Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 5 December 2001

Just when it was starting to look like the various factions were learning to get along, out of left field comes Safeway filing a complaint against the flea market at Hardy Middle School. Rather than trying to offend potential customers, they would be better off turning this into a new revenue opportunity: how about a stall in their own parking lot near the street, selling say fresh produce?

Foxhall neighborhood is between two Safeway stores (Wisconsin and MacArthur), but they are not at all equal - the MacArthur store we understand might be their smallest in the U.S. So why doesn’t Safeway put effort into a creative re-design of their MacArthur site, to make use of its several levels to create e.g. multi-level parking and an expanded store: or have they ceded the renovated and new supermarket business in D.C. to Giant?

In traffic control, DDOT is trying some innovative things in parts of the city, such as reflective pylons in the center of the street at mid-block crosswalks. They are experimenting with rubber speed humps (long, raised flat areas) through a winter season to see how easily these can be removed for snow-plowing. The prospect of rumble strips doesn't sit well with nearby homes, but there may be locations without nearby homes that they could be tested.

The new radar speed control is working so well that the number of speeding tickets is way up. MPD is sticking with deploying them on the same streets, such as MacArthur and Foxhall with the objective not of raising money but changing behavior. This will last just as many months as it takes to bring the percentage of speeders down substantially.

© Bob Andrew, Foxhall