Options for opposing Connecticut Avenue changes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did it become the general consensus around here that the ANCs primarily represent the voices of transient young renters? That has not been my experience in observing ANCs over more than 20 years living in D.C. (and more than 15 years owning property here).

Th3 general consensus is that ANCs represent nobody but themselves.

That may be right, but I suspect voter turnout is higher among longtime homeowners than it is among transient young renters.

[Anonymous]

What I've learned here after 63 pages is that the anti bike crowd thinks that their voice is so important that it supercedes their local ANCs, and that complaining on an anonymous message born is the more meaningful type of activism

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the city's policy is to build as much housing as possible, to accommodate more people, but reduce the capacity of roads to handle their cars?

Can we do the opposite?

Make people's lives better by making it easier to get around, and discourage more people from moving here?

You should visit Houston sometime. Massive roads down there. Lots of low density housing. You should love it.

you know dc is one of the most densely populated cities in the western hemisphere, right?

The point was that the poster seems to want DC to be a very different city. The city they seem to want is probably best represented by Houston, which builds massive freeways just for the hell of it. I moved to DC because I like density and I like being able to get around without driving everywhere. Other people like that about DC too.

"the city they seem to want."

sweetie, i'm the pp and ive been in dc longer than you've been alive. I know you just moved here from shitty town, indiana and you have all the answers and know all about life in the big city, but maybe you should keep quiet and let the adults talk.

The "adults" are the ones who brought us the car-dependent auto-centric neighborhoods. It has proven to be a disaster in terms of land use, ecology and environmental sustainability, much less transportation policy. As such, you might want to sit this one out and let the rest of us implement something that works for the broader society and not the single family homeowners who take up more space with their inefecient use of land and public space with their inefficient auto-centric built environment.

NP. Except the adults in the room who own single family homes in the District make more money, pay more in taxes and essentially keep this city going. You realize that without ys your city goes to sh*t, right?

How utterly pathetic can you get? Just because you own a SFH doesn't make you any better - or give your voice any more importance - than those who don't. Those drunk homeless people you complain about have the same vote you do. You are not better than them or anyone else. I'm embarrassed to share a city with you. It's folk that you that give us - Ward 3 homeowners - a bad name.

Actually i was a NP and never mentioned homeless but hey, newsflash, homeless people don’t vote.

Says who? Says you? They are entitled to vote. They are entitled to participate in ANC meetings. They are entitled to an opinion. And, in not laboring under the ridiculous assumption that owning a home gives them some priveleged position in society, are doing a hell of a lot better than you are.

Actually i don’t feel more important or privileged at all and despite your idiotic conclusions have tremendous empathy for those with less. I was pointing out 2 obvious ( or rather what should be obvious points) 1- if you drive out high earning tax paying residents DC goes to sh*t like it was in the 80’s and 90’s and (2) homeless people without an ID or proof of residence are not “entitled” to vote nor is it my experience that they attend ANC meetings. Grow up and work on your critical reasoning skills.

Nice backpedaling, clown. Claiming that your voice is more important because you own your home is a sad, sad move. And thinking that a majority of your fellow home owners agree with your positions is foolish. I'd love to be at the meeting where you stand up, voice your opinion and then claim that it carries extra weight because you, uh, own your home. Please give us a heads up so we can be there to witness.

No one of course has more than a single vote, whether they own a home or a car or neither. But being a homeowner myself, I am opposed to these changes. Traffic in fact has NOT gotten worse over the last multiple decades, and I have been driving CT Avenue since the 1980s. Of course, there will be an occasional accident but no evidence exists that a rampant problem exists. Moreover, as a PP mentioned, driving high income taxpayers out of DC will hurt. DC has done well financially over the last few decades primarily due to the high income taxpayers. At the Federal level, the top 1% pays roughly 40% of all income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of all income taxes. Simply stated, DC's social programs depend on the high income taxpayers remaining in DC. No money, no social programs.

When you sink your life savings into a house, and you attend the local church, and you send your kids to the local public schools then yeah, the ANCs should listen a little more to you over a 20 something renter who will probably move to Cleveland or Richmond in a year or two.

I own a house and send my kids to the local public school. Unfortunately, I don't attend the local church because I attend the local synagogue, instead. I assume that shouldn't affect how much the ANC listens to me, but I'm not 100 percent sure from your post? Anyway, I'm pro-bike lane and also pro-elected officials representing all constituents equally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, we all know that the original poster is a liar. Everyone in the neighborhood has know about this for nearly 2 year. If they haven't that means they just moved here last week.

