RSS FeedPenn Ave Resurfacing Through Oct 30
This blogger was taken by surprise last night by several Road Closed signs blocking north-south passages through Pennsylvania Avenue. According to the WaPo, DDOT will be resurfacing Penn Ave from 3rd St to 15th St until Oct 30. Crews will be working during the hours of: 9:30am to 3:30pm and 8pm to 3am, Mon-Fri. We should expect rolling road closures during this time.
The main motivation for undertaking the $2 million project, is to make Penn Ave beautiful for the upcoming Inauguration Day (Jan 20, 2009). The project is partially funded by the Federal government, but DDOT refuses to state exactly how much DC tax payers are spending on the project.
In addition to road resurfacing, sidewalks, streetlight poles, and traffic light poles are being touched up.
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Comments
That road is as smooth as Fenty’s head. Oh well, I guess it must be perfect.
I noticed some of the eagles on the street lamps were missing; I wonder if they’ll replace those?
They better hope Obama wins, cause if McCain wins there’ll be about ten people at that parade to see their fancy new work.
Once again the District tries to keep secret how it spends our tax money. I suppose we should be happy since it’s not as much as the $50 million plus wasted on the summer “jobs” program or the $40 million plus lost in the tax refund fraud case. Fenty is a phony.
#3, if Obama is the one parading down, any taxes for this project will be just a drop in the bucket for what’s to come. After all, we’ll have to pay for a gigantic fireworks display, Styrofoam greek columns, strobe lights and smoke machines.
The only ways I know of to get federal funding for a road are (1) name it a US Route or Interstate, or (2) make it part of a national park, like GW Parkway (if anyone knows of a third way, let me know!). I’d be reluctant to do #1 because it might lead to more traffic. But for the short, 14-block stretch from the Capitol to the White House, I think #2 would be a good option.
Tom,
Municipalities spend federal highway dollars on local roads all the time. Just check out one of the billboards that DC puts up for major road construction. It specifically states how much federal and local money is going into the project. There is no requirement that the road be a US highway or national park (in fact, I believe when it’s a national park, the municipality isn’t responsible for maintaining the road at all).
Pennsylvania Avenue is indeed a National Park. Yup!
http://www.nps.gov/paav/planyourvisit/index.htm
Check it out!
Does anyone know what causes that horrible bump that reappears about once a year in the far-right lane near the bus stop in front of the National Archives? They do resurfacing work every year, it seems, but it keeps coming back. I figured that was at least part of the cause for this work now.
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Wonderful. Well it’ll look nice. How about the other streets in the city with pot holes and rusted light poles. I could think of a few right off the bat. Some of the fixtures look like they’ve been around since the 60’s (and probably have been!) and not even painted since too.