The Goodspeed Update

Twelve years after Congressional approval and with over $80 million raised, the foundation spearheading a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the National Mall has entered the final phase before construction: selecting materials, choosing an artist for the King sculpture, and winning approval of a final design from picky federal officials. On this Martin Luther King Day find out why the stone and sculptor selected are Chinese, and what late-breaking design changes have irked the U.S. Fine Arts Commission.

After completing my recent analysis of WMATA’s Metrorail fare increase, I decided to do some more research to better put the fares in a national context, finding D.C. Metro riders pay some of the highest subway fares in the nation. I then did a side-by-side comparison with San Francisco’s BART, considered a sister system to the D.C. Metro. The analysis of BART fares from a downtown San Francisco station shows that Bay-area suburban commuters enjoy even cheaper per-mile fares than their D.C. counterparts.

After years of inaction, the process of reconstructing the D.C. Public Library’s Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Branch seems on-track. A new temporary library hums with activity, demolition of the old building is well underway, and a meeting is scheduled later this month to reveal a preliminary design for the new building.

With the D.C. Metrorail’s fares set to increase on Sunday, it piqued my interest in precisely how the system determines charges and the nature of the changes. I decided to take a look at exactly what pattern the famously unpredictable fares took. While most news reports have reported suburban riders would experience the largest absolute increases, my analysis shows they continue to enjoying the lowest cost per mile of all riders, well below the cost of automobile use.

Despite a recent growth in new digital signs, the sky is still visible in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood—for now. Find out just how many pedestrians it takes to entice advertisers to install huge talking video billboards, and where a California company hopes to add even billboards, sidewalk signs, and temporary event banners.

We all know the D.C. Metro is busy. But do you know how many people use your station, or how use has changed since the system opened? Take a look at some of the trends and look up your station using my data on a new social networking site.

D.C. lacks a central body to review new construction and oversee the implementation of a city plan. Does it need one? If not, exactly who’s overseeing the planning anyhow?

Read about the alphabet soup reviewing new buildings in Washington, and two opposing viewpoints about whether the city needs a dedicated planning commission.