Rants about the NPS and government shutdown.

[Kolohe]

@lordofthemark 66306 wrote:

The metrorail station, IIUC was sited there as part of the original metro plan back in the 1960s. And from that, the bus station naturally followed (one of the initial fruits of metro was removing the massive number of buses that stopped on 14th street, IIUC.) And of course very large numbers of DoD employees rely on both. And the bus terminal was rebuilt, farther from the pentagon, after 9/11. For a brief period people transferred at Pentagon City.

Actually, the bus terminal renovation started before 9/11 http://metro.pentagon.mil/facts.htm – and iirc, was in some jeopardy of completion after 9/11 occurred. It is likely, imo that if the plan wasn’t already in the works and nearly complete, the whole bus bay would have been scuttled and indeed, permanently moved to Pentagon City.

[dasgeh]

@KLizotte 66331 wrote:

Be careful what you wish for. Arizona has been pushing hard to take over ownership of the Grand Canyon. Why? So they can allow mining companies in there. There is apparently a fair amount of uranium in the canyon.

The Pentagon parking lot, and even the hill that ANC is on, are not the Grand Canyon.

[lordofthemark]

Looks like other people have noticed the urbanism/bikeablity/walkability issues with the Pentagon.

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/10/09/arlington-strikes-walking-gold-in-a-river-of-highways-and-pentagon-sprawl/

[Terpfan]

@acl 66275 wrote:

Leaving the trail open and closing the parking lots seems kind of silly to me (though I personally appreciate continued access to the trail), but selectively picking and choosing which parking lots to close would be even sillier. I have zero doubt someone spent less time stopping by Tulane and putting up barricades on their way between putting up barricades at belle haven and fort hunt than it would have cost to pay someone to STUDY which parking lots to close, write up the decisions about which to close and which not to close, and convey that decision across departments and down the chain of command to the person putting up the barricades.

I might not want to be the person tasked with barricading four parking spaces, but I’d even less like to be the person tasked with going around looking at (if just on paper) every single parking lot deciding yay or nay on closing it. “Shut them all” or “leave them all open” are the only reasonable (well, as close to reasonable as you can get under the circumstances) options.

The shutdown is costing the government tons of money. Tons. (yes, that’s a very quantitative and accurate measurement:)) Planning and implementing which things close and what stays open and which people are furloughed and which are not is a huge undertaking that is going on in every agency at every level. The “extra” cost for barricades or guards or something is more or less irrelevant. The planning costs are invisible to the public, but much greater.

As long as they leave gaps for cyclists. For some reason, they decided to tape between their barricades. But, upon the warning of the feared magical Dyke Marsh Trolls, they seem to have left a feasible enough gap and have not changed it since. So I appreciate whomever at NPS is reading this and being kind on that one.

[birddog]

My favorite part about commuting during the shutdown in the rain is riding past police cruisers enforcing the closure of Jefferson and Madison st smiling, whistling, and this morning giving a big ol’ thumbs up!

My least favorite part about commuting during the shutdown is the super long or never changing light at maine ave and ohio dr sw.

how’s that for a rant?

[thucydides]

This is really a rant about my fellow cyclists and runners, rather than the NPS. But I didn’t see the point of creating a standalone thread. I was just on a run that took me on the MVT between TR and 14th Street. (I love running in the rain!) All along the trail I saw dozens of discarded gel packets. It was by far the most common sort of trash along the trail. Ridiculous. I don’t care if the government is shutdown. I don’t care if you’re a libertarian, right-winger, left-winger, furry, or space cadet it is never cool to just throw your garbage on the ground. You’ve got pockets. %#%&*#$ use them. The reality of course is that people aren’t littering any more than normal. It’s just that the shutdown means that NPS personnel aren’t picking up for us.

I started picking them up and very quickly found out that I couldn’t even make dent without a bag or something to carry them in.

You may be interested to hear that the favorite gel among cycling litterbugs is Gu (by far) and the favorite flavors (also by far) are chocolate and vanilla. Meanwhile over at the GW parkway I noticed that there’s a growing pile of crap discarded by motorists. I guess it’s just too much to ask someone to take that empty starbucks cup home to throw away.

[mstone]

people are pigs

Every time I overnight on the towpath I bring back a bag full of other people’s trash. I suppose maybe they all lack arms?

[rcannon100]

Potomac Pedalers email discussion group had a similar rant: dont throw it on the ground; you have pockets – stick it in there

Hole heartedly agree. Enjoyed todays ride because with no where to go, I could stop when I wanted to and fix things, or throw bricks out of the way (Custis) or pick up trash.

