The commuter drives alone

on the ANC6a e-list we've been discussing how this week, on Constitution Avenue NE, the one way traffic system during the morning commute westward into the city from 7 am to 9:30 am has been rescinded, and now the road is two-way 24/7.

I have been meaning to write about this change for awhile, but I never got around to it. It's another of those pro-community changes initiated by the DC Department of Transportation that in its way is as groundbreaking as the streetscape improvements coming to various neighborhoods and already present on 8th Street SE (it's coming to 12th Street NE in Brookland and H Street NE and presumably other places that I don't know about yet) and the recovery of Thomas Circle from a road scarred circle to something that can become a nice place.

On Monday, the Christian Science Monitor had a nice story about national trends in commuting behavior, "More US commuters drive solo: Global-warming warnings have not dissuaded Americans from driving to work alone. In fact, their numbers have been rising."

Christian Science Monitor. Sources: Figures from 1980 to 2000 are from the Census Bureau. The 2005 figures are based on a survey conducted by the Census Bureau called the American Community Survey / Rich Clabaugh – staff

So while we are doing good things in DC, the trends don't favor the nation.