Tuesday, September 30, 2003 :::
 
This just in: DC has bad traffic. A new study by the Texas Transportation Institute has reached the shocking conclusion that traffic in DC stinks, and ranks us 3rd worst in the nation. Another study a few weeks ago actually left us off the Top 10, which is hard to credit, so A Mind That Suits endorses the Texans heartily.

What is interesting is the effect this is having in producing something that this blogger has called the Europeanization of Washington. By that, he means that the rich live in town, not out. All the glorious Victorians and Edwardians which make this city the most beautiful in the country are being renovated at an amazing clip. The point where you start seeing the typical "urban pioneer" combination of rich gay males and poor, earnest young activists has moved east over a mile in the last year alone. The Post ran a fascinating article saying that this was happening even in cities like Flint, Fargo, and Lincoln.

What that means is the most congested hour will shift from 8:30 to 7:30, as it will be all the poor people coming, and not all the rich.

A Mind That Suits no longer drives, the interior of his Ford Taurus having decided to torment its owner by falling apart at a prodigious rate. With modular construction, a door handle turns out not to be just a door handle, and a safety belt is not just a safety belt. In any case, the new study estimates that 51 hours a year is lost idling in traffic by each driver. A Mind That Suits used the time to work on foreign languages, particularly Spanish. He switched to listening to the truly wretched, lowest-common denominator station, so he heard the same 10 Latin hits over and over again, and got used to hearing the news in Spanish. He also got a lot of milage with Spanish co-workers by imitating a commercial for one of those "male enhancement" products that Latinos seem to love. But aside from that, he hates traffic with a passion, and is just as glad that the busdriver is now handling it.


::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 3:06 PM


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What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.