(Photo: Ben Schumin)

From teenagers on the Metro to traffic delays to oil to The Examiner's fear of anything not driving a car, there's a lot for us to be concerned about this week. I've been on vacation these last two weekdays so On Foot wasn't walking quite as fast as normal, but there was more than enough intriguing transit news in the days I was here and writing.

Let's review the biggest transportation stories of the past week.

 • What 20 U.S. cities have the most bike commuters? 

• Young people commit most crimes on the Metro, says MTPD Chief Taborn.

• And why hasn't the Metro Transit Police blotter been updated in more than half a year?

• The Examiner wants to call the car the "freedom machine" ... seriously.

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(Photo: flickr/dano)

Every good commute calls for a good playlist. Forget long waits for Metro trains, crowded jostling on the cars, walks that seem endless, and the bus stops to what feel like nowhere — this weekend, just sit back and enjoy the songs on your iPod or MP3 player. The right song kills all the travel stress, and in honor of that fact, TBD's On Foot blog offers you a weekly transit-themed track for your Metro playlist. The destination will come eventually, after all. In the meantime, just enjoy the ride and the music.

This week's traffic jam: "Walkin' After Midnight" by Patsy Cline (1957)

Hear more songs for your commuting playlist here.

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Oops? (Photo: Lockerz/JosephKLewis)

Many D.C. commuters have known a Metrobus or two in their time to bump a curb, perhaps, but I doubt many have seen this sight — a Metrobus literally up on the curb and on the verge of being towed away.

Joseph K. Lewis tweeted this Picture of the Day earlier this week with the following message: "OMG, a @wmata Metro bus driving over the curb and now trying to be towed? #fail." Yes, absolutely. This is one marvelous little slice of D.C. transit life that's absurd in just the way that so many District residents can probably relate to.

My favorite part is the bus driver staring up at the situation. What must be going through that man's mind?

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(Photo: Washington Improv Theater)

Ride on a bus, train, bike trail, or walk the same sidewalk every day, and you start to recognize the same people. I've observed this strange form of commuter intimacy before, and I'm happy to notice it once again in the form of a five-and-a-half minute dramatic video about what it means to ride the Washington, D.C. Metro on a daily basis.

The Washington Improv Theater are the ones responsible for "Relative," a video entered in the 48 Hour Film Project earlier in 2011. The short film went on to win Best Film, Best Acting Ensemble, and Best of Selection out of the D.C. films. Have you seen this short clip? The 48 Hour Film Project happened here earlier this summer, but the message of the video is timeless and speaks to one of the realities of mass transit. I only first enjoyed it recently and wanted to spotlight the WMATA-based gem if you hadn't seen it yet.

In "Relative," what we see are five people who slowly grow closer to one another after days on the Metro. Strangers slowly transform into an impromptu group of friends over the course of this story. Grim stares become smiles, detached isolation turns to helping one another with crosswords. It's a little corny, sure, but the message and execution of the video are excellent, especially considering that people put this together in just two days. As the Washington Improv Theater website notes: "Family is wherever you find it."

Watch their winning entry here:

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Don't trust anyone under 30? (Photo: flickr/mllerustad)

Are the kids going to be all right? Bleak news regarding the younger residents of Washington, D.C. seems everywhere lately. One statistic emerged this week suggesting that 10% of the 4,000 8th-graders in the D.C. public middle schools have tried to kill themselves, according to a Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey from last fall. Can you imagine? About one in 10 tried to commit suicide.

During last week's Metro Transit Police town hall, MTPD Chief Michael Taborn declared that young people are responsible for "probably 75% of the crime being committed" on the Metro. There have been 355 arrests in the second quarter of 2011. These crimes may be another manifestation of the disturbance that caused one in 10 DCPS eighth-graders to commit suicide, I would suggest. Both issues likely involve a certain level of emotional unease.

And what exactly constitutes a young person? Taborn had initially not specified and referred more broadly to "youth disorder" and its attendant problems during the summer season when teenagers could roam freely. A follow-up question from the audience led Taborn to specify that he meant people from around the age of 10 to 21, 22, 23 years old ... not exclusively teenagers so much as younger people in general. Taborn added that some interpret the word "juveniles" as offensive and one he generally avoids.

"Your simple assaults — most of those are young people," Taborn said.

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Your windows will become mirrors. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Whether you're paranoid or just think it's cool, you can now get tinted windows cheap thanks to a new Groupon offer. If you're willing to trek to Sterling, Virginia, that is.

But act fast. There's only a day or two left to get yourself windows that let no one see just what you're doing ... if you need that, that is. What have you got to hide?

