispace parking meters in Georgetown, Adams Morgan, and along K Street are a triumph of modern municipal innovation. They’re solar-powered, they automatically notify DDOT when they need maintenance, and they free up lots of sidewalk space. DDOT spokesman Erik Linden says the agency has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from motorists.

But there’s one thing the newfangled devices can’t do that the old ones could—accommodate a bicycle lock. And D.C.’s bike-riding community is miffed.

“There’s nowhere to park your bike in Georgetown,” says cyclist Ari Goldstein, a Catholic University grad student, unlocking his bike on 18th Street NW. “It’s all right here [in Adams Morgan]. It could definitely be better.”

Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), says the problem threatens to worsen when it warms up and more people start cycling. “In Adams Morgan, there’s no place to park aside from the parking meters,” he says. “Some forethought should have been put into this.”

DDOT removed 168 old-fashioned meters from the area and replaced them with 21 of the stout green machines. Bicyclists lost more parking spots to the new machines downtown, but the problem is particularly bad along 18th Street, Gilliland says, because Adams Morgan “has the highest rate of bicycle commuting and bicycle usage in the entire city.”

Linden says his agency is “putting the wheels in motion” to have bike racks installed in Adams Morgan by spring and is also looking to install new racks in Georgetown and along K Street.

Head down 9th Street NW south of the convention center, and there’s those damn dedicated bus lanes. I’m all for supporting public transit and such, but riddle me this: How are you supposed to make a right turn from a street on which there’s a bus lane on the right?

If the lane’s lines are dashed, ignore the dirty looks from bus drivers and bicyclists and get into their lane and make the turn. As long as you’re only in the lane for only one block, it’s perfectly legal.

In fact, to do otherwise—such as trying to make a turn from the lane next to the marked lane—can net you a ticket. You’ll also likely end up with a ticket if you attempt to cross a solid white line into the bus lane, or if you travel multiple blocks in a bus lane.

So how do you know when you can make the turn? Pay heed to the standard dashed street markings—they’re common national practice, according to transportation department spokesperson Erik Linden.

Every Monday, the ‘Huh?’ Bub takes your questions. Got one?

Some Mount Pleasant residents have been waiting since the late ‘90s for the city to repair sidewalks pocked by tree roots, utilities maintenance, and time. But when the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) finally got around to replacing the walks on the 3100–3300 blocks of 19th Street NW this past summer, residents weren’t sure they wanted their new sidewalks to look so new.

According to advisory neighborhood commissioner Jack McKay, for years the sidewalks in this historic district were a beautiful but expensive composite of pebbles. “The new stuff,” McKay says of DDOT’s standard gray cement, “is very unattractive.”

When residents went to DDOT expressing their concern, the agency came up with an easy solution: put a dye into the cement mix, making a color it deems “pebble.” (No additional pebbles are in the mix, though.)

McKay says the new/old sidewalks look so good that his constituents on nearby streets are begging for the 19th Street blend. But that won’t happen anytime soon, says DDOT spokesperson Erik Linden. “It’s not something we would adopt for general usage at this point in time, but we would explore doing it again in the future if residents responded positively,” he says in an e-mail.

Residents on 19th Street, though, are enjoying their custom cement. “It’s easier on the eyes,” McKay says. “It blends better with the grass and gardens.”

The alley running between Hall Place NW and Tunlaw Road NW in Glover Park is hardly an alley anymore. It’s narrow and choked with weeds, and bamboo makes it impassable sans machete. Jersey barriers block one entrance, and a retaining wall holding up one side of the alley appears to be crumbling.

Hall Place resident Tim Robinson obtained permits to park in a spot behind his house last summer. So he called the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) to have the jersey barriers at the front of the alley removed. But soon after they’d been taken away, Tunlaw Road property owner Ron Bitondo had them put back, citing the instability of the retaining wall. (The alley sits 8 feet above the edge of Bitondo’s property.)

Robinson says DDOT officials told him they’d hire an engineering firm to analyze the alley and come up with some proposals for fixing it, but a short while later, another DDOT official—Robinson doesn’t remember exactly who—said nothing was going to happen with the alley because of a “political issue with your neighbor.”

