The Arlington Uglification Committee
Congratulations to the Arlington Uglification Committee for another job well done!
I did not think it possible to top the success of the Reflector-Lined Invisible Sidewalk that No One Uses installed on Lorcom Lane earlier this year, or the various Unuseful Tire-Popping Crosswalk Islands that have cropped up over time, but let’s never discount the ingenuity of these folks.
If there’s a problem in need of a solution, the AUC will put on their thinking caps, grab their cans of green paint (and endless supply of reflectors!) and by gum, after a few hundred thousand dollars of tax money, they will not have just stood there– they will have *done something*: most likely, a something that you, unimaginative dolt that you are, would never have dreamed of.
Their real expertise, however, is to identify solutions in need of a problem.
The less needed, the better. And you had better trust in the process: one way or another, they will make it fit. The solution, that is. The one you don’t need. To the problem you don’t have. It will fit. In a manner of speaking.
And no problem was in less need of a solution than the intersection of Military Road and Nellie Custis Drive.
A strange intersection, difficult to navigate for pedestrians, and subject to the occassional mixed signals by motorists– but hardly a deathtrap. Arlington’s own data indicates there have been three fender benders there over the past TEN YEARS. So surely something must be done– and that something had better be UGLY.
The recent makeover of the intersection of N Glebe Road and Lee Highway — pardon me, “Langston Boulevard” (what a melodious increase of syllables)– is another fine example of such. Anyone could have taken great time and expense to rip up existing curb, gutter, sidewalks, and driveways, removed traffic lights and bus stops and then put them back more or less the way they were– but that’s so easy! So much more rewarding to put them back uglier and worse: narrow those driveway turns, so that drivers have to take the time to look around at the ugliness. Misalign the curb, gutter and manholes with the final street elevation so that driving can become a true multi-sensory experience. Change the light cycle on the new industrial super-highway sized light poles so that it’s not better but is at least kinda different, in a disorienting annoying way. That’s the true spirit of uglification, right there.
I, for one, am proud to have an intersection that looks a little more like Rockville Pike than it used to, or has to.
It goes without saying that we all absolutely cannot wait for the curtain wall to go up on the new oversized day care center just to the west! It will be such a nice complement to the new mural on Cowboy Cafe.
So let’s raise a glass to this hardworking lot: Here’s to the eternal health and well-being of the Arlington Uglification Committee!
FXD
11/3/21