Another gutter bites the dust…
4 minute read
February 7, 2010, 1:36 PM
Yes, another gutter bit the dust, this time on the other side of me:
Looks like my apartment complex is going to be installing some new gutters soon…
Meanwhile, here’s another view of the snow over my balcony:
Yes, it’s extending beyond the end of the roof by more than a foot. Yikes. Then meanwhile, the balcony itself should be high and dry before too long, since I swept it of all the snow last night. All the stuff I couldn’t sweep off has melted or is almost there, and it should evaporate off soon.
And then here’s the car after the snow ended:
I’m going to guesstimate about two feet on the top of that. I’ll be coming around with the scraper and the broom to take care of that pretty soon.
Then for this snowstorm, I rediscovered TrafficLand.com, where one can watch the various DOT cameras. My father’s used the VDOT cameras to watch me as I’m coming home on I-66, but this time, I’m using it to check road conditions. Looks like Virginia’s done the best work in clearing its roads, as a check on the Interstates in Virginia plus some local roads in Arlington shows a lot of blacktop visible, and cars moving at just about normal speeds. Maryland and DC have some areas that are good to go, but a good bit of Georgia Avenue and 16th Street are still white. Then my street is of course completely white, and I don’t expect it to change. What did we do before we could visually check road conditions on the Internet?
By the way, in regards to the traffic cameras, I don’t mind them, since everyone can view them and see the same thing. It’s when the feed from government surveillance cameras is not open to all – that’s when I take issue. But as long as everyone can see it, then I consider it fairly benign.
Meanwhile, here’s the situation in the parking lot:
People are once again digging their cars out. I’m just glad that I don’t have to actually drive to get to work. I can take the 51 to the Red Line and then go.
Of course, this assumes that Metro is actually running. Metro is still running underground-only service. New this time is that they’re running Red Line service between Forest Glen and Glenmont. The question becomes, why? That tunnel section is so far from the rest of the underground stations, and you’re not connecting up with downtown Silver Spring. Who knows. The Yellow Line section in Virginia that’s running between Pentagon and Crystal City is one I can justify, because of the Pentagon and all the defense contractors out there. But the section up by me is running, yet Metro won’t even send full service up to there when running a regular schedule.
Speaking of the Red Line short turns, here’s what someone should do: Introduce a resolution or something that says that one cannot call regularly scheduled service on the A and B routes “Red Line” unless it goes all the way to both Glenmont and Shady Grove. Anything else would need to be designated as another color (I would suggest pink, to underline the not-quite-Red-Line element of it). None of this “Red Line to Silver Spring” and “Red Line to Grosvenor” nonsense. That’s not Red Line service. Force Metro to either spend a significant amount of money to re-sign the entire system for a new color for the short-turn trains, or run all regularly-scheduled Red Line trains to both Shady Grove and Glenmont. I’ll bet they’d pick the latter. This would, of course, need to exempt special services like snow routes and short-turns for track work. But that would nip the regularly-scheduled short turns in the bud.
And before anyone complains about this idea, I want to see you have to sit out trains of the color you need on a daily basis because they don’t go where you need them to go.
Now, though, time to clear the car.
Web site: TrafficLand.com
Song: How to be a ninja in 30 seconds. You know, this could actually help keep one pretty warm when it's cold...
Quote: Meanwhile, if I were to bet on it, I'm guessing no work tomorrow. But we'll see. No call has been made for Monday as of this posting.
Categories: Snowmageddon, WMATA