Bitondo co-chaired D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp’s mayoral campaign. Says Robinson, “Linda Cropp is in his pocket.”

In the fall, Bitondo submitted an application to close the alley to the city surveyor, complete with a petition with neighbors’ signatures and a $1,870 fee. His petition has wound up as a bill before the D.C. Council to have the alley closed—typical alley-closing procedure.

And now rages a fight that’s seen neighbors taking sides—one side of the alley against the other. The Tunlaw folks who live down below the alley support closure; Hall Placers want it left alone for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that a closed alley reverts to private ownership; they’d be responsible for long-neglected pieces of land and would have to pay taxes on it, too.

At an Oct. 10 D.C. Council hearing on the alley, Robinson forced Cropp to acknowledge that she had more-than-typical relationship with Bitondo. But Cropp denied that his financial support of her campaign had anything to do with the alley legislation.

A city employee testified at the hearing that the rules had been followed, and Bitondo denies any impropriety. “It’s taking the normal process across the board,” he says.

In October 2005, the 2800 block of 28th Street in Woodley Park got some crucial utilities upgrades—the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) replaced the block’s lead service lines, and shortly afterward, Washington Gas made some repairs of its own. All this construction left the pavement pockmarked, with a huge gash running along one curb. It was more trench than pothole, threatening to shred tires and making it difficult for parked cars to pull out.

When utility work is done that requires pavement to be torn up, and the D.C. Department of Transportation (DDOT) hasn’t also scheduled a regular repair, the outfit doing the digging must also repair the street. But almost a year after the repairs, neither had happened.

Bill Mankin, who lives on the street, says a DDOT employee told him repairs weren’t coming because the water and gas companies were fighting over who’d pay. “I was told this was done in a very chaotic way,” Mankin says. “We kind of all lived with the chaos.”

Jane Davis, spokesperson for Washington Gas, says her employers didn’t set new asphalt because DDOT had already planned to repair the road. She said that WASA, which didn’t return calls for comment, held off for the same reason.

DDOT spokesperson Erik Linden wouldn’t say why the repaving has taken so long. “We are actively working to have the road repaved right away and will keep the community posted on when that occurs,” he says in an e-mail.

As of Monday, DDOT is finally paving the block. Workers are busy destroying old pavement, dispensing workmen, rolling things flat. Says Jane Jones, a longtime resident of the block, as she stands on her steps, drinking a cola: “Our homes have been reassessed into the stratosphere. Having the streets so crummy adds insult to injury.”

On the 1000 block of Connecticut Avenue NW, among the exhaust and the crowds, you can find inner peace. Two small cedars, no more than 3 feet tall, are planted by the curb, and they resemble the miniature trees grown for the Japanese art of bonsai.

Aarin Packard of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum doubts that they’re bonsai, though. “I don’t know; it’s not very common, I think, for people to discard bonsai in that manner,” he said. After examining a photo of the trees, he’s sure: “Just in terms of the basic style of bonsai, that doesn’t look like bonsai.”

Doubts about their bonsai-ness accompany doubts about their provenance. A guard at the closest office building suspected the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District was the culprit. Golden Triangle said to try the city. The city denied planting the trees—an arborist said they’re too small for their 4-foot-by-4-foot boxes—but is looking for whoever did.

“We’ll do an investigation into who planted the trees, if they had a permit, if they did not have the permit,” says Erik Linden, spokesperson for D.C.’s transportation department, which manages the city’s tree boxes. “But we’re not gonna go out and cut the trees down. We’re not in the business of doing that.”

The other day I was following directions that directed me to take Argonne Street NW to Harvard Street NW. The only problem was that when I got to the end of Argonne I found myself at the intersection of Harvard Street NW and Harvard Street NW. What gives? How can a street intersect with itself?

According to the map in the District’s January 2002 Comprehensive Plan, Harvard Street NW doesn’t intersect with itself—the street running east-west is the continuation of Harvard Street while the street running north-south is Harvard Court.

