The Washington Post has a brief article about Virginia political blogger Hans Mast and his role in promoting a Metrorail extension under Tysons Corner. I must admit that I’m not actually clear what Tysons Corner is (I think it’s a metastasized shopping center), what the difference is between Metrorail and the Metro, or why one might want a tunnel rather than a ground-level track, but it’s great that Hans is helping to shape the debate.
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I can’t tell if you are kidding or not
http://www.tysonstunnel.org/
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tysonscorner/
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume for a moment (only a moment) that Tysons Corner is NOT the center of the transportation universe and you really don’t know much about it. Imagine if you will 6 pounds of sausage meat (or any other substance you desire) which someone – say, the two or three proponents of the above-ground route – are trying to stuff into a 4 pound sack. I believe this is usually referred to as a blivet. Well, all the roads going through Tysons Corner are blivets, and that damn sausage casing is going to explode if we try to put the rail above ground.
I simply can’t believe that the very carefully reasoned and meticulous posts on Hans Mast are being done by a 19 year old. The kid knows his stuff. I have early childhood memories from the early sixties of Tysons Corner as the site of a two pump gas station and a field through which only a few years before horse enthusiasts from Vienna and Fairfax used to ride to hounds. Things change.
C’mon, Catzmaw, you know what they say about sausage being made . . .
A metastasized shopping center! Waldo, you are AWESOME.
Wikipedia on Tysons Corner
Nope. Metrorail, Tysons Corner, tunnels…I know nothing of these things. Though, what with the links and the delightful sausage explanation, I know more now. :)
Indeed, Catzmaw; I remember driving out to Dulles in the family station wagon for an airshow, and counting cows in Tysons Corner as we passed through. The pace of NOVA sprawl is shocking. Hard to characterize any of it as progress.
Catzmaw,
Most of Virginia looks at NoVa and the Tyson’s Corner area as practically another state. We watch your struggles with transportation, housing and general quality of life in a sort of amused, detached way. That’s on the rare occasions when we notice Northern Virginia at all. We simply cannot fathom why anyone would want to live all on top of each other like that.
I lived up there for a couple years, and I gotta say, it could be a lot of fun. Not the 6-mile 45-minute commute to downtown, but the myriad things to see and do were great.
One of the things I worry about is the rest of the commonwealth being overwhelmed by the northern Virginia colossus – like how what metro Philly says goes in PA. Nothing one can do about it though.
Metro is the whole system, which includes buses and rail. Metrorail is just the trains (which run above and below ground in different places).
But if you live there, and you say that you are taking “Metrorail,” you’ll look like an idiot. Refer to it all as Metro, or “the train,” and “the bus.”
You’ll realize why you’d want it below ground if you lived around here, Waldo. There’s NO way an above the ground system would work, although in some parts of DC and Northern VA, above ground is fine.
Tyson’s Corner is a mess, but I am spoiled from having easy access to Georgetown, Adams Morgan, Dupont and Tenleytown for shopping, etc.
That last sentence was written for the sole purpose of confusing Waldo. I am without shame.