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Sweet dreams. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Devastating news now confirms what we've all likely felt in our heart of hearts — no traveler is able to get truly restful sleep on planes and trains.

The New York Times'  Frugal Traveler blog dissects the notion that we can ever sleep easy when sitting upright in transit:

As we get deeper and deeper into sleep, he said, our muscles become more and more relaxed. That means it’s impossible to sleep well while sitting up because our neck muscles have to keep working. What about a neck pillow? “It’s the right idea, but most are poorly constructed,” he said.

Traveling next to someone willing to let you rest your head on his or her shoulder is a big help, as is a window seat that allows you to lean on the side of the plane. I usually travel alone, so the first bit doesn’t help, and I’m reluctant to take a window seat because if I can’t sleep (the usual state of things) I’ll have to choose between waking the person next to me to get out and wander, or going stir-crazy in my little corner.

Sleeping pills, Dr. Ellenbogen said, aren’t a magic solution either.

Sorry to shatter your dreams, D.C. commuters. I've seen you out there. You're legion — the Metro riders who think they can curl up on those plastic seats and enjoy some shut-eye.

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New terrain for D.C. tourists. (Photo: Popular Science)

The June 1932 cover of Popular Science featured one bus that was truly iconic — an orange underwater sightseeing bus that could take passengers under the depths of the ocean to see the strange watery world below. Inside the many bus windows are passengers' faces filled with awe, tourists to the marine life around them. "Ocean Marvels Seen From Underwater Bus," the cover boldly announces below the illustration.

This underwater sightseeing bus remained a mere concept in 1932, and I featured the wonderful cover image in a recent gallery of famous buses throughout history. I loved the idea and the cover, especially considering it came nearly 80 years ago and vowed then to find a week to include it among my dispatches of transit history. Now is that time.

What the Popular Science piece highlights are the designs of an engineer from Nice, France who imagines "sightseeing jaunts like this, beneath the waves along ocean beaches ... Suddenly there is a swishing noise. A greenish veil of seawater sweeps over the outside of the porthole window beside you. Past it glide forms of marine life. You are traveling on the floor of the sea!" The article includes sketches and designs for the "electric submarine automobile," which the inventor intended as an "amusement device" for people curious about the oceans — a way to pretend they're Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from the comfort of a cushy bus chair. Although recreational submarines for tourists have come to pass throughout the 20th century, this amusing magazine piece talks of submarines in the language of traditional transit. We're imaging an underwater "bus," with illustrations suggesting that "tracks may be laid" on the floor of the sea near popular resorts.

It's a delightful look back into the imagination of transit engineers past and worth a glance today. Can you imagine one of these sightseeing aquatic buses venturing under the waters of the Potomac? Or perhaps imagine an underwater Metrobus, even — though a submarine WMATA strains even my powers of imagination. Read the 1932 Popular Science piece here:

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(Photo: flickr/tvol)

Greg Billing of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association points out a fascinating and good fact on WABA's blog — as of the recent American Community Survey statistics for 2010, Washington, D.C. now ranks as the United States' fifth highest city of bike commuters among the 70 largest U.S. cities. In the District, 3.1% of the population said they bike to work as a primary mode of transportation last year.

As Billing points out in his comments, these numbers don't even truly feature any of the leap thanks to Capital Bikeshare's introduction in fall of 2010. We likely gained many more bikeshare users and bike commuters as 2011 progressed, which will be fascinating to see in next year's numbers. I suspect the District's bike lanes and broader focus on bike commuting in recent years is responsible for the increase in 2010 bike commuters. What Billing doesn't link to but is worth a look is this spreadsheet of the 70 biggest cities' bike commuting data, courtesy of the League of American Bicyclists.

Here's the top 20 bike-commuting cities according to ACS numbers:

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Poor lungs. (Photo: flickr/slocountybicyclecoalition)

Don't breathe easy yet, D.C. bicyclists. As wonderful as Capital Bikeshare's birthday was and the news that more people biked to work last year, there's some bad news on the horizon — biking in dense, urban cities may actually hurt your health in some ways.

Why? Pollution. Soot. Black carbon. New research from the London School of Medicine was presented at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Amsterdam on September 25.

Here's the bad news, according to the European Lung Foundation:

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Forever. (Photo: flickr/indydina with Mr. Wonderful)

Hear that news, D.C.? You're stuck in traffic 74 hours a year!

Serious bad news ... but still, is it any surprise to hear that we're the most congested city in the U.S.?

