Archive for the ‘Washington DC’ Category
Capital Bikeshare in DC!
I visited Denver, CO recently and used a great service: B-cycle. The idea is simple: you purchase a membership (daily, monthly, or annual) that allows you to use one of the hundreds of bicycles parked in special racks. You can check out a bike, ride it across town, and return it to any open rack. As long as you return it within 30 minutes, there’s no additional usage charge. It’s perfect for going out to dinner, running errands, or visiting friends. Neat!
Now DC is getting in the fun with Capital Bikeshare. From their website, it looks like the program is just about identical to B-cycle. I signed up in a hurry–$50 well spent to support a great program.
Even though I own a bicycle, there are some great benefits:
- No need to worry about my bike getting stolen or mangled in a public rack
- One way trips are easy
- The bikes are designed for city cruising (with fenders, baskets, lights, and chain covers)
So check it out! Capital Bikeshare!
Filed under Washington DC, bicycle, culture : Comments (0) : Aug 16th, 2010
Is the bag tax working?
Washington DC implemented a 5ยข tax on disposable bags to discourage their use. The revenue collected from the scheme will pay to clean up the Anacostia River (that is heavily polluted with bags and other discarded trash).
I wrote about the new tax back in January as it was just going into effect.
Now that it’s been a few months, is it working?
In its first assessment of how the new law is working, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue estimates that city food and grocery establishments issued about 3.3 million bags in January, which suggests a remarkable decrease. Prior to the bag tax taking effect Jan 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had estimated that about 22.5 million bags were being issued per month in 2009.
That’s an 85% decrease in the number of plastic bags being used!
While one month isn’t a statistically significant data point, it does lend some good credibility to the new tax. Let’s hope that this trend continues and we have some full-year data to celebrate!
Filed under Washington DC, environment : Comments (2) : Apr 1st, 2010
Teabaggers at the Capitol
Today is a big day for American politics : the day we [finally] vote on the health care reform bill. I wanted to check in on the teabaggers and take a pulse of their mood. I headed down to the Capitol armed with a camera and wearing my shirt with Woody Guthrie’s famous “This Machine Kills Fascists” guitar. (Just to avoid any confusion of which side I’m on.)
The teabag rally was much more tame than I expected. There were about 200 people standing in front of the Capitol with signs, flags, and the like. There was a speaker with a bullhorn, but no stage so I couldn’t see who it was. The crowd was 99.9% white and mostly middle aged or older.
The message was what you’d expect : “kill the bill”, “this is socialism”, “no more taxes”, etc.
Here are a few of my personal favorites:
I felt pretty uncomfortable so I didn’t stay long. Now we wait and see if the House can whip up these deadbeat freshmen Democrats to vote for the bill they were elected to vote for. Ugh.
Filed under Healthcare, Washington DC, culture, politics : Comments (2) : Mar 21st, 2010
Snowpocalypse 2010
Filed under Washington DC : Comments (0) : Feb 7th, 2010
Clever Chipotle Line Hack
This is smart. When there’s a long line at Chipotle, she takes your order and does the credit card transaction. Then you take the receipt, get your burrito, and you’re done. Nice time saving hack.
Filed under Washington DC, hack : Comments (0) : Jan 22nd, 2010
