POTOMACAVE.

AS METRO GEARS UP to make its fare hikes a reality next month, the transit agency is also working to make it easier to buy one of its rechargeable SmarTrip fare cards.

Bus riders will be especially interested in SmarTrip cards. After the new rates go into effect on Jan. 6, riding the bus will still cost $1.25 if you pay with a card, but fares will rise to $1.35 for those paying in cash.

No surprise, then, that the special kiosks Metro officials are setting up to sell the cards next week will be in rail stations that they say cater to a large number of bus riders. The special sales of SmarTrip cards, which cost $5 to buy, are scheduled from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at these dates and locations, according to a Metro press release:

» Jan. 3 at the Anacostia Metrorail station (near the bus bays)
» Jan. 4 at the Minnesota Avenue station
» Jan. 7 at the Columbia Heights station
» Jan. 8 at the Union Station and Potomac Avenue stations
» Jan. 9 at the Silver Spring and Ballston-MU stations
» Jan. 10 at the Brookland-CUA station

Riders can also pick up SmarTrip cards online, as well as at Metro sales offices, some Giant stores, commuter stores and vending machines at Metrorail stations that have parking facilities, Metro says.

Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington PostRESIDENTS OF Potomac Avenue SE are relieved: another summer swarmed by starlings is finally over.

The birds, which come to roost in the neighborhood in hordes every summer, began leaving of their own accord in late August and early September, resident Jennifer Smira told The Post — with little prodding from D.C. officials despite repeated pleas from residents.

Their presence this year had some unpleasant results. From The Post:

Their droppings whitewashed the sidewalks, clumped to the lids and handles of trash cans, dotted front fences and made it so that every time Smira walked her dog, she had to clean its paws with baby wipes before they returned inside.
Smira said a local firefighter brought his own pressure washer to clear away the slimy debris.

Continue Reading "Potomac Ave. Bird Battle Ends — Till Next Year" »

Henry IVIF THE RESIDENTS OF 1600 POTOMAC AVE. SE know their Shakespeare, they should detest "Henry IV." Why? Throughout the Bard's work, there are many references to birds, from eagles and larks to woodcocks and wrens.

But "Henry IV," pictured at right, contains Shakespeare's only reference to the starling. As the story goes, an American Shakespeare enthusiast, Eugene Scheifflin, wanted to introduce all of the avian creatures mentioned in the great playwright's work to the United States, and decided that the starling's solitary mention was enough justification to release a flock of the birds in New York City's Central Park. Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington PostSince then, their North American population has exploded and the birds are now considered urban pests.

Those living on Potomac Avenue near Congressional Cemetery certainly know that. As The Post's Darragh Johnson reports, the 1600 block has become a "site fidelity" — a term ornithologists use to describe a "genetically imprinted" roosting site. And the "bird bombs" dropped daily are driving residents batty as District officials scratch their heads about what can be done to scatter the starlings.

One can only hope that there is nobody by the name of "Mortimer" living on the affected block.

» "Life Is Pure Hitchcock on Block of Capitol Hill" [WaPo]
» "European Starlings" [Starling Talk]
» "Starling" [Birds of the Bard]

Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesIF ONLY CRIME, like the weather, could be predicted ...

Last July, the District sprang into action after a young British political activist was brutally murdered on Q Street NW outside the Georgetown mansion at right, which was then owned by developer Herb Miller. While the number of muggings and other street attacks had been increasing across the District — and in concentrations in areas of the city — it was the Georgetown attack, the attention it elicited and the spike in crime that July that brought about a declared crime emergency. (The two charged in that Georgetown death, Christopher Piper, 26, and Jeffrey Rice, 23, pleaded guilty on Monday and face up to 100 years in prison each for that death and three other robberies in Georgetown and Adams Morgan.)

But will the summer of 2007 be much like the summer of 2006? Will warmer temperatures bring criminal elements out in full force? According to an analysis of crime data from last year by The Post, the city's "robbery core" is centered in Ward 1, which includes neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, which are under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Department's 3rd Police District.

As The Post's Allison Klein and Dan Keating wrote at the time:

... [R]obbers are traveling farther from home to strike, according to police officials. During the first six months of [2006], about 40 percent of juveniles arrested in robberies and other crimes in neighborhoods just north of downtown did not live there, police said.
In particular, Friday and Saturday nights see an uptick in crime.

So far, at least on Capitol Hill, the spring has sparked its own crime spike, with 19 robberies logged from Friday night through Monday. As Klein reports this morning:

No one was seriously hurt, police said, although some victims were knocked to the ground. In some cases, assailants brandished knives. Other robberies were purse-snatchings, including one at 3 p.m. Sunday about two blocks from Eastern Market.
And police don't know why criminals are targeting the Hill, making the art of predicting what could happen as summer approaches anyone's guess.

» "Guilty Pleas in British Activist's Death" [WaPo]
» "Liveliest D.C. Neighborhoods Also Jumping With Robberies" [WaPo]
» "Robberies Shake Up Residents, D.C. Police" [WaPo]

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Photo by Robert A. Reeder/The Washington PostTHE SUNDAY CHURCH parking dispute in the District that spiked this spring has resurfaced — but this time it's a group offering potential solutions. According to The Post's Nikita Stewart, a task force charged with analyzing the problems relating to churchgoers disregarding parking regulations in neighborhoods like Shaw and Logan Circle has issued its report that recommends that police enforce parking rules, but also says officials should work with churches to come up with "common sense" solutions — like parking on medians or providing shuttle service from parking lots that can accommodate church parking.
Photo by Robert A. Reeder/The Washington Post
» "Task Force Urges Ticketing, Common Sense at Churches" [WaPo, 2nd item]

» CLEVELAND PARK: The Adas Israel Congregation synagogue on Quebec Street NW has received one of the largest single gifts ever given to a house of worship in recent years. The $5 million donation came from retired business journalist Donald Saltz, The Post's Michelle Boorstein reports. [WaPo]

» SILVER SPRING: Blogger Silver Spring Singular wants "chain haters" to listen up: "not all chains necessarily survive" in downtown Silver Spring. The Phillips Famous Seafood Express is now gone and will be replaced by a Moby Dick's House of Kabob. Also, Storehouse Furniture's parent company has filed for bankruptcy. What does that mean for the store's prime real estate? [SSS]

» POTOMAC AVENUE: New court records show that community opposition to a once-proposed Boys Town group home at Pennsylvania and Potomac avenues in Southeast had "racial undertones." The Washington Times' Jim McElhatton reports on a deposition in "a civil rights lawsuit filed against the District by the Justice Department and the nonprofit Father Flanagan's Girls and Boys Home" in which one community activist referred to the children who would have been served by the home as "these kinds of kids." [WT]

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