Let's put this in perspective though. 74 hours of traffic delays ... It's more than three full days, yes, but here's another devastating thought. In 74 hours of time, you could fly around the world more than one and a half times! Oh, the places you could have gone ... if you could have gone anywhere.

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Like fueling with poison. (Photo: flickr/pat00139)

The U.S. Department of Energy has released a new 168-page review this morning of U.S. transportation and its dependence on oil, one the department hopes to conduct every four years. Its outlook isn't good — for traffic, drivers, our international relations, and in the long-term, the climate. Although the U.S. Department of Transportation handles many of these issues as well, the Department of Energy inevitably invests in how we power our vehicles and assesses the state of our nation's energy consumption. The report certainly contains enough drama about how bad the situation is, referring to our oil dependency as the "greatest immediate threat to U.S. economic and national security" and a long-term threat to the climate.

The District and countless cities throughout America rely on oil to get to work every day. More than 40% of District residents commuted to work in a car in 2010, according to the recent American Community Survey statistics. This new Department of Energy report outlines the various problems that oil creates for the U.S. as well as the ways in which America is underinvesting in critical transit areas and potentially overinvesting in others. The government report says the department worries far too much about technologies that are "multiple generations away from practical use at the expense of analyses, modeling and simulation, or other highly relevant fundamental engineering research activities that could influence the private sector in the nearer term. But changes needs to come, the report emphasizes, especially since "more than 90% of transportation services are fueled by petroleum."

Here's how the DOE is spending $3 billion of its investment dollars in its budget for the fiscal year of 2011:

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Hello, riders. (Photo: John Hendel)

With 420 sworn security officers and just over 100 special security officers, the Metro Transit Police is tasked with covering a 1,500-mile Transit Zone — they're the only tristate police force in the United States that's not federal. The force's few hundred members are burdened with a significant amount of territory to cover, and as such, a lot of information and legal issues to coordinate. MTPD Chief Michael Taborn is well acquainted with these difficulties. The Prince Georges County resident has been part of Metro security since 1974, two years before President Gerald Ford even signed the bill authorizing the formal commission of the Metro Transit Police. He's led the MTPD for the past three years and amid Metro's communications refocusing, his police force has been reaching out to Metro riders on crime issues in new ways as well.

The tall chief stood in front of a half dozen members of the public as well as representatives of the Riders Advisory Council Wednesday evening last week and explained the difficulties of juggling so many jurisdictions and coordinating with so many local and federal police agencies.

"Officers sometimes carry around nine different citation books," Taborn explained, talking in a matter-of-fact tone at the front of the large Jackson Graham Building meeting room. They need to be prepared to know and deal with the laws of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia at any given time. He called information-sharing procedures and meetings "probably the most important thing that we do."

Taborn's Metro police have taken a renewed commitment to communication and strategy to heart in certain visible ways in recent weeks and months. Take the last two weeks, for instance — MTPD have coordinated with Metro's communications team to reach out and seek public input on two cases. The first involved a stabbing and attempted robbery near the Huntington Metro station on the morning of September 19. WMATA immediately tweeted out the news and identified the two suspects sought ("late teen/early 20s, BM, 5'6-5'7 dreds") with the appropriate numbers to call. That message has been retweeted 32 times. On September 26, Metro released a press release asking for further information in another MTPD case. The short release referred to a crime committed earlier in the week:

Metro Transit Police detectives are seeking the public’s assistance as they investigate a shooting believed to have occurred near a bus stop in Oxon Hill, Md., yesterday afternoon.

The incident is believed to have occurred shortly before 8:30 a.m. yesterday near the intersection of Glassmanor Drive and Irvington Street in Oxon Hill. It is not known whether the victim, a 53-year-old man, was physically at the bus stop when he was shot.

The victim, who has a cognitive disability, is believed to have traveled by bus and train to a church in the District. Upon arrival, others noticed that the man did not look well and called EMS. Shortly thereafter, it was determined that he was suffering from a gunshot wound.

The man was transported to an area hospital where he remains in stable condition.

The crime sounds heartbreaking. WMATA asked people with relevant information to call the Metro Transit Police. In a way, this seems innovative and good to crowdsource the public's help and offer an apparently transparent window into some of the Metro crime being committed. MTPD has reached out in similar ways before, as in past May's carjacking case.

The way that the MTPD is operating reflects broader changes at WMATA and a transformation in how they're doing business — specifically, the transit agency hopes to target the areas that matter and make them count. Does tweeting out this repair information help writers? Does talking to this journalist help? Does providing this spreadsheet make a difference to the quality of WMATA ridership and service? Sometimes this reevaluated outreach manifests in social media campaigns, in town halls, in the ability to upload money to your SmarTrip card online. Other times it means abandoning elements that WMATA deems to not work so well.

