Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Conquering the W&OD, 10 Miles at a Time

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The Washington & Old Dominion Regional Park is one of the premiere bike trail parks in the DC metropolitan area. It’s 100 feet wide (with a 9 foot wide paved trail) and 45 miles long—running from Purcellville, Virginia, all the way into Arlington. You can read some more about the park and trail from BikeWashington.org or Friends of the W&OD. As part of my quest to ride at least 30 miles each week, I’ve been spending at least a couple hours over the last three weeks riding the W&OD.

I’ve been tackling the trail in 10-mile increments (each outing is a 20-mile ride: 10 miles from my chosen starting point, then 10 miles back). In my three rides so far, I’ve successfully conquered just over 30 miles of the 45 mile long trail—from its Purcellville end-point all the way to a rest area past Hunter Mill Road.  If you look at the map on BikeWashington.org, I’ve ridden everything from the left starting point to a point about 2/3 of the way between the dots for Reston and Vienna. I’ll probably really push myself and finish the last 15 miles in one big ride (30 miles total!) this or next week before moving on to some other local trails.

If you have any interest in local history, check out Paul McCray’s fascinating photographic history of the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad, which was abandoned in the 1960s and later converted into the W&OD ‘rail trail’. Some of my favorite bits include the W&OD bridge over the [4-lane!] Beltway in 1967, the grade-crossing over the Shirley Highway (now I-395) in Arlington from 1968 (local readers will recognize the building in the distance to the left, which is still there), and—best of all—the Dulles Airport siding from 1959. The airport siding is especially ironic, since the W&OD was both a freight and passenger line, so we had a passenger-capable rail line running most of the way to Dulles Airport while it was being built in 1959 but don’t have any line or service to the airport today.

Apparently though, the W&OD line had a reputation similar to that of today’s MetroRail system. It was known by a few interesting nicknames like ‘Wobbly & Old Dilapidated Railroad’, ‘Worst & Openly Damned Railroad’, ‘Old Devil Railroad’, and others. So it turns out that MetroRail is just part of a long, consistent transit tradition.

The Hybrids Come Crashing Down

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I’ve spoken before of my dislike for public/private hybrid organizations, including public universities, and my laissiez-faire attitudes toward government involvement with business. The fact is that when government involves itself with private business—whether by endorsing public/private hybrids or bailing out private businesses—it rarely ends well for anybody, least of all the taxpaying public.

Well, like Amtrak and the Postal Service before them, two of the largest ‘government sponsored enterprises’—the Federal National Mortgage Association (‘Fannie Mae’) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (‘Freddie Mac’)—have come upon hard times. These two monstrosities were created in the 1970s to increase the money available for home-buyers, which is a fine goal, but it is a goal that should be met by private industry not by government sponsorship. Now, feeling the pinch of the so-called mortgage ‘crisis’ they (and poorly educated home-buyers) helped create, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the happy recipients of government aid to shore up confidence in their solvency.

Like past bailouts, the government won’t be able to do anything but delay the inevitable without these companies changing from within. That’s why the government shouldn’t bail companies out, nor should the provide funding to failing hybrid public/private organizations. Bailouts/investments simply allow these companies to continue operating in a flawed, unprofitable way (e.g., Amtrak). The government should let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac succeed or fail on their own merits. If they fail the market will pick up the pieces on its own and move on. But, more likely, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy without a taxpayer-funded safety net will be a big incentive for Fannie and Freddie to get their acts together on their own.

Weird . . . Al Yankovic!

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Had a fun day yesterday. My sister Kristen, Melissa and I, and two of Kristen’s cool friends all headed down to the Warner Theater in Washington, DC, to see one of the most unique singer/songwriter/performers in the world: Weird Al Yankovic.

For some reason, like many performances, photography was prohibited (why do they do that?) so you’ll just see the outside marquee and ticket stub here. Oh well. It was a great, hilarious show that had us all rolling in the aisles laughing most of the way through. Weird Al, believe it or not, is an amazingly entertaining performer. His stage presence equals the quality of his musicality and wit.

Of note, Weird Al’s most recent ‘hit’—White and Nerdy—is not only funny, but it is technically accurate. Further, the images displayed on the screen during his performance of the song were equally accurate and relevant (even including the ‘smiley face’ image of the Acid 2 browser compliance test). I guess, since I know that, it would make me ‘White and Nerdy’ too.

D.C. Students See Big Academic Gains

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If you read my non-endorsements for the 2007 Fairfax County School Board election, you probably got the distinct impression that I don’t like the over-democratization of our schools. Educational decisions should be made by educational professionals with the limited oversight of elected city councils or county boards of supervisors or mayors. This allows for democratic input on the management of our schools without it degrading into the political BS you see in our school boards every month.

So you might guess that I was pretty happy when Washington, DC, Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) was elected with a strong mandate to sack the entire city school board and schools superintendent and replace them with a chancellor that answers directly to him. I was. I’m even more happy to learn that DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee—a former teacher who has been heavily criticized locally for her supposed ‘inexperience’, for firing hundreds of under-performing teachers and administrators, and for closing under-enrolled schools—has successfully led students in the DC school system to significantly improved test scores after only one year in office.

Critics have already begun claiming that the scores are a fluke, or that reforms from the preceding school leaders (what reforms were those, again?) had as much impact as the Fenty/Rhee reforms. It’s probably too early to tell. That said, I strongly suspect that DC schools will continue to thrive and improve under Rhee’s culture of professionalism and accountability, and DC’s schools will (against all odds) become a model for reform nationwide. Step 1: Depoliticize by dissolving elected school boards.

Setting Concrete Goals

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I’m learning that it’s best to set concrete, rather than nebulous, goals. For example, I’ve said many times before that I meant to write ‘more’ content for this web site. It wasn’t until I committed myself to an average of at least five entries per week that things finally changed. For some reason, a goal of five entries per week was easier to reach than a goal of ‘more’ entries.

When I bought my bike last year, I said I was going to get back into riding. Well, I sorta did. I did a few rides of 10 miles or longer before the weather turned too cold (having bought the bike at the end of the season) but then failed to pick it back up when the weather turned nice again. My bad. Well I finally went back out last week, and I apparently haven’t lost my ability (thank God). I did a 10-mile ride on Thursday evening, then a 20-mile ride on Saturday. It didn’t take a lot out of me, so now I’m setting a personal, concrete goal of riding at least 30-miles per week.

I figure that’s only a three-hour commitment (roughly) in the week, which can be met with three 10-mile rides or one 30-mile ride or any other combination. That gives me flexibility, but it is a concrete target. Let’s see how it works out.

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.