Irony at an accident site
October 2, 2008
Of all the people at all the intersections, I had to run into you.
Imagine this:
You’re late to work, not paying attention to what you’re doing, and you run a stop sign. Another car is headed through and you smash into it. Everybody seems to be OK, and who gets out but the state secretary of transportation.
Though I don’t know that this is exactly how it played out, I do know that something similar happened to somebody in Maryland yesterday. John Porcari, who heads the Maryland Department of Transportation, appeared at the Board of Public Works meeting Wednesday and said he had a morning crash.
Someone ran a stop sign and hit him on the broad side of his vehicle as he was dropping his son off at school in a private vehicle, Porcari said. He said his experience demonstrated the importance of wearing seat belts and driving a safe car, but all was well.
I do not mean to make light of what must be a stressful situation for all involved, but it’s hard to imagine a car accident that would be more awkward. At least the other driver had insurance, as Porcari said it was through the state’s insurer of last resort, the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund.
Can you think of anyone who it would be more bizarre to encounter during a fender bender?
ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentBanking on a three-day weekend
July 9, 2008
In my story about Maryland’s Fourth of July travel, folks in the restaurant and hospitality industry say the holiday’s positioning on a Friday helped bring people out to make a three-day weekend out of the deal. But some Bay Bridge statistics the Maryland Transportation Authority just e-mailed me drive home the three-day weekend effect in a big way.
For example, nearly 60,500 cars crossed the bridge on Thursday, July 3, this year. That’s up 25 percent from the year before and up 42 percent from the corresponding Thursday last year (July 5). The day of the holiday, just 32,500 crossed the bridge last year while more than 46,600 did this year (a 46 percent increase).
The differences are stark — especially when you put them in the context of the rest of the week. Overall, travel on the Bay Bridge was down about 4 percent last week. Not including this year’s peak days (Wednesday and Thursday), traffic was down about 14 percent last week, compared to the corresponding week in 2007.
This is just a snap shot, but it looks as though while people are still taking to the roads, they’re being much more selective about it this year. Marylanders still want to do something special on their vacation days, but perhaps that means they are scrimping in other areas to make up the difference.
Do you think it’ll be worse or better by the next Fourth of July? And where will motorists draw the line? $7 a gallon? $10?
LIZ FARMER, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentFlocking to the Metro
June 19, 2008
Washington’s Metro system has had two of its highest-ridership days on record this week - despite the lack of Nats games or special events.
Yesterday, 823,000 people road Metro’s trains, making it Metro’s sixth most popular day. The day before Metro had 812,000 riders and a new No. 10 for the list.
It’s no big surprise - officials were expecting to greet more riders as gas prices climb. (At the Shell station outside my building in Bethesda, gas was $4.35/gallon for regular unleaded this morning … which would encourage just about anyone to ride Metro.)
Still, the real record-breaking day for the transit agency could be today - National Dump the Pump Day. As if commuters need more encouragement, transit officials around the country are pushing public transportation today especially.
And whether or not you take Metro, you can still enter WMATA’s contest to guess today’s ridership. If you win, you’ll get a Metro card worth $100.
Even if you sold it to a friend - hey, that’s still a tank (or two) of gas. For use in a carpool, of course..
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentFree buses downtown!
May 29, 2008
Mayor Sheila Dixon announced Wednesday that she plans to add three free bus lines around downtown. One would go north to south; another east to west, and a third would loop from downtown into Fells Point and up to Johns Hopkins Hospital. These runs are supposed to start by the end of the year.
Lots of people were touting the plan at a news conference yesterday to formally announce the service. It’s going to reduce downtown congestion, help tourists get around and cure Dutch elm disease, they said (OK, they didn’t say the last one).
But there are some questions. First, the city wants to pay for this through an increase in the parking tax, which is levied at garages. If you park, the mayor’s office points out, you can take the shuttle around without having to move your car and park again. This could actually save people money, by Dixon’s calculation. But if people are saving money on parking, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the tax might decline as a revenue source? Just a thought.
The Maryland Transit Administration says the buses won’t interfere with their service downtown, but the plan is for the free buses to come once every 10 minutes. We’ve all been behind an MTA bus on these relatively narrow downtown roads, and it’s no picnic. Are you worried about that?
ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentAre you ready for the Red Line?
May 12, 2008
Ready for that quick trip from Woodlawn to downtown, or from Poppleton to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center? Well, though city and state officials say they could start to move dirt in 2012 for the coveted East-West rail link across Baltimore, it’s still hard to imagine what the Red Line will look like if the project is completed.
Maryland has the money together to plan the line, secure rights of way and start building it. The state plans to spend $239.6 million for all of that, though the money to finish the project has not been identified yet.
And what, exactly, will the Red Line be? We can probably say with more authority what it won’t be. The Red Line will likely not be a subway like the Metro line that runs between Owings Mills and downtown. That option is considered too expensive, and state leaders don’t think there would be enough riders to justify the cost. It probably also won’t be a magnetic levitation train, a monorail or a giant waterslide.
The state is considering more than a dozen configurations of light rail and bus options. One option is to build nothing and try to optimize the road system to accommodate a bus line along the Route 40 corridor. Another envisions light rail running alongside or in the middle of city roads, and then using a tunnel under downtown. The routes for the line are also in flux, with different ideas for what roads the line would use. That didn’t stop people from protesting various options at the Red Line Summit hosted by the city on Saturday.
Mayor Sheila Dixon is trying to get people engaged in the process early, and she seemed to succeed, drawing hundreds to the Baltimore Convention Center Saturday. People are excited about the line, but still uncertain about what to expect and when to expect it.
Do you think the city can sustain the interest, given that we’ll probably have to wait until later this year to find out what the Maryland Department of Transportation thinks about all of the different options? That will come in an environmental document that represents one of the next big steps in the planning process, while Baltimore intends to host a series of community Red Line events over the summer.
What do you think the best setup would be? Do we need the Red Line?
ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer
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