Rants about the NPS and government shutdown.

[Amalitza]

@Terpfan 66232 wrote:

So shutting down four parking spaces that don’t even have a trash can is somehow a prudent use of resources during a shutdown? C’mon, it’s political. I get that they’re following orders and that’s perfectly fine, but call a spade for a spade.

And yes, the NPS part could end with either of two votes. I think you’re forgetting the mini-CRs that included them.

Either way, I do think they’re being overly zealous or someone is giving simply ridiculous orders. And you know what, I kind of feel bad for them. I mean, who wants to be the person tasked with spending more time at four parking spaces than they have ever done before all in the name of a shutdown?

Leaving the trail open and closing the parking lots seems kind of silly to me (though I personally appreciate continued access to the trail), but selectively picking and choosing which parking lots to close would be even sillier. I have zero doubt someone spent less time stopping by Tulane and putting up barricades on their way between putting up barricades at belle haven and fort hunt than it would have cost to pay someone to STUDY which parking lots to close, write up the decisions about which to close and which not to close, and convey that decision across departments and down the chain of command to the person putting up the barricades.

I might not want to be the person tasked with barricading four parking spaces, but I’d even less like to be the person tasked with going around looking at (if just on paper) every single parking lot deciding yay or nay on closing it. “Shut them all” or “leave them all open” are the only reasonable (well, as close to reasonable as you can get under the circumstances) options.

The shutdown is costing the government tons of money. Tons. (yes, that’s a very quantitative and accurate measurement:)) Planning and implementing which things close and what stays open and which people are furloughed and which are not is a huge undertaking that is going on in every agency at every level. The “extra” cost for barricades or guards or something is more or less irrelevant. The planning costs are invisible to the public, but much greater.

[eminva]

@dasgeh 66274 wrote:

You’re right: they could be worse. But look at the aerial map of the Pentagon: parking lots, parking lots, parking lots. That’s not good land use. So they could be better.

I do wish Arlington County would do more to bring them into the SmartGrowth fold.

I guess I’ll take the opposing view here — there are probably good security reasons to have the building relatively isolated from other structures. Also, the scale of the thing is so massive, it just wouldn’t look right aesthetically if it were hemmed in like the poor Alamo. It needs space!

Liz

[dasgeh]

@eminva 66291 wrote:

I guess I’ll take the opposing view here — there are probably good security reasons to have the building relatively isolated from other structures. Also, the scale of the thing is so massive, it just wouldn’t look right aesthetically if it were hemmed in like the poor Alamo. It needs space!

Liz

Green space is space too.

[MattAune]

@eminva 66291 wrote:

I guess I’ll take the opposing view here — there are probably good security reasons to have the building relatively isolated from other structures. Also, the scale of the thing is so massive, it just wouldn’t look right aesthetically if it were hemmed in like the poor Alamo. It needs space!

Liz

Also where would the host the MCM, Army 10 miler, Rolling Thunder, and the myriad of other things that close my parking lane (not that I use it much).

Actually in my opinion, the Pentagon sprawl seems to be less invasive than the transportation void that is Ft. Myer and Arlington Cemetery.

[Steve]

@MattAune 66295 wrote:

Actually in my opinion, the Pentagon sprawl seems to be less invasive than the transportation void that is the whole Rt. 50 corridor.

fixed!

[ERandall]

The roads by the museums are barricaded on the mall. Police camp out right there behind the barricade, but I bike through it anyway. I haven’t been given any trouble yet. Anyone else been given any hassle?

[lordofthemark]

@Steve 66256 wrote:

Yea, I kinda flip-flop on my feelings about the PNT area. On one hand, they won’t allow anyone to finish the trail around the south side, and make things pretty difficult on cyclists in general. The lack of CaBi seems silly too. That being said, they allow their front porch to be a huge bus terminal, not just for people going to work there, and buses are a huge part of a multi-modal world. You think if the PNT was CIA headquarters instead, that you’d have the bus terminal there? My guess is no, and the PNT has just as sensitive things going on inside as Langley. So they are pretty friendly to Metro and Bus, just not to cyclists. I’ll call that a split, especially because Metro and Bus take WAY more people out of cars than bikes do.

The metrorail station, IIUC was sited there as part of the original metro plan back in the 1960s. And from that, the bus station naturally followed (one of the initial fruits of metro was removing the massive number of buses that stopped on 14th street, IIUC.) And of course very large numbers of DoD employees rely on both. And the bus terminal was rebuilt, farther from the pentagon, after 9/11. For a brief period people transferred at Pentagon City.

