Reply to The Pandemic Hit Cities Hard And Then There's Washington, DC

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "The Pandemic Hit Cities Hard And Then There's Washington, DC"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't read every single reply, but one issue is traffic. I work downtown and most of my colleagues do want to be back in person at least half-time. But we don't *have* to be back in person. And right now the traffic into DC is really lousy because the DC government is more concerned with bike lanes and giving NWDC residents free street parking than in winning back office workers.

As long as I have to sit in a nightmare of 2 lanes on Conn Ave to get home at night, why should I bother? I can just meet colleagues for lunch when we want to have informal opportunities to interact. Some degree of personal flexibility on telework is now the norm for a lot of people, including many more USG offices than was previously the case. So if DC wants to ensure businesses thrive downtown, they'll have to make it worth our while. Revert to pre-Covid commuter traffic (including re-opening Beach Drive and the 4-lane rush hour switch on Conn Ave) and you'll get more of us back in the office and spending money at DC restaurants and shops. [/quote]

DC resident here.  We don't care what you think.  You don't even pay DC taxes -- you don't own a home here and DC can't impose a commuter tax.  You're a drain on our resources, not a net gain, and we don't care if you or your stinking car ever come back.[/quote]

Fine by me. But perhaps the shops and restaurants that are dependent on office workers might like to see us come back? And your neighbors might want to have more viable businesses in the city. But hey, why not make all of NWDC into an upper middle class gated community - that's a really vibrant and exciting future vision for DC.[/quote]
There is not a lot of point in arguing with people who are ideologically committed. What I’m waiting to see is what happens when these fantasies confront realpolitik. Multi-billion and trillion dollar commercial real estate firms in downtown are unlikely to sit back for long and watch their investments compromised because the DC government decided to create unnecessary congestion on an untested and simple-minded theory that when inconvenienced, people will choose other modes of transportation instead of just deciding to stay home or go somewhere else. So we’ll see where this goes.

My sense is that there are two scenarios: (1) As the weather turns foul in November, the city will change course and become more accommodating to commuters. (2) Bowser continues her proclivity to demonstrate a capability of being responsive to adverse events, things continue to slide and she loses the next election to a challenger backed by existing commercial property owners (the speculative developers who fund Bowser have already cashed in and there’s not much left to develop in the city).  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics