THE PLAN TO REPLACE the Tomb of the Unknowns' deteriorated Colorado marble has been put on hold, blocked by an amendment pushed by Sens. Daniel Akaka and Jim Webb attached to the defense authorization bill signed by President Bush on Monday.
As The Post's Michael E. Ruane reports:
The amendment blocks replacement, but not repair, of the monument, pending a review of its condition and the feasibility of replacing it.Arlington Cemetery officials have wanted to replace the monument's cracked marble, which was installed in 1931, but that controversial plan has come under fire by those who say the hallowed tomb should be repaired and preserved instead.
» "Bid to Replace Tomb Monument Stalls" [WaPo]
» "Quoted: Unknown Fate for Arlington's Tomb" [Free Ride/Express]
Photo by James A. Parcell/The Washington Post"
A MONUMENT TO 40 U.S. SOLDIERS who died in an air crash in Australia during World War II is caught in battle over its ultimate resting spot.
As The Post's Steve Vogel reports, the monument, which is 5 feet high, 4 feet wide and made of pink Queensland granite, sits at the Australian Embassy in D.C. The governments of Australia and the state of Queensland, where the crash happened, donated the granite for the memorial. The incident is Australia's worst air disaster.
But a memorial association has pressed for the marker to be moved to a more prominent location, either at Arlington National Cemetery or nearby at Fort Meyer, the site of the U.S. military's first test flight in 1908.
Continue Reading "Debate Continues Over Home for a WWII Monument" »
"THEY WANT IT PERFECT. I don't discount that thought process at all. But the only way to put a piece of stone there and make sure it stays perfect is to put it in a controlled environment. That's why you put things in a museum."
— Mary Oehrlein, a preservation architect, on discussions at Arlington National Cemetery about the growing crack at the monument above the Tomb of the Unknowns and whether it should be repaired or replaced entirely. As The Post's Michael E. Ruane reports, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka "added an amendment to the Senate version of this year's defense authorization bill that would halt any decision on replacing the tomb, pending a report to Congress."» "At Aging Arlington Memorial, Debating Repair vs. Replacement" [WaPo]
Photo by James A. Parcell/The Washington Post
AFTER ANOTHER SERIES of smoky eruptions shut down another batch of Metrorail stations during Monday's evening rush, Metro officials are considering the possibility that the incidents could have been caused intentionally.
"This is not normal," Metro General Manager John Catoe said, according to The Post's Lena H. Sun and Martin Weil. "This is highly, highly irregular."
Report Sun and Weil:
Asked whether he thought the incidents might be intentional, [Catoe] said: "Could it be something else [other than an accident]? Everything now is suspicious."Monday's delays began at around 7 p.m. after several trains lost power between the Pentagon City and Braddock Road stations on the Blue and Yellow lines, according to a Metro press statement. A track fire was reported at the Pentagon City station. A fire was also reported at the U Street-Cardozo station, which shut down both that station and the stop at Columbia Heights from 7:20 p.m. to 8:40 p.m., the statement said.A spokesman for the D.C. fire department said that the department was "very concerned" about the large number of incidents in a brief period and that the department would try to assist Metro in determining whether they were more than accidental.
Shuttle buses ferried passengers between L'Enfant Plaza and Huntington and also between the Georgia Avenue-Petworth and Shaw-Howard University stations.
Continue Reading "Smoke, Fire Cause Another Messy Metro Commute" »
FIRST, METRO EXTENDED the Yellow Line from Mount Vernon Square. Now the transit agency will be running trains all the way to Greenbelt, at least for this coming weekend. A major switch replacement adjacent to the Arlington Cemetery station will force Blue Line trains to enter and exit the District via the Yellow Line's bridge over the Potomac River starting at 8 p.m., Friday. Shuttle bus service will run between the Pentagon and Rosslyn stations, serving the Arlington Cemetery station, which will be closed.
The service alterations will bring about other changes for the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day three-day weekend.
