OnFootBlog.com

I’m going to stop posting on here for a long while. Possibly forever.

When I first started this site, my employer was the Annapolis Capital, a wonderful paper that (at the time) had no running or transportation blogs. Now, however, I work for the Baltimore Sun, which within the last year has launched both a wonderful transportation blog and, more recently, a very nice running section. Since these vastly outdo my blog in terms of quality and quantity, I’m happy to say that it’s now quite redundant.

That said, I’d still love to see you at a Friday meetup, as those will continue.

September 9 was planned as a big day for Dubai.

The government folks in Dubai were set to launch both a new record-holding skyscraper and a major piece of the transit system today.

And then they weren’t set to launch them both anymore after all.

But it still looks like it’s going to be a nice rail system, complete with wi-fi and other splendid tricks. It should go a long way toward repairing a perceived weakness in the city, which has long been viewed as less pedestrian-friendly than some other cosmopolitan metros. Details on the new trains can be found here.

While this plug is a bit last-minute, it’s for a really intriguing event: The Baltimore Hiking meetup group is hosting a cemetery “photo walk” around eastern Baltimore on Saturday. There are some really gorgeous grounds in that area, so it should be a rewarding experience. While I won’t be able to make it, I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures that result.

Oranges are for eating.

http://www.instantriverside.com/riverside-ca-news/trio-suspected-of-throwing-oranges-at-pedestrians/2009/03/26/

Here are some choices for this week:

What I’ll be doing: Nothing too active. I did something stupid this week, and now my foot is recovering.

Other options: The Baltimore Bicycling Club is holding rides for four different ability levels on Saturday, with another four on Sunday. It looks from the site like the Saturday session might be the more beginner-friendly of the two. In addition, there’s a slew of footraces and walks from 5K to 30K in length.

In the future: Another dozen, including the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile & 5K.

As always, you can see a full list of upcoming road races, transit events, training rides, walks, and runs via the on-foot calendar of events.

Here are some choices for this week:

What I’ll be doing: Too early to say yet, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist a run that promises pi. Mmm … pi*.

Other options: There are at least five 5K races in the area this weekend, which means we must be getting into spring. Those include the KELLY Shamrock 5K here in Baltimore. I’m sure a lot of people will be making a day of it by swerving their way in and out of Fell’s Point bars afterward.

In the future: National marathon? Yeah, we have one of those.

As always, you can see a full list of upcoming road races, transit events, training rides, walks, and runs via the on-foot calendar of events. Quick reminder: We really do have bike events on our calendar as well, despite the relative lack of them in recent weeks. I encourage you to e-mail me any upcoming events that I may have missed. We’ll usually be happy to link to them.

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*I know I’m probably the 8,000th person to make that joke this year. I don’t regret it in the slightest. The world can always use more middle school math puns.

Here are some choices for this week:

Nearby: If you’re nuts, but not entirely loopy, there’s a 50K coming up. Reiterating: That’s 50 kilometers, not 50 miles. It’s a still a lot farther than I prefer to go without the assistance of wheels.

Farther out: There are two predicted-time races on my calendar, both in other states. I tend to prefer short, tough-to-predict runs,  but to each his (or her) own.

Other options: There’s a 5K in Wheaton and a bunch of other stuff farther away.

What I’ll be doing: Not really sure yet. If I go to something, you’ll recognize the skinny guy wheezing near the rear of the pack. I’m afraid I’ve been exercising even less than I’ve been writing. Which is to say “not much.”

In the future: Another shot at a local marathon if you missed this weekend’s.

As always, you can see a full list of upcoming transit events, races, training rides, walks, and runs via the on-foot calendar of events.

As I write this, I am inflated with the happy bloativity of too much spiced sausage, meaning that any sort of physical activity at all is very unattractive.

That said, I figure I should start planning ahead a bit more for my weekends, now that the season for outdoor activies is getting closer. So here are a few choices:

Nearby: The Howard County Striders are putting on the rrca challenge this Sunday, which at 10 miles should offer a nice chance for marathon and half-marathon runners to blow off some steam.

Farther out: On Saturday, the Frostbite 5-Miler makes its way through Ambler, PA.   It’s a bit of a trip, but handy if you’re out there anyway.

Other options: There are a handful of other events — all running/walking (sorry, no bike stuff) — on my calendar for this weekend. Many of the most interesting appear to be in Virginia, and most of those are links from the Run Washington calendar.

