The sound of waves booming against the underside of ice in a frozen lake comes directly from childhood. With the memories of some great views and that haunting sound in mind, it is difficult for me to suggest this, but I’ll do it anyway:
You really shouldn’t use the walking/running route I’m about to describe, unless you want to get arrested, drowned and/or run over by part of Baltimore’s urban rail transit system.
That said, here’s the description, without culpability if you misuse it. After bicycling to Baltimore’s Robert E. Lee park (via Falls Road and Lakeside Drive), I decided I wasn’t up to taking a road bike on hilly trails — a good choice as this turned out to be a better walking route.
While I planned it as an uneventful walk, the circuit around Lake Roland ultimately involved crossing two bridges that were not safe (as one was a rail bridge and the other was structurally unsound). I highly discourage people from mimicking my route, and I’m only including it for informational purposes so folks know what to avoid. See map below and photos for more information.
Montgomery County has come out in favor of light rail rather than RTB service for their long-debated Washington-area, suburb-to-suburb connector.
This is a big step toward getting light rail service between Bethesda and New Carrolton, and bloggers have wasted no time speaking up. DCmud and The City Fix have already weighed in.
While it’s not heavy rail like the Dulles extension, it’s at least a start.
There are a few reasons for that. First, I work tomorrow, so I’m trying to stay relatively rested for the early shift — as well as the blisteringly cold drive beforehand. After a day of pipe-thawing adventures, I’m looking forward to a long winter’s nap.
Second, I’ve heard most of what Obama has to say. That’s not meant to convey any disrespect: I simply get a larger-than-average dose of CNN at work.
Third, I plan to be at the inauguration on Tuesday. And I’m lazy.
That said, there’s no shortage of talented journalists covering the event, along with its parent “meta event,” Obama’s train journey to Washington. One of the more interesing takes that I saw was from Fred Rasmussen, who had a thing or two to say about trains in an article called “Obama’s hardly first U.S. president to favor train travel.” An excerpt:
The first president-elect to ride a passenger train to an inauguration was William Henry Harrison, eight years [after 1833]. Harrison holds several other firsts. He was the first presidential candidate to campaign by train. He is also noted for having presided over the shortest presidency, delivering the longest inaugural address at 8,444 words, and being the first chief executive to die in office.
Rasmussen mentions several other inaugural trains in the article, but I am sad to say that his most recent cited case (until now) is from 1953. Here’s hoping that having a loyal Amtrak rider in the vice president’s chair will help bring our national rail system up to first-world standards., making another inaugural rail trip substantially more likely.
Since the Ravens-Steelers AFC title game this weekend will only take up a small slice of the evening, I figured I’d give a few tips for those whose non-football interest in the area might go beyond weird sandwiches. Here are some weekend options:
Walking/Transit
Growing up, watching the trolley on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was an unhealthy gateway drug into both jazz and rail geekdom. What I didn’t find out until a few years ago, however, was that Fred Rogers’ real neighborhood contains some transit that’s possibly even cooler (albeit sans theme music). Pittsburgh is home to one of the more famous funicular systems in the country, as well as some light rail, but it also plays host to a less famous (but nearly as cool) system of grade-seperated busways. One state legislative staffer even documented his daily experiences with the system as a whole. A (more-or-less-complete) map of that system can be found here.
Biking
Along with an emerging system of bike lanes, Pittsburgh has an older, more developed network of paved and unpaved trails. I could give a quick summary of those trail offerings, but these folks already did a much better job. One cautionary note: I don’t have any idea how/whether they plow or scrape these trails in the winter. For example, my run to work yesterday on the Jones Falls Trail was a mixed bag — snow was removed, but iced-over puddles remained. In a different (and more northern) city, your experience may be worse. Or it may be better. You have been warned.
Running
Along with the biking route options linked above, you can check out the usual online options for a bunch of improvised routes. There’s also a race if you’re willing to go out to the exurbs: I have to grant the organizers of the Bushwacker’s Nightmare Trail Run congratulations for choosing an excellent name. The race is Sunday at 10 a.m.
One more thing
If you’re not sure what non-game events to walk/bike/ride toward, and you’re short on time or morbidly lazy (the latter being unlikely for a reader of this blog), here’s an events link to get you started on your search. It’s been a couple of years since I last visited Pittsburgh, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I normally try to avoid making this a blog about itself, but this change is worth mentioning. I’ve switched to a new publishing system, going from Blogger to WordPress.
I’m now using a modified version of the Deep Silent theme. In changing looks, for the new year, I decided to use as many current design cliches as I could manage, so there are shinies, grit, swirlies and, as always, a nice garish color indicative of either corporate greenwashing, Web 2.0 or horrible cat indigestion. I thought about adding scan lines and gradients to the header as well, but I figured the shoe and title would be completely invisible/illegible if I did that. Enjoy!*
*And let me know if you see any obvious bugs in the new template. Thanks.
