LL is going to take the departure of D.C. Department of Transportation Director Emeka Moneme as an opportunity to mention a problem that he knows is being solved by Moneme’s old agency in a thoughtful and thorough manner but has been such a longstanding menace to LL’s quality of life that he feel compelled to rant about it to no particular end.

Seriously, what the hell is up with Columbus Circle?

OK, DDOT, LL knows that you’re aware of the problems and you’ve done a painstaking redesign, but let me tell you: As he rides his bike across the cracked and bus-deformed asphalt in front of Union Station, almost popping his tire there for the 900th time in his life, He had to wonder: What in AASHTO is taking so long?

The thing isn’t just a menace to cyclists (which it has been for years). When LL drives through there at night, he can never tell if he’s in the proper lane, seeing as (a) the lane markings are severely worn and (b) the lighting is piss-poor. Seriously, coming off Mass Ave from the west after dusk, it’s suddenly like you’re on a desolate stretch of rural interstate highway at 3 a.m. (That probably has something with special lighting regs for the federal core, but Jesus, it’s dark!)

A WTOP article from last summer suggested this whole thing could be done by 2009. DDOT spokesperson Karyn LeBlanc says design work on the plan—which isn’t just about repaving, but re aligning lanes, including “intermodal” features, etc—is now 90 percent complete, and designs will be presented for approval by the federal Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission in September. Best case scenario, reconstruction starts in January; most likely, LeBlanc says, it won’t kick off till later in spring.

Yarrrgh!

Fisher today provides a nice zoom lens on the problems folks–including NPR reporters–are having when they decide to snap a few pictures at Union Station. He writes:

The harassment of people who take pictures in front of public buildings is second only to the bizarre fixation we have with the meaningless ritual of checking ID cards at building entrances in the catalogue of security silliness that we have permitted since 9/11. Every single major public building in Washington is exhaustively detailed in art, journalism and official photography available to anyone in books, magazines and all over this here web. Many transit systems, including Metro, provide extensive collections of photographs of their facilities right on their own sites.

If having lots of rent-a-cops wandering around makes people feel better protected against terrorists, fine, let the mall managers and federal bureaucrats waste their money on hiring up. But leave the photographers alone–having their eyes watching over public places is surely a more effective means of prevention than any number of bored security guards.

On the flipside, I witnessed a Union Station rent-a-cop take a man’s picture after he urinated on a wall by the closed food court. He didn’t arrest the man for his drunken stupidity. So why take his picture?

Bicycling Magazine named D.C. it’s #1 Most Improved City for biking! Meaning, look how bad we used to suck and how hard we’re trying!

Their profile on D.C., coming out in their June issue, focuses on bells and whistles like the SmartBike program, sort of a Zipcar for bicycles. SmartBike is due to launch this month, with 10 stations and 120 bikes you can rent with a swipecard and return to any other station. It’s kind of cool, though I’m a little hard-pressed to think who needs it. Locals who want to bike probably have a bike already, and tourists wouldn’t pay the $40 annual membership fee if they’re visiting for a weekend.

Yes, bike valet parking at the stadium rocks. And yes, the new Bike Station they’re putting in at Union Station will rock. Now let’s just get back on track for building bike lanes (even Bicycling Magazine had to acknowledge that we’re just over halfway to where we should be with striped lanes at this point) and maybe next time around we’ll be #1 Most Awesome Bikey City Ever. Go, D.C., go!

The Acela this week racked up some scary stats: one man dead, one dog dead, three seriously injured.

Yesterday, a train traveling from D.C. to Boston hit a woman in Connecticut walking her dog on the tracks, killing the dog and nearly taking off her arm. She says she heard the train, but thought it was on another track.

The day before, an Acela D.C.-to-Boston, reportedly traveling under the 55 mph limit in Providence, R.I., hit three workers inspecting the tracks, killing one of them.

“It’s a blind spot,” Richard Bonafiglia, an employee of the Cadillac Lounge, which is near the site of the accident in Providence, told the Boston Globe.

“You can’t hear those trains; they’re electric,” he said. “It takes only a second….It’s a freak accident.”

The NTSB is investigating Wednesday’s accident, and will look at the speed of the train, if the brakes were used properly, and if the train blew a warning whistle, according to a spokesperson.

The Library of Congress has just launched a Flickr pool featuring archival photos from the 1910s, ’30s, and ’40s, culled from the archives of the United States Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information, and Bain News Service. The whole thing is worth flipping through–the LOC is looking for volunteers to tag them. The photo above is a shot of the Christopher Columbus statue at Union Station, taken circa 1943.

Wonkette Alex Pareene is fleeing for Gawker in New York. We hope the crime didn’t scare him away. We also hope he doesn’t join in Gawker’s irrational hatred of DC based on the lame date-watching scene at Union Station.