Case in point: WMATA features a MTPD blotter to chronicle the various crimes handled by the department, similar to the blotters many police departments offer. Its last update, however, was on March 31, 2011 after what looked like a steady and regularly updated month of infractions that included intent to distribute marijuana, a warning about consuming drinks, obstruction of justice, bike theft, and various other transit violations. Why did these regular and transparent updates cease half a year ago? I asked Chief Taborn and chief spokesperson Dan Stessel in person last Wednesday after the Riders Advisory Council town hall.

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Hail the transit king. (Photo: flickr/brookswashere)

How to make sense of the Washington Examiner? The newspaper has established its right-wing values rather clearly throughout recent years, and a bizarre editorial on Car Free Day last week reinforced the notion that the Examiner's editorial forces tilt in the direction of the car.

Its title: "Automobiles gave Americans mobility, prosperity and greater freedom." Hooray, cars? What the editorial amounts to, in essence, is a defense of the car and driving life. Fair enough ... but the timing is obnoxious and the points rather strange. The newspaper reportedly has a circulation of 100,000 to 300,000 in the D.C. metro area, and enough people read this stuff that I can't help but discuss some of the points thrown around.

Consider one of the editorial board's first conclusions. They essentially say that cars are okay because we live longer now compared to 100 years ago. Are cars making us immortal? No, of course not. That would be silly for the newspaper to argue that. But our longer lifespans of 2011 (an average of 78.37 years, paper says, compared to around 50 back in 1908) ostensibly prove that cars don't hurt human health: "So much for the killer exhaust fumes," the editorial notes with satisfaction.  But despite the pain of driving commutes, the central car problem is how a rapidly growing society of drivers affects the environment, not how it's hurting the individual human driver. Hardly anyone would make the claim that the automobile itself is shortening human life (not counting the genuine danger of traffic accidents, drunk driving, and other problems of the road). The editorial, in multiple instances, seems to suggest that there's some grand argument to this effect. Furthermore, no one's living longer thanks to sitting at the wheel — it's due to nutrition, medical innovation, and other society advancements that have happened concurrently with the advent of the car.

"Fair-minded" people, the piece continues, should be able to see the virtue of the car thanks to their "knowledge of history."

Now I consider myself to have some "knowledge of history" and The Examiner's editorial board does make accurate, very real and true points about how the car helped expand the American landscape, how it offered opportunity and power, the idea of road trips and travel and more throughout the 1900s. It's real history that we have thanks to the Ford Model T and all subsequent cars. I like that story of expansion and growth and generally acknowledge it many weeks in my dispatches of transit history. But how does that transportation revolution of the 20th century dovetail into the following paragraph?

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(Photo: flickr/Charles Williams)

D.C. drivers, there's about 12 hours left to buy AAA Mid-Atlantic's special deal through Groupon — a year of roadside assistance for only $30, a value that Groupon says is normally about $65. Have you found yourself wishing for a AAA card while staring at a busted tire recently? Now is your chance.

The Groupon deal began over the weekend, I noticed, and seems to have been extended throughout Monday today. The membership comes with 24/7 assistance in case you need your car jumped, towed, or any number of other mechanical problems. More than 3,800 D.C. area residents have already signed up for the deal. I'm reminded of the potent local response to the LivingSocial Zipcar deal, in which nearly 4,000 new Zipsters were created. These transit discounts have real economic power, especially in a recession. Everyone's ready to save a buck on what normally is such an expensive sphere of their lives.

As the site's notoriously snappy writers phrase it:

Even the most careful drivers can be waylaid by tire trouble, an overheated engine, or deer foraging for hamburger wrappers. Prepare for on-the-road mishaps with today's Groupon: for $30, you get a one-year basic primary membership to AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Buy your AAA membership now, D.C., if you're in need. The clock is ticking.

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All aboard. (Photo: John Hendel)

America's iconic buses have been showing up everywhere in the last few days. First, I talked to the director of a forthcoming documentary about the classic VW bus and this past weekend, I visited the Washington, D.C. Book Festival to find another of our culturally famous buses — the Scholastic Magic School Bus, there to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

The bus sat right there on the National Mall, surrounded by the countless readers, authors, and other pedestrians walking by, as colorful as life. The big, yellow bus comes out of a series of books and an animated television show starring a zany red-haired science teacher named Ms. Frizzle, who takes her students into countless extraordinary situations to teach them about science. On Saturday, the bus appeared decorated with characters from the show all along the surface of the vehicle, in addition to starfish, planets, and other artifacts of science knowledge. The world of the Magic School Bus has become a beloved and iconic setting for children over the course of the last two decades.

