snowpocalypse

Thundersnow and the Nightmare Commute

by Kathryn Ciano on January 27, 2011

in Mobility

Last night’s Surprise Snowpocalypse froze traffic in place for upwards of 13 hours.

Check out this visual above for where the traffic accumulated, from Greater Greater Washington, illustrating the divide between urban and suburban commutes.

I wrote at the Examiner:

Check out how the worst congestion — the deep red lines — is in the western and southwestern portion of the District, where the suburbs sprawl the most. In the northeast part of the map, into tighter urban Silver Spring, there’s congestion, but nothing as frightening as that bloodshot sprawl into Virginia.

People abandoned their cars in the midst of their 12-, 13-hour commutes home. Even buses were stopped in the slush, while Metro trains powered (slowly) through:

In the District, at the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Albemarle Street NW in Van Ness, buses and cars were tangled in every direction, blocking the intersection for hours. One bus blocked three lanes of Connecticut Avenue for more than two hours. A pair of Metrobus drivers – who declined to identify themselves because they said they were not authorized to speak to reporters – called it the worst travel conditions they have seen in the city during their combined 23 years behind the wheel.

Today buses are crawling along District snow emergency routes, while drivers who abandoned their cars scramble to retrieve them from tow zones. Though there was no snow emergency declared last night, all of greater D.C. jumped to emergency measures.

D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services tweeted that their emergency call volume in the twelve hours under snow nearly quadrupled the volume of an average day:

@ 12 hour period (4p-4a) DC F&EMS handled over 700 calls for service – typically in 24 hr we will handle about 450 calls

Drive safely, kids. If you’re lucky enough to rely on your own two feet to commute, be a good neighbor and shovel your sidewalks. Snow is heavy, slippery stuff, and many of your neighbors can’t take care of it themselves. It’s easy to see which neighbors — and which businesses! — have cleared their walks and who hasn’t!

(Photo from Prince of Petworth)

Federal Register Reaches 10,000 Pages

by Ryan Young on March 4, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Politics as Usual, Regulation

The 2010 Federal Register passed the 10,000 page mark this morning. It hit the milestone with a State Department request for grant proposals for a “One-time Competitive Grants Program – Competition A – Academic Programs.” $8,000,000 of grants are available if you’re interested.

I noted earlier that it only took 4 working days to top 1,000 pages. Now, after 42 working days, the grand total is 10,158. That’s an average of 242 new pages of rules and notices every working day.

Assuming 250 working days this year, the 2010 Federal Register is on pace to reach 60,464 pages. This would be substantially lower than last year’s figure of 68,598. Part of the slowdown is likely due to the four-day federal shutdown from last month’s snow storms. Another factor is a relative lack of major legislation (so far), as often happens in election years.

Federal Government Shuts Down Due to Snow

by Ryan Young on February 8, 2010

in Deregulate to Stimulate, Economy, Nanny State, Personal Liberty, Politics as Usual, Regulation, Stimulus to Nowhere, Zeitgeist

Few people outside of the DC area are likely to notice, but the recent snowstorm shut down the federal government today. Another big snow is on the way, so the feds are also taking tomorrow off.

The Washington Post reports:

Official estimate [sic] that closing the federal government for a day due to the weather costs roughly $100 million in lost productivity and opportunity costs, meaning this weekend’s storm will have potentially cost taxpayers at least $250 million, for last Friday’s early dismissal and Monday’s and Tuesday’s closures.

That is dwarfed, of course, by the opportunity costs of having a $3.8 trillion federal government in the first place. Not to mention the productivity losses.The federal government spends $49.1 billion enforcing regulations that cost nearly $1.2 trillion. if even half of that were freed up, imagine the good that would come of it.

The billions and billions of dollars spent on earmarks and stimulus would do far more good if that money stayed in the productive sector, subject to the self-correcting mechanisms of profit and loss.

In short: America benefits when Washington busybodies take a few days off. So enjoy it while it lasts.

There is great wisdom in Mark Twain’s famous adage: “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the congress is in session.”