What I’ll be doing: Probably not much. Maybe a training run, plus some walking to and from the grocery store.

In the future: The marathon (and half-marathon) on the old Baltimore and Annapolis Trail is what I’m personally excited about next week, but there’s plenty of other stuff too. E-mail me something!

As always, you can see a full list of upcoming transit events, races, training rides, walks, and runs via the on-foot calendar of events.

I can thank Nobody’s Business for bringing this to my attention:

From the Patriot-News:

Drinking and driving is not the only way to get in trouble at a sobriety checkpoint. Two pedestrians found that out when state police set up a checkpoint late night Saturday into early morning Sunday along state Route 34 in New Bloomfield.

In addition to two motorists who were cited for driving under the influence and related traffic offenses, police said, troopers also cited two pedestrians for public drunkenness after they were observed to be intoxicated as they walked through the checkpoint area.

Read full article …

The story is a few days old at this point, but if posting it helps keep one of my readers out of jail (whether in Pennsylvania or elsewhere), I’m happy to do the favor.

Or ‘A good excuse to post a brief history of something that won’t exist for awhile’

I couldn’t help noticing over the weekend that there was a significant lack of happiness and joy in local media regarding the proposed casino at Arundel Mills. Witness:

Lovable, cantankerous writer #1 – Parsing things in terms of potential traffic jams.

Lovable, cantankerous writer #2 – Parsing things in terms of the Mafia. Or something.

Possibly lovable but anonymous editorial ‘we’ - Parsing things in terms of budget numbers.

So what can I add to all of this? I would hardly say that there’s much new material for me to suggest in terms of the casino debate itself (much more of which is out there if you care to look). No, it would be much better if I could put this in the context of some much larger regional development pattern.

I was just thinking along those lines (”What should I do today? Gee, I would love to write about a regional development pattern in the Howard / Anne Arundel area”) when a tasty can of expansion on Snowden River Parkway arrived like (canned) Manna from Heaven. Between that, the casino and a planned third lane on the BW parkway, there’s plenty of expansion to talk about in the region.

All of this is a great excuse to talk about what isn’t getting built yet — specifically, MTA’s planned Yellow Line.

The Yellow Line, a 28-mile route proposed construction between Towson and Columbia, was part of a larger plan originally set out in 2002 by the administration of then-governor Parris N. Glendening. This plan included the currently promising Red Line as well as literally dozens of miles of other construction. As with the Red Line, the Yellow Line did not have a specific type of train listed in its definition, with the Glendening team chosing to leave the specifics of train (or even rapid bus) technology to later studies.

The idea of serving this market with rail goes much farther back than the Glendening administration. MARC and Amtrak go through both counties, and commercial railroads have served the area for most of the industrial era. One of them even appears to have used the yellow look before. Since Columbia is a rather new community, however, the dense intraurban networks that served other parts of the area in the early 1900s never really seem to have taken root in Howard county, railroad museums aside.

Back to the modern era: When Glendening was ousted by Robert Erlich Jr., rail construction was at least temporariliy ousted by roads. The IHC became the more fashionable building project to talk about, and trains took a back seat for awhile. This focus away from expansion was probably a good thing, as it allowed some basic, much-needed fixes to be made on the original light rail line.

Meanwhile, yellow line fans patiently left it alone (or maybe played with it a bit on their fantasy maps) and didn’t think much about it, putting emphasis on plans that were more realistic in the short term — namely, pushing for the Red, Purple and Silver lines in Maryland and Washington (and Virginia), respectively.

Eventually, Erlich was in turn pushed out of office, supplanted by Martin O’Malley. While O’Malley’s role has yet to play out, the combination of a democratic governor and a stimulus-hungry president may well push certain projects forward.

The yellow line, however? Don’t bet on it being built anytime soon.

Just to put this project in its proper place on the timeline, the downtown loop that would make the Yellow Line functional is on the second tier of priorities, behind not just the initial Red Line construction but also any possible extension of Baltimore’s Green (Subway) Line to Morgan State University. As Spence at the BaltimoreFuture blog states, this would put the second part of the yellow line — the part that goes beyond Dorsey Station to eventually hit Columbia Town Center — very, very far beyond the calendar range of reliable forecasts.

And that’s my very short history of the Yellow Line, as it were.

Next week’s fantasy animal: The elusive North American tusked mountain shark.