» Yellow Line trains will run from their normal Huntington terminal in Virginia to the Green Line's Greenbelt terminal in Maryland.
» Orange Line trains will alternate their final Maryland destiantions between the line's normal New Carrollton terminal and the Largo Town Center station, which would ordinarily only be served by the Blue Line.
» The Red and Green lines will run on their normal routes.
» "Weekend Track Work to Close Blue Line Between Pentagon and Rosslyn" [WMATA]
THIS NEW YEAR'S weekend, residents and visitors to the Green Line's Mid-City corridor — including the ever-popular U Street and redeveloping Columbia Heights and Petworth neighborhoods — will start seeing Yellow Line trains serving the Metrorail route between the Mount Vernon Square-7th Street-Convention Center and Fort Totten stations. 
Starting Sunday, the new Yellow Line service will run during off-peak hours and on weekends, which should quell complaints that there isn't enough train frequency to those busy neighborhoods. During the 18-month pilot study, Yellow Line trains will terminate service at Mount Vernon Square during rush hour, when Green Line service is more frequent.
» "Metro Extends Yellow Line to Fort Totten During Off-Peak Hours" [WMATA]
» METROBUS CHANGES: Starting Sunday, Metro will be implementing changes to timetables and routes on a number of Metrobus lines in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Details here.
» TRACKWORK AHEAD: While December has been largely free of trackwork, the new year will bring weekday, weeknight and weekend maintenance, including two major switch replacements affecting the Blue and Orange lines. This will include the closure of the Arlington Cemetery and Cheverly stations on certain holiday weekends. Those who commute between 10 a.m and 2 p.m. weekdays should expect single-tracking on segments of the Red, Blue, Yellow and Green lines. Metro has details here.
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
PEOPLE WHO drive Route 110 every day whiz by Arlington National Cemetery, its thousands of gravesites a reminder of foreign wars, past and present. But the cemetery sits back behind a wall, and to most it's out of sight, out of mind. Inside the confines of Arlington's hallowed ground, however, October has been a very sad month, with more funerals for those who have fallen in Iraq during a particularly bloody month. By Saturday, there had been nearly 100 deaths by U.S. forces, the most since January 2005, according to The New York Times. Friday was an overcast and very sad day at the cemetery, The Post's Arianne Aryanpur writes, with an Army corporal and captain buried, the 268th and 269th people from the Iraq war interred at the cemetery.
» "A Most Violent Month, and Many Final Farewells" [NYT]
» "Officer, Soldier Shared Passions" [WaPo]
» PALISADES: On Sunday, this writer took a hike through the back trails of Upper Northwest up to beautiful Battery Kemble Park (seen here being enjoyed by a park-goer reading a newspaper) and Chain Bridge Road — a winding country lane that dates back to the Civil War when an earthwork protected the route between Tenleytown (then known as Tennallytown) and Chain Bridge. Today, it's a quiet street lined with some of Washington's toniest addresses. And a coalition of boldfaced names — including NBC News' Andrea Mitchell and husband Alan Greenspan — and other neighbors are fighting the well-connected developer Morton Bender who is determine to built 13 mansions on 3.5 acres of land across from Battery Kemble, The Post's Lyndsey Layton reports. And any fight with Bender is usually an epic battle. Stay tuned. [WaPo]
» BALLSTON, SILVER SPRING: The Washington Capitals' practice facility atop the massive parking garage at the Ballston Common Mall is just about finished and will open to the public in December with its two NHL-size ice rinks. The Post's preview of the facility by Annie Gowen has blogger Silver Spring Singular green with envy. "Maybe this wouldn't have been practical for reasons I am not aware, but it strikes me as something that would have been perfect in downtown Silver Spring." [WaPo; Silver Spring Singular]
» COLLEGE PARK: Although the University of Maryland has the third-highest number of violent crimes reported on a U.S. college campus (according to the FBI), gay students say they aren't scared. [Washington Blade]
A CENTURY OR SO ago, Washingtonians escaped the sweltering summer temperatures and oppressive humidity of the city's lowlands by retreating to higher and more bucolic environs like Cleveland Park to hang out on the grand front porches of the summer retreats on what are now Newark Street NW and Highland Place, an example seen at left. We journeyed up to Cleveland Park earlier this morning, and it seemed just as hot as anyplace else in the city — so we wonder why President Grover Cleveland found it so inviting as a summer escape.
