Bowser urges Biden to end telework policies for federal workers

[Anonymous]

I telework 2 days and when I was in DC yesterday I bought a burrito and a bottle of water from Qdoba and it was almost $20.00. Bowser can start by fixing vagrancy and homelessness Fed workers aren’t going to buy enough lunch to fix DC even if they all return full time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She needs to shove it. There are homeless people all over the sidewalks near my office. You can't even walk on the sidewalk if you want to go out to lunch. She should worry about that.

+1000

Bowser should first worry about cleaning up all the vagrancy, crime and homelessness in downtown DC. Office workers will be more likely to come back when it looks less like a war zone.

+1 DC has spent the last 3 years making downtown as uninviting as possible. If they at least put in some effort into making it a nice place to come to I am sure feelings about returning to in-person work would be a lot different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I telework 2 days and when I was in DC yesterday I bought a burrito and a bottle of water from Qdoba and it was almost $20.00. Bowser can start by fixing vagrancy and homelessness Fed workers aren’t going to buy enough lunch to fix DC even if they all return full time.

Jesus. What a waste of money. It seems like prices everywhere have increased 50% or more. The idea that Federal workers need to come back in order to be ripped off is ridiculous. I recommend stocking up your office with protein shakes from
Costco. They are cheap, filling and provide all your essential nutrients. Maybe it’s not as satisfying as a burrito, but when the alternative is to spend $20 at Qdoba I’m going with the shake.

[Anonymous]

I'm a fed and in general I prefer in person over telework. But Bowser needs to work on crime! Twice I've had truly deranged people come up to me on Metro holding knives during my regular commute. And not pocket knives! I need Metro to come in and it is a true shit show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a fed and in general I prefer in person over telework. But Bowser needs to work on crime! Twice I've had truly deranged people come up to me on Metro holding knives during my regular commute. And not pocket knives! I need Metro to come in and it is a true shit show.

Ha, Bowser and the loony DC Council will do exactly nothing about all the vagrants and criminals. It is you the evil commuter who is to blame for all the troubles in downtown DC. How dare you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metro is a mess. The roads are more congested than ever (and they just announced plans for 100s more speed cameras in case going down major arteries like 16th wasn't painful enough). And crime is worse than ever. Maybe Bowser should focus on ways to make it easier for people to get downtown, rather than forcing them to do it against their will.

Exactly! make it more attractive for people to want to come in. She has been bashing commuters, taking parking spaces away, creating more and more bike lanes, cameras, etc for years. Where the hell does she think feds can afford to live? It's not an easy bike ride to work.

This!
DC treats commuters really bad, makes them feel unwelcome. Why would they want to come back?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metro is a mess. The roads are more congested than ever (and they just announced plans for 100s more speed cameras in case going down major arteries like 16th wasn't painful enough). And crime is worse than ever. Maybe Bowser should focus on ways to make it easier for people to get downtown, rather than forcing them to do it against their will.

Exactly! make it more attractive for people to want to come in. She has been bashing commuters, taking parking spaces away, creating more and more bike lanes, cameras, etc for years. Where the hell does she think feds can afford to live? It's not an easy bike ride to work.

This!
DC treats commuters really bad, makes them feel unwelcome. Why would they want to come back?

+1. You can’t put bike lanes on major arterial roads AND expect professional workers to return en masse Can’t have both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re telling me the hordes of bikers downtown are spending enough scratch? C’mon man!

I’ve heard it frequently said that bike lanes increase business. I guess that’s wrong.

Right. One anonymous post on DCUM carries much more weight than dozens of academic studies.

Are any of those academic studies about downtown DC? Here in DC they built a lot of bike lanes during COVID and now that we’re out of COVID businesses keep failing. So whatever economic boost they theoretically are supposed to provide it’s clearly not working in downtown DC.

I’ll have “how can one so egregiously confuse correlation with causation?” for 500, Alex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metro is a mess. The roads are more congested than ever (and they just announced plans for 100s more speed cameras in case going down major arteries like 16th wasn't painful enough). And crime is worse than ever. Maybe Bowser should focus on ways to make it easier for people to get downtown, rather than forcing them to do it against their will.

Exactly! make it more attractive for people to want to come in. She has been bashing commuters, taking parking spaces away, creating more and more bike lanes, cameras, etc for years. Where the hell does she think feds can afford to live? It's not an easy bike ride to work.

This!
DC treats commuters really bad, makes them feel unwelcome. Why would they want to come back?

+1. You can’t put bike lanes on major arterial roads AND expect professional workers to return en masse Can’t have both.

Understand induced demand. Over time, the lanes won’t make any difference to the time of your commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metro is a mess. The roads are more congested than ever (and they just announced plans for 100s more speed cameras in case going down major arteries like 16th wasn't painful enough). And crime is worse than ever. Maybe Bowser should focus on ways to make it easier for people to get downtown, rather than forcing them to do it against their will.