Not true. I've been asking my neighbors, we all lived her for over 20 years. No one knew about it. We used to get newsletters from our ANC rep, but those stopped a while back.

+1 We live on the corridor and just learned of it last week. My neighbors on either side had not heard of it either.

On my block, we knew. You are not paying attention and that is on you. If you want a voice, you need to tune in to your community.

Suffice it to say, they are out of touch in more ways than one.

[Anonymous]

Ward 3 residents can vote for Dave Krucoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, we all know that the original poster is a liar. Everyone in the neighborhood has know about this for nearly 2 year. If they haven't that means they just moved here last week.

Not true. I've been asking my neighbors, we all lived her for over 20 years. No one knew about it. We used to get newsletters from our ANC rep, but those stopped a while back.

+1 We live on the corridor and just learned of it last week. My neighbors on either side had not heard of it either.

On my block, we knew. You are not paying attention and that is on you. If you want a voice, you need to tune in to your community.

Bullshit. I talk to my neighbors regularly. The discussion was primarily based on adding housing. Nobody knew that there was this cockamamie plan to eliminate two lanes of Commecticut and intentionally cause a clusterf@ck because it makes no sense and does not logically correlate with increasing housing density on the corridor.

Please explain why your apparent total ignorance of what is going on around you qualifies you to speak authoritatively on the merits of what is going on around you. Next time, pay attention. You might learn something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, we all know that the original poster is a liar. Everyone in the neighborhood has know about this for nearly 2 year. If they haven't that means they just moved here last week.

Not true. I've been asking my neighbors, we all lived her for over 20 years. No one knew about it. We used to get newsletters from our ANC rep, but those stopped a while back.

+1 We live on the corridor and just learned of it last week. My neighbors on either side had not heard of it either.

On my block, we knew. You are not paying attention and that is on you. If you want a voice, you need to tune in to your community.

Suffice it to say, they are out of touch in more ways than one.

You managed to completely ignore this issue - one that apparently affects you greatly - until now and they are the ones who are out of touch? Have some dignity, please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the city's policy is to build as much housing as possible, to accommodate more people, but reduce the capacity of roads to handle their cars?

Can we do the opposite?

Make people's lives better by making it easier to get around, and discourage more people from moving here?

You should visit Houston sometime. Massive roads down there. Lots of low density housing. You should love it.

you know dc is one of the most densely populated cities in the western hemisphere, right?

The point was that the poster seems to want DC to be a very different city. The city they seem to want is probably best represented by Houston, which builds massive freeways just for the hell of it. I moved to DC because I like density and I like being able to get around without driving everywhere. Other people like that about DC too.

"the city they seem to want."

sweetie, i'm the pp and ive been in dc longer than you've been alive. I know you just moved here from shitty town, indiana and you have all the answers and know all about life in the big city, but maybe you should keep quiet and let the adults talk.

The "adults" are the ones who brought us the car-dependent auto-centric neighborhoods. It has proven to be a disaster in terms of land use, ecology and environmental sustainability, much less transportation policy. As such, you might want to sit this one out and let the rest of us implement something that works for the broader society and not the single family homeowners who take up more space with their inefecient use of land and public space with their inefficient auto-centric built environment.

NP. Except the adults in the room who own single family homes in the District make more money, pay more in taxes and essentially keep this city going. You realize that without ys your city goes to sh*t, right?

How utterly pathetic can you get? Just because you own a SFH doesn't make you any better - or give your voice any more importance - than those who don't. Those drunk homeless people you complain about have the same vote you do. You are not better than them or anyone else. I'm embarrassed to share a city with you. It's folk that you that give us - Ward 3 homeowners - a bad name.

Actually i was a NP and never mentioned homeless but hey, newsflash, homeless people don’t vote.

Says who? Says you? They are entitled to vote. They are entitled to participate in ANC meetings. They are entitled to an opinion. And, in not laboring under the ridiculous assumption that owning a home gives them some priveleged position in society, are doing a hell of a lot better than you are.

Actually i don’t feel more important or privileged at all and despite your idiotic conclusions have tremendous empathy for those with less. I was pointing out 2 obvious ( or rather what should be obvious points) 1- if you drive out high earning tax paying residents DC goes to sh*t like it was in the 80’s and 90’s and (2) homeless people without an ID or proof of residence are not “entitled” to vote nor is it my experience that they attend ANC meetings. Grow up and work on your critical reasoning skills.