Cynics who would question the attention paid to the heat wave by officials and the press — it's summer so it's hot, right? — are probably sitting in air conditioning. We can only imagine what it's like to be Ilda Doblado Baraona of Langley Park, pictured above with her nearly 2-year-old daughter Wendy Hernandez, who lives without air conditioning, which is downright dangerous in these conditions. A team of reporters from The Post fanned out across the area yesterday and sent in dispatches of how the heat is affecting the region's residents, from garbage haulers to those waiting for the No. 90 bus.
Photos by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post and Michael Grass/Express
So what else is happening on this hot, humid and nasty Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2006? Let's get to it.
» POWER UP: The intense heat has placed increased pressure on the region's electrical grid with Pepco recording an "unofficial new peak demand for electricity" on Tuesday, the AP reports. But with the heat wave continuing, that record is likely to be broken. [AP via WJLA]
» CRACKS IN THE TOMB: While the Tomb of the Unknowns isn't in any immediate danger, officials at Arlington National Cemetery are exploring options on how to repair cracks in the 74-year-old marble monument, fissures that will only grow more serious in the coming years, the AP reports. [AP via WTOP]
» FEMA'S TOUGH LOVE: A Federal Emergency Management Agency official has said that since the city of Alexandria and Fairfax and Arlington counties are affluent, residents whose homes were damaged in the late June deluge aren't eligible for federal aid and should depend on their local officials for relief, The Post's Lisa Rein and Bill Turque report. "It's an affluent community that's able to address the specific needs of its residents," said FEMA's Dan Martinez, a statement that's outraged local officials. [WaPo]
» FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, as always, go to washingtonpost.com and Washington Post Radio.
FOR MANY BLUE LINE COMMUTERS, the Arlington Cemetery station is an annoyance -- a delay that can cause the long trip between the Pentagon and Rosslyn stations to drag out even more. Blue Line rider BJ Helwig notices that now that we're in the depths of tourist season, the commuter vs. tourist dynamic can get a little confrontational.
I ride the Blue Line from downtown to King Street on my way home in the evenings. Now, I could probably count on one hand the number of people who have used the Arlington Cemetery station since September. It is usually a ghost town -- trains at night do not even stop there. Now the station is alive with tourists. Commuters, who have forgotten the station exists, are stunned to have people fighting to get out there. Conversely, the tourist does not think that anyone would live at -- or even need to get off the train at -- a place called "Pentagon City" (sounds like a prison on the Planet of the Apes) or "Crystal City" (sounds like a halfway house for meth addicts). And therein lies your problem.Wonder if there's a "stand on the right" rule on escalators in Boise....Last month, I saw an escalating panic as tourists couldn't exit the train at Arlington Cemetery because of commuters clogging the door. The polite "Excuse me" escalated into a panicked "Let us through!" very quickly. They got out, but more tourists got on, reclogging the door. The reverse happened at Pentagon City, where commuters demanded "Clear a space!" to get themselves off.
It's no one's fault, but we do have to remember that this is "America's Subway," as the sign at L'Enfant Plaza reminds us. So we are all going to have to get along. And we commuters who use the system every day must take up the task of getting the tourists on the right track. (Cheap pun fully intended.) You never know -- when you end up on a bus in Boise, aren't you going to wish someone was looking out for you?
[Want to contribute a Commuter Dispatch? Send us your thoughts at comments [at] readexpress [dot] com.]
Photo by Michael Grass/Express
Addison Road