Arlington Sends Most Unintentionally Funny Press Release Ever

Many a visitor to The Green Miles has found it unintentionally funny that Arlington has something known as a Beaver Pond. I have not only taken part in Beaver Pond cleanups with fellow Arlington Community Volunteer Network alumnus Dan Silverman, pictured here. I've taken Arlington visitors to the pond so they could take pictures in front of it so they can prove to friends back home that it exists.

Arlington is moving to renovate the pond, which is great. Will clean storm runoff, provide better wildlife habitat, good stuff.

But did the press release announcing the renovations have to go out of its way to put "Beaver" in quotes? Or make repeated, vague references to the pond's not-so-fresh feeling? And the capper -- a county board member saying one of the goals is to make it "easier to access"?

Come on, Arlington County. Grow up.

Saturday: ACE Green Living Expo

Ready for some spring greening? Here's a great event coming up on Saturday:

ACE Green Living Expo
Saturday, March 20, 2010
10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
4301 Wilson Blvd. in Ballston

On March 20, Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (ACE) will be sponsoring a Green Living Expo. The Expo will feature green suppliers, products from local and national businesses, exhibits and seminars from government agencies and nonprofits, and a free Going Green Guide for Apartment Renters! [...]

The Expo will also include seminars, a raffle, and plenty of activities for children. It will provide an important venue to showcase new technology and products available that can help soften our carbon footprints in Arlington. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), is located near the Ballston metro and several bus routes. The Green Living Expo is family-friendly and free and open to the general public.

Children's activities will include:

• Native seedling planting
• Crafts
• Nature games
• Naturalists with animals to meet

Wait, children's activities? What if certain adults are wildly excited to meet the wildlife?

Ballston: Now With Even More Frosting!

We may not have gotten a day off out of it, but the snow is at least nice to look at. Here's my view from Ballston:

Tonight in Ballston: Cafe Scientifique on Climate Change

I've never been to one of these, but I've heard good things:

Aug 4, 2009 Cafe Scientifique: Weather and Climate

Short presentation starts at 6:30 p.m. The current location is at the atrium in the National Science Foundation (NSF) building in cooperation with The Front Page Restaurant, 4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington between Wilson Boulevard and Fairfax Drive, and one block south of the Ballston-Marymount University Metro stop on the Orange Line.

Some added incentive to check it out -- according to Arlington's Twitter feed, there are also half-priced burgers starting at 5:30pm.

Scene from the Sidewalk: Sign & Sustainability

On Saturday, I dropped off a yard sign at a supporter's home on George Mason Drive (his dog, Paco, came out to supervise). Andrew has solar panels that provide most of his home's electricity, even watching his electric meter spin backwards on sunny summer days. He's planning to add a few more to try to get off of Dominion's coal-fired power as much as possible. And of course, don't forget the Honda Civic Hybrid in the driveway.

If you'd like a Miles Grant for Delegate yard sign, email us!

That Was Fast: Sidewalk Solved

It's a miracle:


One day after complaining that there was room for private parking spots but no sidewalk at a construction site at Wilson & Oakland, this morning I noticed the new sidewalk has suddenly opened for business. I have not heard a word from the county, but seems like a remarkable coincidence that the problem was solved less than 24 hours after the post went up (the "sidewalk closed" signs are even still hanging from the pushed-back fence).

Arlington County keeps such a close eye on the net, it's now actually faster to solve a problem by posting it to a blog than it is call in a complaint. And certainly light years faster than writing a letter ever was. Amazing.

As for the next generation of the interwebs, Arlington is slowly getting on Twitter, though updates seem to be sporadic. You can follow ArlingtonAlert, ArlingtonVAWeb, and CarFreeDiet (and of course, you can follow me.)

As I run for House of Delegates, I've been telling voters that far from being confusing and scary, new technologies like blogs and Twitter bring us closer together than ever and make problems easier to solve. Hopefully, stories like this will make convincing them a little easier.

Sidewalk Closed. Private Parking Now Available.

I've always been amazed that Arlington lets construction companies completely close off the sidewalk on one side of the street without providing temporary space for pedestrians to walk. It's not only unsafe, inevitably forcing pedestrians into the street or at least to cross the street outside of a crosswalk. It also flies in the face of the County's well-deserved pedestrian-friendly reputation.

One stretch of Wilson Blvd. in Virginia Square has been shut down for months now. I've just been walking around the fence, but I can imagine it must be troublesome for residents of the Brighton Senior Living Center next door, who are now shut off from Oakland Park. To walk down to the next crosswalk with a signal (Quincy & Wilson) then back to the Oakland & Wilson signaled crosswalk is a half-mile round-trip.