Nice backpedaling, clown. Claiming that your voice is more important because you own your home is a sad, sad move. And thinking that a majority of your fellow home owners agree with your positions is foolish. I'd love to be at the meeting where you stand up, voice your opinion and then claim that it carries extra weight because you, uh, own your home. Please give us a heads up so we can be there to witness.

No one of course has more than a single vote, whether they own a home or a car or neither. But being a homeowner myself, I am opposed to these changes. Traffic in fact has NOT gotten worse over the last multiple decades, and I have been driving CT Avenue since the 1980s. Of course, there will be an occasional accident but no evidence exists that a rampant problem exists. Moreover, as a PP mentioned, driving high income taxpayers out of DC will hurt. DC has done well financially over the last few decades primarily due to the high income taxpayers. At the Federal level, the top 1% pays roughly 40% of all income taxes, and the top 50% pay over 95% of all income taxes. Simply stated, DC's social programs depend on the high income taxpayers remaining in DC. No money, no social programs.

I own an SFH and the point you are making is silly. Renters pay all taxes that homeowners pay bar property taxes (which are thankfully low in DC). Non-resident homeowners pay property taxes with the rent paid by renters. Competition among renters drives up rents, which drives up property prices and tax revenue. Arguing that homeowners have some special role in keeping the city afloat is not on great foundations.

DC revitalized itself by attracting people to move here in the 00s and 10s. Many of those were attracted by urbanist infra like bike lanes - in the early 10s, 88% of new DC residents didn't own a vehicle according to the census bureau. Had these people not moved to DC, the city would be what inner Baltimore or Philly are today and you long-term residents wouldn't be too happy, assuming that is the blight hadn't driven you out. You're welcome.

Also, renters pay property taxes in the sense that landlords need to be able to cover their costs in order to rent out their units. Obviously demand has a factor in rent prices but certainly landlords try to cover their costs out so any increase in property taxes will lead to an increase in rent.

I own a rental unit in DC and think my tenants are just as entitled to have their voices heard as I am.

It's a shame that many renters do not know that they have a councilmember and ANC rep who can help them navigate various issues they encounter. It should be incumbent upon all landlords to explain this stuff to their tenants, many of whom require constituency services a lot more than long-resident homeowners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So the city's policy is to build as much housing as possible, to accommodate more people, but reduce the capacity of roads to handle their cars?

Can we do the opposite?

Make people's lives better by making it easier to get around, and discourage more people from moving here?

You should visit Houston sometime. Massive roads down there. Lots of low density housing. You should love it.

you know dc is one of the most densely populated cities in the western hemisphere, right?

The point was that the poster seems to want DC to be a very different city. The city they seem to want is probably best represented by Houston, which builds massive freeways just for the hell of it. I moved to DC because I like density and I like being able to get around without driving everywhere. Other people like that about DC too.

"the city they seem to want."

sweetie, i'm the pp and ive been in dc longer than you've been alive. I know you just moved here from shitty town, indiana and you have all the answers and know all about life in the big city, but maybe you should keep quiet and let the adults talk.

The "adults" are the ones who brought us the car-dependent auto-centric neighborhoods. It has proven to be a disaster in terms of land use, ecology and environmental sustainability, much less transportation policy. As such, you might want to sit this one out and let the rest of us implement something that works for the broader society and not the single family homeowners who take up more space with their inefecient use of land and public space with their inefficient auto-centric built environment.

NP. Except the adults in the room who own single family homes in the District make more money, pay more in taxes and essentially keep this city going. You realize that without ys your city goes to sh*t, right?

How utterly pathetic can you get? Just because you own a SFH doesn't make you any better - or give your voice any more importance - than those who don't. Those drunk homeless people you complain about have the same vote you do. You are not better than them or anyone else. I'm embarrassed to share a city with you. It's folk that you that give us - Ward 3 homeowners - a bad name.

Actually i was a NP and never mentioned homeless but hey, newsflash, homeless people don’t vote.

Says who? Says you? They are entitled to vote. They are entitled to participate in ANC meetings. They are entitled to an opinion. And, in not laboring under the ridiculous assumption that owning a home gives them some priveleged position in society, are doing a hell of a lot better than you are.

Actually i don’t feel more important or privileged at all and despite your idiotic conclusions have tremendous empathy for those with less. I was pointing out 2 obvious ( or rather what should be obvious points) 1- if you drive out high earning tax paying residents DC goes to sh*t like it was in the 80’s and 90’s and (2) homeless people without an ID or proof of residence are not “entitled” to vote nor is it my experience that they attend ANC meetings. Grow up and work on your critical reasoning skills.

