Stopped from riding in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery

[Raymo853]

This morning, a minister at the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery along Suitland Road, stopped me. She told me bikes are not allowed in the cemetery and she would call security and the police if I did not leave. I said nothing but just turned around. She also added she was tired of bikes in the cemetery and is planning to put a stop to it.

I am not sure, but it appears all three of the cemeteries along Suitland Rd (Lincoln, Washington National and Cedar Hill) are managed or owned by the same company these days. Feared this would happen some day, the work crews were always friendly, I even gave a group a quick talk about soil horizons one eve this past summer. But I have seen the managers & minister type folks look angry at me before.

Planning to talk to the Hills of Anacostia organizers about this.

Topic

[dplasters]

@scoot 108012 wrote:

Too easy: get rid of it. Yesterday.

This is perhaps the worst of all special-interest preferential tax treatments. Remind me why our society should be encouraging irresponsible debt, inflating real estate bubbles, etc.?

Just seeing if people’s logic is the same across the board.

[DaveK]

83(b);108011 wrote:

i’d be much more willing to side with the “no trespassing” crowd if drivers weren’t allowed to park illegally en masse all over our neighborhoods every sunday. Including in bike lanes and, outrageously, blocking crosswalks and curb cuts in front of my wheelchair-bound neighbor’s house. For now, put me on team no one.

Also, a tax policy argument! Now my favorite procrastination website reads just like my work emails! With respect to the property tax exemption issue, the very second dc’s voter base flips i’m going to float my proposal to (a) eliminate the property tax exemption for churches and (b) grant an offsetting tax deduction/credit from your dc taxes for contributions to a qualified dc religious organization. Then dc’s citizens can stop subsidizing churches patronized principally by nonresidents, which near me are pretty terrible neighbors.

Save Historic Lincoln Park(ing)

[DismalScientist]

@dplasters 108007 wrote:

I would like to know your thoughts on the mortgage interest deduction.

If we didn’t have the government taxing things at different rates, how would be possibly know how to correctly live our lives?

[83b]

@scoot 108012 wrote:

Too easy: get rid of it. Yesterday.

This is perhaps the worst of all special-interest preferential tax treatments. Remind me why our society should be encouraging irresponsible debt, inflating real estate bubbles, etc.?

Except the value of the tax preference is already impounded into the price of all of our homes. As someone who recently purchased their first house, I’d be quite cranky to see it’s value fall now by that amount.

Transition issues are always a huge problem in designing tax policy. For example, I’d like to see a national consumption tax enacted to pay for all of our entitlement programs. But that would be a huge whack to the Boomers who had, until I came to power, been paying into the system via income taxes. They’ll now continue to pay into the system in retirement as well (since you generally stop earning substantial income, but continue or even increase consumption, in retirement).

[baiskeli]

@Raymo853 107975 wrote:

Penn State’s ex-chair being paid 10’s of millions

Maybe that’s how much he deserved for what he did. In any event, he had to pay taxes on that income.

Reverends in DC driving Bentleys

Same principle.

[baiskeli]

@creadinger 108001 wrote:

1. affecting an attitude of inflated self-esteem; haughty; snobbish.

Yup!

Uppity has a racist past. Use it at your peril.

[creadinger]

@baiskeli 108030 wrote:

Uppity has a racist past. Use it at your peril.

Really?? I did not know that. I assumed it was slightly classist, but the lady was wearing a big-ass fur coat and driving a shiny Mercedes, so it seemed appropriate.

My apologies if anyone now assumes I am racist. Who was it used against?

[lordofthemark]

I think we should pay for new bike infra with a tax on blatantly off topic posts in the bike forum. I would exempt comments already made, we would need to ease the transition.

[baiskeli]

@creadinger 108031 wrote:

Really?? I did not know that. I assumed it was slightly classist, but the lady was wearing a big-ass fur coat and driving a shiny Mercedes, so it seemed appropriate.

My apologies if anyone now assumes I am racist. Who was it used against?

I don’t think anyone is saying you meant to use it racist, not at all. Just warning you that others out there in the real world may think so.

FYI, the phrase “uppity Negro” meant a black person who didn’t know his or her place in the old South, one who spoke too boldly to whites.

[rcannon100]

@lordofthemark 108033 wrote:

I think we should pay for new bike infra with a tax on blatantly off topic posts in the bike forum. I would exempt comments already made, we would need to ease the transition.

No no no! I’m calling this what it is! A blatant Puppy Tax! In order to oppose the aggressive expansion of new puppy taxes, I am starting the Dog Biscuit Party. This will be our flag. You will see it everywhere!

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[Bruno Moore]

This is all fairly interesting, since many City Beautiful era cemeteries were intended to be public parks, places of refuge and escape for city dwellers. Rock Creek Cemetery is a prime example of this, with its parklike layout and astonishingly good public art. Ditto Fort Lincoln, which is full of historical markers and plaques that only occasionally deal with the present cemetery, and more often with the Civil War fort, Commodore Barney’s positions during the Battle of Bladensburg, and one of the oldest buildings still standing in Maryland. Oh, and lest we forget, the Brompton Races in the Congressional Cemetery last year.

Most of the NE DC graveyards I bike to and through regularlyish (Fort Lincoln, Mt. Olivet, Rock Creek, Glenwood) have never had problems with me biking. Granted, some of these—especially Rock Creek—are used to a bit of tourist traffic, so that may explain some of that. Oak Hill, near Georgetown, is pretty explicit about banning bikes once you’re past the front gates, but its layout and terrain (narrow footpaths, stairs, steep grades) do a better job discouraging cyclists visiting Mr. Corcoran than any sign ever could. And, of course, there are a few neglected little pocket graveyards scattered throughout the city on odd hilltops where an actual person would attract more notice than the bike they were riding.

I don’t know if that explains my better luck in cycling in cities of the dead—picking my places wisely—but I’ve never had problems, despite being a graveyard fan.

[Rod Smith]

@creadinger 108003 wrote:

Have you heard from the folks at Bicycle Space yet? I don’t think I want to attend another ride if there’s a chance I’ll get a trespassing citation. Instead, to bag another hill they could just go up Suitland Rd. and back down without changing too much of the current route.

They’re reasonable people, but if the consensus is the ride through the graveyard regardless, we could split off, ride Suitland up and back and meet them at Penn Ave. or at the entrance to Cedar Hill Cemetery (where nobody ever said anything so I’m assuming it’s OK to ride there). I’ve never seen anyone in either cemetery who doesn’t work there when we roll through (no mourners to offend). The ride splitting into two groups and regrouping is not unprecedented, this usually happens on the “Hill of… Extended” in Oxon Farm.

[Rod Smith]

The Hills of Anacostia shop ride in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery

[Raymo853]

I suggest this as the easy alternative to any of the Suitland Road facing cemeteries. Will allow reassembly of the group across from the fire-hall.

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[Raymo853]

@baiskeli 108029 wrote:

Maybe that’s how much he deserved for what he did. In any event, he had to pay taxes on that income.

Same principle.

The wealthy do not pay taxes.

[Author]

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