[DismalScientist]

Now that the shutdown is (temporarily:rolleyes:) over (and I am inspired by political rants in other threads):rolleyes:, it’s time for me to tell you what you should think of the shutdown.:rolleyes:

While I have my biases (which most of you can ascertain) I will try to analyze this from a “big picture” perspective. First, the issue of blame. The whole concept of blame when two parties fail to reach an agreement seems silly. Either party could have ended the shutdown by simply caving to the other’s position. That the news media apparently have assigned the blame to one party only suggests that the news media is now the arbiter of what constitutes a reasonable policy position. Is that a role that we wish the media, which vigorously proclaims themselves as “unbiased,” to take?

Taking a longer view than just the weeks before the shutdown, one sees that the House had passed a budget and various appropriations bills, on which the Senate had failed to act. When the fiscal year was about to end, the Democrats claimed that it would be irresponsible for the House not to pass a clean CR. If the public agrees that the House was being irresponsible by not passing a clean CR, then the Democrats have found a tactic that effectively ends the House’s ability to initiate an appropriation process leading to different spending and taxing priorities than those contained in the current budget. This is clearly a tactical victory for the Democrats, but only time will determine whether it is a strategic victory.

As it was the Democrats that were arguing that the shutdown would be costly and all the Republicans’ fault, it would be they who might have the incentive to make it more politically costly through how the shutdown was administered. One could argue that shutting down websites (rather than merely not updating them), barricading open air monuments, shutting down concessionaires for which the NPS provides no service (i.e. the Pedicabs), closing turnouts on public roads (at Mount Rushmore), and attempting to deny access to private residences on NPS land (Lake Mead) were attempts at maximizing the pain associated with the shutdown. Undoubtedly, arguments will be made that the shutdowns occur sufficiently infrequently that quickly-developed plans could not adequately discern which facilities to bar access and which to not. However, the NPS does not help these arguments when it does, in fact, seem to choose which facilities to close and for which users. For example, the NPS chose not to close the Parkways at all and chose to close Ohio, Jefferson, and Madison Drives to cars but not bikes. (None of this should be taken as a comment about NPS personnel, but rather a comment directed at NPS administrators and those issuing orders to the NPS.)

On the pedicabs: Presumably in the concession agreement for pedicabs, the only “service” the NPS provides is to not haul your sorry asses into court if you pick up passengers on NPS land. Presumably cab drivers don’t need a concession from the NPS to drive on the Mall and regale the passengers with stories of which congressmen did which indiscretion at any particular location on the Mall. As such, I don’t see any basis for the NPS to keep you from continuing to provide Pedicab service. The NPS was required to have a First Amendment exception from keeping people off the Mall. Although they claimed you needed a permit, I would think you could drive a truck through that exception. Besides public safety, there should be no way for the NPS to deny such a permit because the permit process itself is likely a violation of the First Amendment.

[baiskeli]

@DismalScientist 67301 wrote:

Either party could have ended the shutdown by simply caving to the other’s position.

But in this case, one party’s position was to continue the negotiations by extending the deadline (the negotiations being the normal democratic process for making funding decisions; the deadline being the end of the fiscal year), while the other side’s positions was to continue that negotiation only if it got a major concession it had failed to get through the negotiations.

If this had been a deal between two potential business partners who could walk away, the first party would have done so, and rightfully so. It’s not good-faith negotiations.

[lordofthemark]

@DismalScientist 67301 wrote:

One could argue that shutting down websites (rather than merely not updating them),…. were attempts at maximizing the pain associated with the shutdown.

I do not know much about the NPS decisions on parkways, but I do know that keeping a statistical agency website up, without personnel to deal with technical issues, to revise errors, to deal with hacking attempts, etc, would be problematic.

I would suggest that the earlier material in your post about negotiations is way off topic to this board. I do NOT agree with it, but do not consider it appropriate to engage with it. I think it would be best if we kept to cycling related material (and if by other political rants you are referring to discussion of the Va governors race, I made it a point in my posts to keep to issues related to transportation and cycling)

[DismalScientist]

Thought it might be time to bump this thread.:rolleyes:

[baiskeli]

@baiskeli 67302 wrote:

But in this case, one party’s position was to continue the negotiations by extending the deadline (the negotiations being the normal democratic process for making funding decisions; the deadline being the end of the fiscal year), while the other side’s positions was to continue that negotiation only if it got a major concession it had failed to get through the negotiations.

If this had been a deal between two potential business partners who could walk away, the first party would have done so, and rightfully so. It’s not good-faith negotiations.

Thanks for the bump, Dismal, it appears my comment from last time (above) will apply almost exactly the same this time around.

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