Metropolitan Branch Trail Clean Up on MLK Day

[Steve O]

You should add this to the FS calendar

[LhasaCM]

Thanks for sharing this. As someone who rides the MBT practically daily, I’ll do my best to be there.

In addition, since the startup spot is down a short flight of stairs from the MBT itself, I thought it’d be helpful to highlight/reiterate the directions info. from the link.

Directions

There is plenty of bike parking at the school and street parking for vehicles. If you are arriving from the south on the Metropolitan Branch Trail, it is easiest to hop off the trail at 5th and T St NE and ride up 5th St to the school. From the north, you can cut through the parking lot at W St NE and down 5th St NE. The access point at V St is a short flight of stairs. The closest Metro station is Rhode Island Ave, a quick half mile walk on the trail.

(Quick editorial – the one time I cut through the parking lot at W St NE, I had to avoid a lot of glass/loose gravel/etc.; T St is the safer/easier bet.)

[Judd]

@LhasaCM 171319 wrote:

Thanks for sharing this. As someone who rides the MBT practically daily, I’ll do my best to be there.

In addition, since the startup spot is down a short flight of stairs from the MBT itself, I thought it’d be helpful to highlight/reiterate the directions info. from the link.

(Quick editorial – the one time I cut through the parking lot at W St NE, I had to avoid a lot of glass/loose gravel/etc.; T St is the safer/easier bet.)

I’m relying on you to bring the Kidz Bop.

[Judd]

Just a reminder for anyone that wants to give back to biking and volunteer for the Met Branch Trail cleanup tomorrow. It looks like info on holiday hours for places is a bit spotty, so not sure where lunch will be afterwards. I’m leaning heavily towards biking down to Bluejacket in Navy Yard because their food and beer are both yummy.

Here’s additional info from WABA on tomorrow’s event:
Hello,

We are excited for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service on the Metropolitan Branch Trail on Monday and thank you for joining us!

When: Monday January 15th, 9am – 11am
Where: Sonia Gutierrez Campus (514 V ST NE)

Registration opens at 8:30 am and Whole Foods coffee/bagels/breakfast treats will be available as well. We’ll start the cleanup at 9am with a quick all-group intro and orientation at the school before splitting off into different site groups, grabbing tools for each site and dispering to each site. If you are interested, further details on our sites and tasks can be found here.

Getting There: The school is right off the Metropolitan Branch Trail and most easily accessed from the Red Line Rhode Island Ave stop by taking a right at the metro exit over the pedestrian bridge and then taking a left onto the Metropolitan Branch Trail to V St NE. The V St entrance to the trail has stairs so if you don’t want to hoist a bike or strollers down the stairs, the easiest place to get off the trail is either W St NE or T St NE and connect to the school via 5th St NE.

Parking: There are approxiamately 10 bike racks at the school. The closest Capital Bikeshare station is at 4th and W St NE, and Rhode Island Ave Metro. Car parking is availble in the neighborhood.

Please bring a water bottle, wear closed toed shoes and long pants, and be prepared to work outside for two hours. Current forecast is for 32F and sunny! One of our sites will be removing blackberry vines to uncover a mural – for folks interested in this work, it is best to wear heavier duty work pants and jacket that are less vulnerable to thorns. The other two sites will be outside but do not require heavy duty work clothing though it is always best so wear clothes than you don’t mind getting dirty. We’re bringing lots of gloves, pruners, trash grabbers, shovels and other tools but if you own tools you would like to use, you’re more than welcome to bring them.

The normal photo ID requirement for the Sonia Guteirrez campus has been waived for Monday morning so no ID is required. The building will have security presence at the entrances and bags/helmets can be left in the main lobby.

For questions before the event or day of, we can be reached at Ursula Sandstrom, ursula.sandstrom@waba.org, cell (202) 430-6385 and Claudia Esteves at (240)5430-1251.

Best,
Ursula

[Birru]

Captain Chuxtr has an ETA of 11-ish at Colada Shop (1405 T St NW). That’s only 2.5 miles away if you’d like another option after cleanup.

Edit: Well shoot, it looks like cleanup registration is at capacity. That’s a great problem to have though!

[Judd]

@Birru 172167 wrote:

Captain Chuxtr has an ETA of 11-ish at Colada Shop (1405 T St NW). That’s only 2.5 miles away if you’d like another option after cleanup.

Edit: Well shoot, it looks like cleanup registration is at capacity. That’s a great problem to have though!

Come by anyway. Many hands make the work light according to Confucius. I think we’ll try to meet up at Colada afterwards.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Judd]

Tons of people at the Met Branch Trail clean up today.

LhasaCM was there with his wife and cute kiddo, who was proudly sporting a Freezing Saddles zipper pull.

Komorebi was there clearing a billion vines off of trees.

The trail was looking much better after two hours but there’s still a lot of work to do. After two hours of clipping it made me really appreciate the work of the WABA trail ranger team.

[LhasaCM]

I’d like to add my huge thanks as well to everyone who showed up and supported today’s effort. While we focused our efforts on cleaning up near and north of the Rhode Island Avenue bridge (including a hillside that seemed to be made of thorny branches and beer cans), I think the most visible (and hopefully lasting) transformation was done by the group at the Change Gears mural (just north of T Street).

Before (screenshot from video taken yesterday):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16286[/ATTACH]

After:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16287[/ATTACH]

[Birru]

Strong work!

[Judd]

@LhasaCM 172192 wrote:

I’d like to add my huge thanks as well to everyone who showed up and supported today’s effort. While we focused our efforts on cleaning up near and north of the Rhode Island Avenue bridge (including a hillside that seemed to be made of thorny branches and beer cans), I think the most visible (and hopefully lasting) transformation was done by the group at the Change Gears mural (just north of T Street).

Before (screenshot from video taken yesterday):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16286[/ATTACH]

After:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]16287[/ATTACH]

I’m so glad that you took a picture of the mural afterwards. More impressive that there was a lot of thorny stuff in there. The volunteers put burlap and mulch down after clearing so hopefully the mural will continue to be unobstructed for quite some time.

I’m hoping that these can occur more frequently. There was so much trash removed from the trail today and there’s still a lot of work that could be done on the overgrown foliage. It would be nice to have some sort of adopt a trail program and have some significant cleanup and landscaping work done.

[Birru]

@Judd 172178 wrote:

Come by anyway. Many hands make the work light according to Confucius. I think we’ll try to meet up at Colada afterwards.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I wish I saw this earlier! I’ll note this for the future though. I wasn’t sure if it was a hard cap.

[Steve O]

I can’t believe all of you were so close and not a single one of you went and got the Calvinball

[Judd]

@Steve O 172254 wrote:

I can’t believe all of you were so close and not a single one of you went and got the Calvinball

I’ve dialed way back on the number of games I’m playing this year for sanity’s sake. Mostly just Frozemon and an occasional Notorious for me this year. Calvinball has a several very active players and it’s too hard for me to keep up. It’s a good game and the people that are playing seem to be having a lot of fun with it.

[LhasaCM]

@Steve O 172254 wrote:

I can’t believe all of you were so close and not a single one of you went and got the Calvinball

I didn’t think I’d be a deserving recipient, so rather than risk the wrath of Tim the Enchanter for my participation, I opted to just openly accept any wrath for my lack of participation.

[rcannon100]

@LhasaCM 172471 wrote:

so rather than risk the wrath of Tim the Enchanter

I DO NOT have anger management issues!!!!

[Author]

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