But the problem wasn't blog-worthy until the construction crew rolled out this ballsy move last week:


You see, there's no room for pedestrians here, but there is space for two private parking spots for the construction crew's vans. Those vans aren't there temporarily being loaded and unloaded -- they're parked there every day.

In fact, these might be the only two on-street, unmetered parking spots on Wilson Blvd. from Ballston all the way to Rosslyn. Pretty primo. Just don't try to walk past.

Hawk Hanging Out in Ashton Heights

When I spotted a Cooper's hawk in my backyard a little over a year ago, I had to ask around if it was a Cooper's or a red-tailed hawk.

After seeing this red-tailed hawk high above 5th Street North in Ashton Heights on Sunday afternoon, the differences between the two are a lot more clear. Namely, this guy could eat that Cooper's hawk in two bites. He was so big, I spotted him from my car even though he was perched about 70 feet off the ground.

Always great to see more examples of Arlington's thriving hawk population. Meanwhile, anyone seen any skunks lately?

Shoo It Away? Or Offer It a Long Spoon?

Looked out my back door the other day to find a squirrel helping itself to a Halloween pumpkin I'd had on my back step but never got around to carving:


It would climb inside, pull out a seed, then perch on top of the pumpkin to eat it:

You can learn more about the history of the DC area's squirrels (including where the black ones came from) in the Washington Post's recent article, Critter City.

A Snap Back to Reality from Indian Summer

It's been so warm the last few days, it's felt like June. But even on a 78-degree day, a sudden change of colors can remind you it's still October:

Most of the trees are still green, but these two near the corner of Wilson and Piedmont decided to flip early.

More Oil Runoff Problems at Metro's Ballston Bus Lot

Remember Metro's Ballston bus lot? The one that had oil runoff problems? Well, they're not getting better. In fact, they might be getting worse. Here's a picture from July:

Heavy rains had washed oil and trash from the lot out one corner and into the grass between the sidewalk and the street, then into the street. There had been a tree at that corner of the grass, but it's long since died and been removed. Gee, I wonder why?

The only oil collection method in that corner are some curb-high white tubes. I sent the above picture to Metro asking what they were doing to reduce the oil runoff but never heard back, so I sent the picture to Arlington's Department of Environmental Services.

Magically, the next day the corner looked like this:

It's a miracle! Everyone stand up and shout hallelujah! The oil-soaked grass had been replaced, the sidewalk had been washed, and you can see new white oil-collecting tubes next to the wheels of the bus.

Wait.

Worst miracle ever:

The new grass is oil-soaked and trash-covered again. And when the remains of Tropical Storm Hanna come through this weekend, I'm sure the lot will get a nice power-washing -- with the wastewater going right out the corner of the lot into the storm drain, where it will go straight into an Arlington river or stream untreated, like all of Arlington's storm drain runoff.

Metro's feeling seems to be that since the bus lot will shut down anyway in March to make way for a major redevelopment of the block, it's content with what it considers stopgap measures. But as the continuing oil runoff problems show, that gap ain't gettin' stopped. It's up to Arlington DES to decide if and how the problem should be addressed.

Watering the Pavement

Seen at the corner of Wilson Blvd. and Randolph St. last Wednesday morning while walking to the Ballston Metro:That's not a power-washing -- the water's dribbling out of the hose. As you can see with the two bits of junk to the right of the planter in the foreground, it didn't clear stuff off the sidewalk. The worker watered the sidewalk all the way around the building -- with some quick-and-dirty math, roughly 6,000 square feet of sidewalk.

It's a waste of water, sure. But really, my critique here is an economic one, not an environmental one. Is it really worth paying someone to spend an hour doing this every morning? Or any morning?

The World's Shortest Sidewalk

This sidewalk lies on N. Pollard St. near the corner with Wilson Blvd. across from the Ballston Gold's Gym. It's a total of two squares long, one on each side of the driveway.

When I see sidewalks like this, I want to meet their designer. Did they plan for just two squares of sidewalk? Did they plan a whole sidewalk, then run out of money after just two squares? Were they caught in the grips of the Great Concrete Shortage of '96?

The Washington Post documented the phenomenon in a great story back in 2004. A Walk on the Wild Side chronicled the reporter's attempt to walk the length of Route 50, encountering abruptly-ending sidewalks (and worse) all along the way.

What's your nominee for least-pedestrian friendly road in Arlington (or Virginia or DC)?