Residential Freeway.

This is a lot like the articles I was all up ons a while ago from Europe. There were various studies and traffic control designers that found car drivers would slow down if the environment felt like slower speeds were required. And the best way to convey that is not with a speed limit sign, but with other visual cues. In one study, they found removing all lane lines and signals worked best. Hang on, let me see if I can find that mess...

• Daily Placebo: I'm Ignoring Traffic Lights From Now On.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. September 2006. If you didn't read it, go ahead and take a minute; I'll wait. Yeah? Good stuff right? Well it really hit home when I read this article in GGW about Conn ave. I commuted up and down that road for a year, so I can personally attest that its a six lane highway out of the city that happens to run through a certain moneyed neighborhood. Now, I understand that Chevy Chase doesn't want high velocity traffic running right through the middle of it, but maybe they should design a road that feels like the speed limit is 30, instead of slapping a lower limit on a faster road and sending tickets to every car that drives down it.

Traffic slows just south of Chevy Chase Circle (in DC) because there are cross streets, shopping centers and pedestrians. That seems like a much more effective control measure than white signs and speed cameras disguised as trashcans. Unless your real goal is benjamins, not safely.

• Design for speed, collect the dough - Greater Greater Washington

The New Diggs.

While I'm not really in a position to say whether it was worth the money or not, the nationals new home is very nice indeed. And with the concession stands every two feet, they might make a run at pulling some of that cash back. Of course none of it will go to the tax payers who were gouged... But that's not the point. There's something about a new stadium, the virgin amenities, that just comfort and welcome a patron. Much like that new car smell; except its new stadium smell. Of course that didn't keep my fellow patrons from throwing their wrappers, peanut shells and beer cups all over the ground. Fucking animals. That why we can't have nice things...