Exactly! make it more attractive for people to want to come in. She has been bashing commuters, taking parking spaces away, creating more and more bike lanes, cameras, etc for years. Where the hell does she think feds can afford to live? It's not an easy bike ride to work.

This!
DC treats commuters really bad, makes them feel unwelcome. Why would they want to come back?

+1. You can’t put bike lanes on major arterial roads AND expect professional workers to return en masse Can’t have both.

Understand induced demand. Over time, the lanes won’t make any difference to the time of your commute.

How quickly is this supposed to work and how much time does downtown DC have?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re telling me the hordes of bikers downtown are spending enough scratch? C’mon man!

I’ve heard it frequently said that bike lanes increase business. I guess that’s wrong.

Right. One anonymous post on DCUM carries much more weight than dozens of academic studies.

Are any of those academic studies about downtown DC? Here in DC they built a lot of bike lanes during COVID and now that we’re out of COVID businesses keep failing. So whatever economic boost they theoretically are supposed to provide it’s clearly not working in downtown DC.

I’ll have “how can one so egregiously confuse correlation with causation?” for 500, Alex.

I’m no scientist but any such study would be extremely place specific. Extrapolating to a different location and context depends on a lot of assumptions that would invalidate any conclusions.

So it’s entirely possible that bike lanes say in Bethesda at the terminus of the CCT could facilitate more business while in downtown DC they could harm business. Assuming one size fits all is the silliest assumption of all.

But serious question, how many more bike lanes does downtown DC need to stimulate the economy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re telling me the hordes of bikers downtown are spending enough scratch? C’mon man!

I’ve heard it frequently said that bike lanes increase business. I guess that’s wrong.

Right. One anonymous post on DCUM carries much more weight than dozens of academic studies.

Someone needs to tell Mayor Bowser about these studies. Because if more bike lanes mean more business then she should do that instead of asking the President to compel Federal workers back into the office. It would be a win-win for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I telework 2 days and when I was in DC yesterday I bought a burrito and a bottle of water from Qdoba and it was almost $20.00. Bowser can start by fixing vagrancy and homelessness Fed workers aren’t going to buy enough lunch to fix DC even if they all return full time.

Jesus. What a waste of money. It seems like prices everywhere have increased 50% or more. The idea that Federal workers need to come back in order to be ripped off is ridiculous. I recommend stocking up your office with protein shakes from
Costco. They are cheap, filling and provide all your essential nutrients. Maybe it’s not as satisfying as a burrito, but when the alternative is to spend $20 at Qdoba I’m going with the shake.

DP. Prices have totally gone up. I generally bring my lunch but previously when things get busy would buy out once a week, but I swear lunch at my pre-pandemic quick service haunts cost 50% more. Just not worth it. I'll still get a coffee/muffin sometimes but have really buckled down on bringing my lunch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I telework 2 days and when I was in DC yesterday I bought a burrito and a bottle of water from Qdoba and it was almost $20.00. Bowser can start by fixing vagrancy and homelessness Fed workers aren’t going to buy enough lunch to fix DC even if they all return full time.

Jesus. What a waste of money. It seems like prices everywhere have increased 50% or more. The idea that Federal workers need to come back in order to be ripped off is ridiculous. I recommend stocking up your office with protein shakes from
Costco. They are cheap, filling and provide all your essential nutrients. Maybe it’s not as satisfying as a burrito, but when the alternative is to spend $20 at Qdoba I’m going with the shake.

DP. Prices have totally gone up. I generally bring my lunch but previously when things get busy would buy out once a week, but I swear lunch at my pre-pandemic quick service haunts cost 50% more. Just not worth it. I'll still get a coffee/muffin sometimes but have really buckled down on bringing my lunch.

I don’t think it’s possible to get even a basic lunch downtown for under $15 + tax/tip anymore. And they wonder why businesses are failing. Maybe property owners should start cutting breaks on commercial rents to keep costs down for their commercial tenants. But they would never do that. It’s pretty clear that things are only going to get worse and more slowly and much longer than anyone expects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Metro is a mess. The roads are more congested than ever (and they just announced plans for 100s more speed cameras in case going down major arteries like 16th wasn't painful enough). And crime is worse than ever. Maybe Bowser should focus on ways to make it easier for people to get downtown, rather than forcing them to do it against their will.

Exactly! make it more attractive for people to want to come in. She has been bashing commuters, taking parking spaces away, creating more and more bike lanes, cameras, etc for years. Where the hell does she think feds can afford to live? It's not an easy bike ride to work.

This!
DC treats commuters really bad, makes them feel unwelcome. Why would they want to come back?

+1. You can’t put bike lanes on major arterial roads AND expect professional workers to return en masse Can’t have both.

Understand induced demand. Over time, the lanes won’t make any difference to the time of your commute.

Induced demand means fewer people commuting downtown, ergo you can't have both bike lanes on major arterial roads AND expect professional workers to return en masse