The Georgetown Metropolitan

1200 block of Potomac St.

After a tragic spate of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities, Mayor Muriel Bowser recently proposed increasing the number of downtown intersections where no turns on red would be prohibited (among other changes). While welcomed, the announcement was generally received tepidly from safety advocates that demand even more aggressive steps to address unsafe driver behavior. And while the city hasn’t announced where all the new “no turn on red” will go, it was reported that they will be in the central business district, which does not include Georgetown.

But should it?

Allowing turns on red lights was a policy that became popular in the 1970s. It was dressed up as a step to address the energy crisis, under the reasoning that cars will end up idling less and therefore use less gasoline. But there’s not a whole lot of studies that support that argument. And in the mean time it has simply become a right that impatient drivers feel entitled to. (Consider the differing treatment that jaywalking and right-on-red gets. The former is condemned as unsafe, and often used to blame the victim in traffic fatality. The latter is allowed and rarely punished, even when misused. Yet in both cases it is simply a question of a road user surveying the situation and deciding that notwithstanding the default, it is ok to proceed.) Continue reading →

Photo by Andrew Griffith.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Some more details on the new High Street Cafe (which took over the former Paolo’s space).
• This is odd: A application to open a business involving the “sale of plants” was made for 1516 Wisconsin Ave., which currently houses G-Land Uniforms.

3200 block of Volta Pl.

Photo by Marc Andre

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice piece on Johnny Spero and his new Reverie restaurant.
• Ethics investigation into Jack Evans is stayed, for an unclear reason.

3200 block of Volta Place

GM discussed the ANC results yesterday, but wanted to walk through the rest of how Georgetown voted today (caveat here: these results include votes from Burleith and Hillandale, which use the same precinct as west Georgetown). Here are the results:

At Large Councilmember:

This one’s a bit tricky since each voter has two votes. No surprise that Anita Bonds won. But Georgetown agreed with GM and the citywide tally by giving the second most votes to Elissa Silverman. She actually had 74% the number of Bonds votes. Across the city she got 60% the number of Bonds’ votes. So Georgetown was strongly on her side. Her main competition, Dionne Reeder, trailed Silverman badly in Georgetown, with Silverman getting more than twice Reeder’s total. Continue reading →

Photo by Joe Flood.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Why GU started putting up “guns prohibited” signs.
• Speaking of GU, GM had to mention that a 22 year old recent GU grad just won a Connecticut State Senate seat representing GM’s hometown. He’s the first Democrat to win the seat since 1973.

Montrose Park

Long time ANC commissioner Ed Solomon and first term commissioner Jim Wilcox appear to have lost their bids to reelection. As of last night, Kishan Putta led Solomon with 68% of the vote. And Gwendolyn Lohse led Wilcox with 66% of the vote.

Assuming these results hold, this will spell the end of a long and noteworthy term for Solomon, who served since 2005. Wilcox, who won the open seat two years ago, faced a strong challenge from Lohse, who was backed by many who disagreed with Wilcox’s combative approach on the commission.

Joe Gibbons, Rick Murphy, Lisa Palmer and Anna Landre won their seats uncontested. Matias Burdman probably won ANC2E08 based on a write in campaign, but that will need to be confirmed.