Also present was a large 74-foot Digital Bookmobile:

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Lights everywhere outside Union Station on Sunday. (Photo: lockerz/tVS_557)

It's natural enough, I suppose, that my Monday morning should begin with Metro delays.

WMATA has contended with a lot of them over the last couple days, I'm afraid — and beyond scheduled track maintenance, the delays are often due to the forces of nature and disease. First came the news yesterday evening that Union Station was burning at around 6:30 p.m. and had to be evacuated. But what happened exactly? Some reports differed. A flare-up in the electrical room prompted the D.C. fire department's intervention and the station's evacuation, ultimately; the AP reports that 65 firefighters were on the scene, and that the fire was out and the station reopened by 7:30 p.m. and that Metro trains were running back through as per usual by 8 p.m.

But Metro spokesperson Dan Stessel said that the event wasn't even so much a fire as "arcing," which produces sparks and plenty of smoke and happened due to some water infiltration. "There was no fire per se," Stessel told me. The sparks naturally created concern and led to firefighters on the scene, but the idea that there were actual flames burning in Union Station was overstating what happened a bit. He emphasized that Metro was back up and running by 7:30 p.m. Sunday night.

And then this morning, another hazard hit the Metro — passenger sickness on the Green Line, causing single-tracking delays

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(Photo: Ben Schumin)

It's been the week of the bike here at TBD. If you're a bicyclist or even remotely curious about how biking culture has affected transit in Washington, D.C., I encourage you to visit our central Bike Day page, which features many of the stories, confessions, cases, and galleries from multiple members of the TBD staff. See the scary bike hazards around D.C., read confessions of an aggressive cyclist, watch video of the best urban bike commute in America — all collected here on TBD's Bike Day page for your easy access.

Naturally I also talked a lot about biking and other transit news here, of course, especially considering Capital Bikeshare turned one year old this Tuesday. Let's review the biggest transit stories of the week:

• How did bikesharing come to Washington, D.C.? Here's how in photos.

• Remember D.C.'s first initial try at bikesharing with SmartBike? I talked to an MBA professor at Emory about how it seemed designed to fail.

• See photos of all the fancy art cars at H Street!

• A Montana filmmaker is coming out with a documentary about the VW bus ... get excited. See the trailer, read a Q&A with the director.

• Here's the 19 most dangerous Metro stations in recent months. Is yours one?

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(Photo: flickr/dano)

Every good commute calls for a good playlist. Forget long waits for Metro trains, crowded jostling on the cars, walks that seem endless, and the bus stops to what feel like nowhere — this weekend, just sit back and enjoy the songs on your iPod or MP3 player. The right song kills all the travel stress, and in honor of that fact, TBD's On Foot blog offers you a weekly transit-themed track for your Metro playlist. The destination will come eventually, after all. In the meantime, just enjoy the ride and the music.

This week's traffic jam: "Drive" by R.E.M. (1992)

Hear more songs for your commuting playlist here.

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(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

This past Thursday may have been international Car Free Day, but D.C. commutes already reflect alternative modes of transportation, from walking to biking to Metro to Zipcar. A record number of Washingtonians pledged to go car-free this year, and the trend is already reflected in our city's transit numbers from last year.

The U.S. Census Bureau has released the latest census figures for 2010, and I've been poring over the numbers for Washington, D.C. All of these statistics carry with them some doubt, naturally, and have a margin of error, but they provide an illuminating projection of what transportation in the District looks like. Of the 296,717 people estimated to travel to work every day in the District in 2010, 174,848 didn't travel to work in a car. Instead, these people walked, took public transportation like the Metro or the bus, rode in taxis, telecommuted, and biked. The number of bike commuters in the District, we know, rose to 3.3% in 2010, 8/10 of a percentage higher than the national average percentage of bike commuters. 120,869 commuters rely on a car, truck, or van to get to work, the vast majority (more than 100,000) driving alone.

So to put that in perspective: last year, only 40.7% of D.C. residents drove to work, according to the census, compared to the 58.9% who chose other means. These numbers, to give context, represent a slight increase in the use of public transportation from the American Community Survey 2005-2009 data that we've been relying on. In previous ACS numbers, a little more than 56% of District residents choose car-free ways of getting to work compared to the nearly 44% who drove.

The numbers reinforce recent trends — we're driving less and walking, biking, and Metroing more.

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