However, for at least the past three years, Harvard Court has ceased to exist—at least at the actual intersection, despite a suggestion by District Department of Transportation (DDOT) spokesman Erik Linden that “There is currently a sign that reads ‘Harvard Court’ at the intersection of Harvard Street and Harvard Court, but it’s faded.”

But the situation will change sometime this week when DDOT staff installs two new signs reading “Harvard Court”, one at Harvard Street and one at Columbia Road. So hopefully the next time you need to follow Harvard Street, you won’t turn down the wrong Harvard and end up at Columbia Road.

Every Monday, the ‘Huh?’ Bub takes your questions. Got one?

The glorious sight of the Capitol dome from the upper reaches of North Capitol Street has gotten somewhat less obstructed as of late, thanks to the more than mile-and-a-half of dying trees now rotting in the median.

“It’s a pretty appalling sight,” says Joseph Martin, a local advisory neighborhood commissioner. Martin was excited to see the dogwoods and magnolias planted between Michigan Avenue and Allison Street in March as part of North Capitol Street’s recent rehabilitation but has watched the lush greenery wilt without water in the crushing summer heat. “Obviously a fortune went into putting the trees in,” he says.

Mike Larson of the Petworth Garden Club says that he and other local green thumbs are usually more than to happy to help water and care for trees located in public areas. But he says tending to North Capitol’s median is above and beyond the neighborhood’s duty. “Public safety-wise, it’s darn crazy to expect residents to stand in the middle of the busy road,” he says.

Erik Linden, spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Transportation, says that the 120 trees were planted with public safety in mind—other metropolitan areas have found that foliage reduces traffic accidents. However, Linden says, “in the city environment, the heat and exhaust of the median strip is too much.”

But Linden says Martin and others worried about government waste shouldn’t be concerned about the cost of replacing the dead trees—under the city’s contracts with nurseries, trees, in essence, come with warranties. “If the tree doesn’t make it in the first year, we get another tree in return,” Linden says. Labor costs are included, and the trees don’t even have to be planted in the same place. “This is an example of where we would plant elsewhere,” he says.

If you’re looking to free up a few parking spaces to do some construction work, getting official “Emergency No Parking” signs is no big deal. You head on down to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) headquarters at the Reeves Center a few days beforehand, fill out a few forms, and walk out with your placards.

Apparently, that’s still too much hassle for somebody in Foggy Bottom.

Temporary no-parking signs on the 1100 block of 24th Street NW have been changed by construction crews, says Michael Malloy, editor of a neighborhood newsletter. “They’ve been doing it for a while,” he says, “but now it’s just getting out of control.” Malloy says the signs are put up on short notice—less than the required 72 hours—and altered whenever construction crews deem it necessary. “It’s probably just a construction crew saying, ‘No one will complain,’” Malloy says, discussing a sign that was originally marked to expire June 25 and has been changed to June 30.

Just exactly who’s doing the creative editing, though, remains unclear. An employee of Bovis Lend Lease who operates a construction site on the block, says his crew isn’t the problem. He blames the city, the Department of Public Works (DPW) in particular, for the altered signs—and a big hassle. Though Bovis workers can’t park vehicles on the east side of the street, no maintenance is currently being done. “The signs have been up for three days and no trucks have been there,” he says.

“I haven’t heard anything about the issue,” says DPW spokesperson Mary Myers. She points out that her agency does not handle any sidewalks or street maintenance and referred questions about the signs to DDOT, which could not respond to an inquiry by press time*. “DPW does not issue any signs, ‘No Parking’ or otherwise.…[People] say DPW, but they mean DDOT.”

Malloy isn’t buying the excuses, either. “I’m 90 percent sure it’s not a city crew,” he says.

ADDENDUM, 6/29, 1:05 P.M.: Late yesterday, DDOT spokesperson Erik Linden said that his agency had not placed the signs. Linden said that Washington Gas was working in the area and might be the culprit. However, a Washington Gas spokesperson, Janet Davis, also denied responsibility. “As far as I know, we have no scheduled work in that area,” she said.