[lordofthemark]

@eminva 66291 wrote:

I guess I’ll take the opposing view here — there are probably good security reasons to have the building relatively isolated from other structures. Also, the scale of the thing is so massive, it just wouldn’t look right aesthetically if it were hemmed in like the poor Alamo. It needs space!

Liz

1. that implies it looks right now. Hmmm. (I mean you’d still have an open view from the river side, even if you built on some of the parking lots – especially the more distant ones – there’s a corner near I395 I am thinking of)

2. I would think they could build at least some high security govt offices. I mean why not the FBI (which is now going to end up near the beltway) or even some of the DoD agencies that got moved to Mark Center or Ft Belvoir? I think the reason they don’t want anything is a combination of parking, and a kind of unurbanist mentality that sees even minor security or aesthetic concerns, and jumps at a big parking lot as the best way to deal with them.

That said, if they would do more for people cyling through (even just some improved signage) I would forgive them their massive parking lots.

[DCAKen]

One surprising improvement that happened this week was that a section of the Rock Creek Park bike path was repaved. The section from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge to the bridge south of the Calvert Street ramp has gone from being one of the worst sections of the trail to the best. Wide and smooth…I can’t wait for the rest of the trail to be rebuilt.

[Oldtowner]

@Rootchopper 66246 wrote:

A co worker told me that back in the late 70s or early 80s a group of volunteers built the trail (unpaved) through Belle Haven Park.

The NPS is great but their unwillingness to make basic safety improvements and changes to the GWMP and MVT is foolish and contrary to the public interest. They need to do something about the at grade crossing of the GWMP just south of Memorial Bridge. They need to allow bike commuters to park at Belle Haven and other parks along the MVT. They need to make major safety improvements near Belle View Boulevard where crashes happen with sickening regularity.

I’ve been riding the MVT since the Carter Administration and I don’t ever remember it being unpaved through Belle Haven. Now there is a nearby unpaved trail that goes through Dyke Marsh. Maybe that is what they built.

I can understand NPS not wanting their parking lots to be just for bike commuters. They are the Park Service, not WMATA. And the NPS does do a decent job of regularly repairing the wooden bridges and grinding down root bumps. If only some of the other trails did that. The NPS also did a nice job with the City of Alexandria with the trail through Jones Point.

Yes, there are some dangerous places on the Parkway that are made worse by the ridiculous speeds motorists go, but it’s a beautiful park and the NPS has done a good job with it over these many years. Heck, in the old days there wasn’t even a center line on the trail and all those at-grade crossings at the airport were as dangerous as they were unavoidable. The NPS takes its time, but things have been slowly improving for almost 40 years.

[dasgeh]

@MattAune 66295 wrote:

Actually in my opinion, the Pentagon sprawl seems to be less invasive than the transportation void that is Ft. Myer and Arlington Cemetery.

Which is why my original point was “federal ownership”. The Pentagon parking lots are just the most obvious example. And I continue to advocate that Arlington County should do more to get better access through the base and ANC.

[KLizotte]

@dasgeh 66323 wrote:

Which is why my original point was “federal ownership”.

Be careful what you wish for. Arizona has been pushing hard to take over ownership of the Grand Canyon. Why? So they can allow mining companies in there. There is apparently a fair amount of uranium in the canyon.

[mstone]

@KLizotte 66331 wrote:

Be careful what you wish for. Arizona has been pushing hard to take over ownership of the Grand Canyon. Why? So they can allow mining companies in there. There is apparently a fair amount of uranium in the canyon.

When they’ve gotten all the minerals out, they can dam it!

[Dirt]

The National Park Service turned me into a newt.

I got better.

[Kolohe]

@lordofthemark 66306 wrote:

The metrorail station, IIUC was sited there as part of the original metro plan back in the 1960s. And from that, the bus station naturally followed (one of the initial fruits of metro was removing the massive number of buses that stopped on 14th street, IIUC.) And of course very large numbers of DoD employees rely on both. And the bus terminal was rebuilt, farther from the pentagon, after 9/11. For a brief period people transferred at Pentagon City.

Actually, the bus terminal renovation started before 9/11 http://metro.pentagon.mil/facts.htm – and iirc, was in some jeopardy of completion after 9/11 occurred. It is likely, imo that if the plan wasn’t already in the works and nearly complete, the whole bus bay would have been scuttled and indeed, permanently moved to Pentagon City.

[Author]

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