RSS FeedHow Do You Cause Backups Downtown?
The answer of course is to hold The Nation’s Triathlon. PQ Living’s intrepid writer Columbo checked in by sending a few pictures from the field. Talk about downtown traffic! This writer headed uptown to Chevy Chase and was thwarted at every turn by MPD cruisers diverting traffic away from the course route. He had to thread his way down K Street, north through the West End and onto Massachusetts Avenue to head up the big hill instead of the more speedy 9th Street tunnel to Maine Avenue to Rock Creek Parkway. Definitely missed the memo on this one. The weather was perfect for a triathlon though and despite the inconvenience, we like the idea of having marquis events in the Nation’s Capital.
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Comments
The local government – Mayor, City Council, MPD, Sports Council – really missed the ball on this one. There was no general warning to local residents about the street closings. If this happened in NY, they would skewer the politicians for months and would get sincere apologies. In DC, I’m sure we’ll roll over. Definitely not “world class.” All we ask for is some fair warning. Hell, we might even have gone out to cheer athletes on, like we do for the Marine Corp Marathon.
In a dream world, DC would be organized enough to inform its citizens of such info.
I recently sent a request to numerous people in DC gov’t to get permission to close off a few metered spaces for an event (instead of the usual MO — put up the sign and hope for the best.) The request was forwarded on and on to many different departments — but a dozen forwards later — no one could figure out who to really address such requests to. No wonder no one follows rules — there is no one to follow up on them.
I know for street closings, permission is needed. But to inform citizens of such, I dont think the city is prepared to do it.
FYI: Any street closing needs to be signed off by businesses and residents within 600 feet of the affected block. Has anyone been asked in the past? I know that my condo ass’n has for a fraction of the events that close the street in front of our building.
What a mess! I work at a salon in PQ and because of the traffic mess, we lost business from clients who couldn’t make their appointments, due to the traffic mess. Clients were pissed, we were pissed….DC government is to blame. Why is it that all of these “events” must take place in the busiest areas of the city? There are plenty of places in the city that would be less affected by this nightmare (NE, SE). I know we are thankful for what money is brought to downtown by the attendees of the events, but it makes living/working in the area a disaster sometimes.
I headed over to Pentagon City for lunch on Saturday and it took me one hour to get back. When I got home, I checked WashPost but didn’t see anything posted in the City Guide except for the day’s walking tours. Thanks to you for pointing this out, as it’s the first confirmation I received of the cause of the traffic nightmare. Despite paying some of the highest income taxes in the country, our inefficient joke of a local government can’t even get its act together enough to let us know about events like this.
Actually, they do notify us about most events like this, and they are even usually posted on this blog. I’m surprised they dropped the ball in this one, given the Mayor was in the race.
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whew..it was crazy..i was tying to pop across the river for lunch..but..umm..no it was like “escape from dc” …
xoxo