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Live ATC from IAD and DCA
Local pilots and planespotters will be happy to know that LiveATC has live streaming tower communications from National Airport (DCA) and Dulles (IAD). Few things are more soothing and fascinating for the aviation geek than listening to the smooth, seductive tower-and-aircraft dance of ATC broadcasts from your local airport. National Tower (M3U playlist format) Dulles [...]
More »Snow Cancels Flights, But Not Trains
Flying out of DC today? Probably not: according to the FAA, National Airport (DCA) is closed till tomorrow afternoon. Dulles (IAD) and BWI are experiencing gate, taxi, and arrival delays of “15 minutes or less,” but MWAA says most airlines have cancelled flights. Pretty much every local airport website is crawling right now, and BWI’s [...]
More »Taxi Hits Bike in Georgetown
Update: More details on the accident from WashCycle. I walked by this scene at 31st and M in Georgetown last night: squad cars and yellow tape around a Washington Flyer taxi, its windshield badly cracked, a mangled bicycle under its tires. Vnangia tweets that the accident was fatal. MPD had officers directing traffic around the [...]
More »Power Outage Causing Metro Issues
Update: WMATA is slowly bringing back services. Metrobus fareboxes and bus radios are back in operation, MetroAccess dispatch and online reservations are working, and this morning I heard a public address system test. More info from this WMATA release. Be the first to like. Like Unlike
More »Free Soprano Recital by Alessandra Marc
If you’re in the Dupont/Logan area and up for some free classical music this Sunday, dramatic soprano Alessandra Marc (accompanied by pianist David Chapman) will be giving a free recital on Sunday, 4PM at The First Baptist Church of Washington, DC at 16th and O Streets NW. Be the first to like. Like Unlike
More »Explosion Causes Red Line Delays
Picture of smoke in Red Line station uploaded by @arasmus Update, 11am: “Normal” service restored. Update, 10am: Red Line is now single-tracking between Farragut North and Judiciary Square. According to Dr. Gridlock, Metro spokeswoman Angela Gates says a collector shoe fell off a train car, sparking a fire under the train at Gallery Place-Chinatown. Smoke [...]
More »New C&O Dry Dock
Here’s something you Georgetowners don’t see every day: Workers and a crane in the mud of the drained C&O canal are building a new dry dock for the canal boat, probably to make the upcoming flurry of bridge restoration work easier. Be the first to like. Like Unlike
More »9/12 Rally Crowd Estimates: Two Million?
(Picture 075 uploaded by DrrDot) The Glenn Beck/FreedomWorks 9/12 DC Taxpayer Rally was on Saturday, with conservative Tea Party activists congregating in Washington to protest various things like healthcare reform, federal taxation, government deficit spending, and the President being a Stalinist Nazi Fascist Kenyan Hitler. They drew a healthy-sized crowd, by many accounts much larger [...]
More »BikeStation: Fences Come Down
Union Station Bike Center (AKA “BikeStation”) looks pretty much done at this point — outside, at least. The construction fences and tarps are gone, and the parking garage driveway to 1st St NE has been open now for a few weeks. Station-area bicyclists should soon have a nice, sheltered, secure spot to store their bikes [...]
More »Video: Capitol Crowds Wave Goodbye to Sen. Kennedy
Here’s some shaky video of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s hearse and procession leaving the Capitol to go down Constitution Ave. to Arlington Cemetery. Hundreds of people lined the lawn and sidewalk, with Kennedy’s staff and colleagues on the Senate steps. As the hearse left the driveway a wave of cheering and applause swept through the crowd, [...]
More »Conservative “Activists” at Metro Stations
Some activity around Union Station and Foggy Bottom Metro stations today; protestors with signs and petition clipboards calling for an end to “Rxationed Health Care” and protecting “Worker’s Rights.” Not your typical Greenpeace minimum wage clipboarders or LaRouchie card table shriners, though; the attire was a bit too far over this side of smart casual, [...]
More »Metro Train Door Opens. Halfway. On Wrong Side. On Moving Train. In Tunnel.
The photo above is not of the door in question, but the Washington Post and NBC Washington tell us “the left panel in the middle door of a middle car came open and that the door closed as soon as the operator hit the brakes” on the Orange Line at rush hour yesterday, while the [...]
More »Smoky Trains and Erratic Buses: A WMATA Morning Commute Story
Orange and Blue Line riders heading for work this morning probably had a heck of a time thanks to the smoke incident at McPherson Square, caused by a collector shoe (which conducts electricity from the third rail to power the train) falling off, sparking a fire under the train. (Thanks to The Post’s Get There [...]
More »Glass on the Bike Center
Glass panels partly installed on Union Station Bike Center Originally uploaded by brownpau The Union Station Bicycle Center is coming along nicely; even now glass panels are being installed and the structure is really starting to look like its initial renderings by KGP Studios. Any Union Station-area bicyclists planning to use the facility when it’s [...]
More »Foggy Bottom Platform Escalator Fail
Foggy Bottom Platform Escalator Fail Originally uploaded by brownpau So you know how the Foggy Bottom Station escalators are actually a two-layered system of bottlenecks? Today the platform-to-mezzanine bottleneck was made worse by one of the two up escalators being blocked off (at rush hour with no work being done on it at the time, [...]
More »Nats Abe in Georgetown
Nats Abe Lincoln mascot in Georgetown. Originally uploaded by brownpau Heads-up, Nats fans! Sixteenth president of the United States and 2008 Nationals Presidents Race Champion Abraham Lincoln is in Georgetown this very moment, and according to first-hand witnesses is giving out high-fives. You can see he’s gotten something of a big head from winning the [...]
More »Caught on Video: Sleepy Train Operator?
MyFoxDC has details on this HD video of a train operator seeming to fall asleep at the controls between stations on the Green Line, taken by Metro rider Gregory Thomas — bigblockz8 on YouTube. Be the first to like. Like Unlike
More »Have You Seen This Bird?
This here is Pickles, a green and very talkative rose-ringed parakeet last seen in a tree in the Haupt Garden behind the Smithsonian Castle. Pickles’ owner Scott likes to take the bird on his shoulder, pirate-style, for walks around the National Mall on weekends, and on nice days, perch Pickles on tree branches in the [...]
More »Cleaning the Air and Space Museum’s Lunar Lander
Smithsonian Mag’s Around the Mall has a look at the cleanup of the Air and Space Museum’s Apollo Lunar Module #2 in preparation for the upcoming 40th anniversary celebration of the Apollo 11 moon landing: Be the first to like. Like Unlike
More »Sick People on Orange Line
In the aftermath of yesterday’s Metro crash I went with my backup plan today of skipping the Red Line in favor of the Orange. A malfunction had just occurred at Eastern Market, causing some delays, but a train arrived soon enough at Capitol South — then was held for ten minutes due to a sick [...]
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