L'Enfant smartly intuited that a seemingly rational but in fact
nutsoid street design would keep politicians in a confined area and
away from neighborhoods inhabited by actual people. So roadways are
blocked by buildings and parks. Two-way streets turn into one-ways.
One-ways turn into one-ways going the opposite direction. Traffic
circles are plunked down in the most congested areas, for maximum
confusion. Amid it all, streets meant to slice diagonally through
town are instead wiggly-shaped, like a garden hose left lying in
your driveway.
My street is not in the District, but it is inside the Beltway,
which means it benefits from Washington's
I-think-they-call-it-logic.
Located just off an exit ramp, my street attracts more and more
drivers who cut through my neighborhood to avoid traffic lights. My
street has few sidewalks and lots of parked cars, which means that
if you walk down my street, you are walking down the middle of it.
So like I said, I live on a one-way two-way street. Which means, to
quote the poet-philosophers the Eagles, you can check out, but you
can never leave. Well, not by turning left, at any rate.
See, the end of the block has a V-shaped barrier that forces
drivers exiting the street to turn right. In case there's any
question, there is a sign that says Right-hand Turn Only.
If you are driving up the busy thoroughfare that intersects with my
street, you can't turn left onto my street. But if you are driving
down that street, you can turn right onto my street. Got it?
I still only sorta do, and I've been here for more than two years.
You may have heard that
Washington is in the midst of an economic
boom. Housing prices have skyrocketed so high that the only people
who can afford to live in the District are the modern-day
equivalents of robber barons. That is not a gratuitous swipe at
lobbyists and lawyers. Oh, wait a minute. Yes, it is.