Nice backpedaling, clown. Claiming that your voice is more important because you own your home is a sad, sad move. And thinking that a majority of your fellow home owners agree with your positions is foolish. I'd love to be at the meeting where you stand up, voice your opinion and then claim that it carries extra weight because you, uh, own your home. Please give us a heads up so we can be there to witness.

Actually you’re the clown. I haven’t stated my position in this forum on the bike lane and if you bothered to read my original post you’d see that i was replying to a specific idiotic Millennial who suggested that all of her problems would be solved if SFH owners in DC just moved out since we apparently take up too much space. I responded to this immature poster by pointing out that without our tax base the city would once again go to sh*t. No backpedaling here. I stand by that. And as all millennials do, she assumed I was an earlier poster referring to the homeless population and couldn’t help give s knee-jerk emotional reaction. I wasn’t that poster but also felt the need to respond to her immature conclusions about that as well. The only clowns I know of in this forum are those with immature, idiotic and knee-jerk reactions about a bike path. As if the city doesn’t have bigger problems. So yea, grow up, learn to read and critically think through issues.

[Anonymous]

If the ANCs actually cared about homeowners they would have had 50 meetings on rising crime in their districts and how the mayor is stacking apartments with homeless and mentally ill. The fact that so much time has been devoted to bicycles is completely dystopian.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Come on, we all know that the original poster is a liar. Everyone in the neighborhood has know about this for nearly 2 year. If they haven't that means they just moved here last week.

Not true. I've been asking my neighbors, we all lived her for over 20 years. No one knew about it. We used to get newsletters from our ANC rep, but those stopped a while back.

+1 We live on the corridor and just learned of it last week. My neighbors on either side had not heard of it either.

On my block, we knew. You are not paying attention and that is on you. If you want a voice, you need to tune in to your community.

Suffice it to say, they are out of touch in more ways than one.

You managed to completely ignore this issue - one that apparently affects you greatly - until now and they are the ones who are out of touch? Have some dignity, please.

Even your precious bike lanes were framed as adding something without any mention of the idiocy or removing two lanes of traffic on the most heavily traveled north south route in the city. Which is so conceptually stupid as to be unbelievable.

Speaking of out of touch. That is how most of us on the block refer to our ANC who is just another retired boomer obsessed with speed bumps. We left then alone to do their don quixote thing. They have never mentioned the closing two lanes of connecticut thing. They have mentioned the housing thing. The jokes on us though. We thought the local crank couldn't cause any harm on the ANC. Turns out they can and did.

[Anonymous]

have you ever looked at anc election results? hardly anyone votes for these people. there are contests where barely 100 votes are even cast. we had better turnout in my high school elections.

our anc representative routinely ignores what his constituents want. he's a leftwing nut job who seems to think he knows better than everyone else. probably why he lost his reelection race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I've learned here after 63 pages is that the anti bike crowd thinks that their voice is so important that it supercedes their local ANCs, and that complaining on an anonymous message born is the more meaningful type of activism

Incidentally, this is how the NRA controls our gun laws. They swarm meetings with legislators that most people had no idea were even happening. They then claim what they want is widely supported because no one spoke against it at the meeting that, again, was only attended by their people. By the time, regular folks learn what is happening, it's too late....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I've learned here after 63 pages is that the anti bike crowd thinks that their voice is so important that it supercedes their local ANCs, and that complaining on an anonymous message born is the more meaningful type of activism

Incidentally, this is how the NRA controls our gun laws. They swarm meetings with legislators that most people had no idea were even happening. They then claim what they want is widely supported because no one spoke against it at the meeting that, again, was only attended by their people. By the time, regular folks learn what is happening, it's too late....

This is also a time honored way legislators pass legislation. They announce plans at the last minute and then pass it before the opposition has a chance to organize. If you air a proposal out, you're just increasing the chances it will be killed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I've learned here after 63 pages is that the anti bike crowd thinks that their voice is so important that it supercedes their local ANCs, and that complaining on an anonymous message born is the more meaningful type of activism

Incidentally, this is how the NRA controls our gun laws. They swarm meetings with legislators that most people had no idea were even happening. They then claim what they want is widely supported because no one spoke against it at the meeting that, again, was only attended by their people. By the time, regular folks learn what is happening, it's too late....

This is also a time honored way legislators pass legislation. They announce plans at the last minute and then pass it before the opposition has a chance to organize. If you air a proposal out, you're just increasing the chances it will be killed.

Good thing that's not what happened here, as been explained over and over again on this thread.