David Ramos
@imagineterrain
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Making maps/systems to help us imagine landscapes past + future. Co-organize @midcityrun . Lost streams, 🚲🛶🌊 @imagineterrain .bsky.social
Washington, D.C.
Joined May 2010
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Here's a new edition of the Lost Streams of Washington, DC map.
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A miniature stone wall-building contest, run by the Dry Stone Wall Association of Ireland. This is oddly compelling.
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If the boil water advisory has you wondering how DC's water supply system works, here's a diagrammatic view of how water goes from the Potomac River, through reservoirs and treatment plants, and into your tap.
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I'm preparing a new set of maps showing DC's lost streams, watershed by watershed. Here's a draft of the first map: Slash Run and Brown's Run, flowing from Adams Morgan through Cardozo and Dupont.
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The Perseverance rover's path on Mars, overlaid on a DC map for scale, by
@KarklisCarto
. A lovely visualization.
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An unnamed broadcast studio in DC is auctioning off surplus equipment. The studio is clearly NPR, and I think that this device is the Tiny Desk Mixer. Perfect for Tiny Desk Concert fans.
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Meridian Hill, probably in the 1920s, with the Dante and Joan of Arc statues in place but no cascade or retaining walls.
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Population density at the turn of the century. Look at Baltimore's swagger and natty waistcoat. New York Times, 13 Oct. 1907.
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In the tragedy at the Key Bridge, I'm surprised that the ship's mayday call translated into police closing the bridge just three minutes later. It's a testament to professionalism that things could move so fast, and I'd be interested in hearing *how* that happened.
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Good news: DDOT's final design for Columbia Road is very nearly the same as the (excellent) schematic design, with a few minor changes that read as improvements. Construction begins in the 2nd week of July.
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@niawag1
@FLEETFEETDC
Had to buy swim goggles and went to Target. My last pair came from Fleet Feet, but I’m not going to patronize a store that campaigns against my safety and the safety of my neighbors.
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Now at the printer’s! A pair of maps, one showing DC’s lost streams, and another displaying flood/storm surge risks.
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The DC Zoning Commission voted to approve the proposed map amendment in Case 23–02, to rezone the police and fire station sites at 1617 U St. to MU-10, applying IZ Plus.
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That petition that 1617 U St. opponents won't stop talking about? One neighborhood business owner signed it because he thought it was about rats.
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@ChappellTracker
Hey, the US Navy is starting to move away from grease pencils and plexiglass status boards.
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Confirmed: the MARC Camden Line is slower than the B&O was in 1893. Looking at a copy of Harwood's _Impossible Challenge_, I see that expresses made the Baltimore–Washington run in 45–55m, with locals down to 1h30m. Today, all the MARC trains are scheduled for over an hour.
I have a hunch that the B&O was moving trains almost as fast in 1850. Going to have to compare schedules.
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I filled out the 17 and U anti-development group's survey, and they sent this creepy email as a follow-up.
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DC's lost streams: a second draft of the Slash Run and Brown's Run map. (As folks've noted, this stream system also flows through the West End and also U St./Cardozo.)
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Meanwhile, on the Adams Morgan list, a handful of residents (mostly Dupont residents) are still losing their minds about the possibility of a Columbia Rd. protected bike lane.
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Bridge across Rock Creek south of the zoo is looking good.
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Lining up an 1892 map of Adams Morgan with modern data. Took some doing, but roads are so close to their modern positions that it's not possible to tell what's error and what's changes in street design.
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Heavy equipment arrives for construction on Columbia Road! Eager to see this — new bus facilities, protected bike lanes, and pedestrian safety features.
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Oh hey, there was supposed to be a protected bike lane down the middle of 16th St.
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An unusual ghost building on a 19th St. NW alley, in Dupont.
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Plans for the Columbia Road project include islands on the NE/SE corners of the Columbia/18th/Adams Mill intersection!
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Historic cemeteries need to be treated with respect—under preservation law and as a matter of how we care for our dead—but those protections failed a black family's cemetery in Mecklenburg County, Va.
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I'm shocked—this usage is correct. The New York Times is actually referring to DC's legislature with accurate, if clunky, language.
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There's something uniquely twisted about cosplaying environmental justice. Worse if it's for cynical ends.
If McMillan is a historic park then why is it filled with hazardous contaminants that can cause lung disease and lung cancer?
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Ice skating on Rock Creek, within the National Zoo grounds, 1905. This is right around the present-day entrance to the zoo tunnel.
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Oh hey, look at this deep pit that is visible in the District's 2022 LIDAR data for Dupont East!
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A US Army School of Aerial Reconnaissance photomosaic of Washington, DC, 1918.
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@FixCircle
I note that there aren't any actual data points between 1969 and 2009—anything could've happened in that period, which saw desegregation and court-ordered bussing, movement from cities to suburbs, and shifts in household roles.
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We used to have quality local journalism, but a WAMU focus group said they wanted media that was "uplifting and made them feel good," so 🤷.
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Look
#bikedc
, a car-free Rock Creek Park! The bridge at Pierce Mill, between 1885 and 1920, from the Brandy–Handy photo collection at LOC.
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@DukesGrocery
Duke's customer here. I'd ride in a protected bike lane on 17th, and I'd be *more* likely to stop in at Duke's bc easier to get to. I want that lane because it means safer trips by friends, neighbors, and myself.
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@VLBenning
@GordonAChaffin
@luzcita
The only reporters I’ve seen at ANC meetings came from Street Justice, DC Line, and DCist. I know the Post’s budget no longer permits the intensive local coverage that marked the Metro sections of 20–30 years ago, but don’t come after the people who do that hard work.
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@christosyal
@A_ShirleyDesign
@LAmag
@JasonMcGahan
It's not much of an "exclusive" if there was a previous story that editors pulled out of shame.
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A (private?) park off of Morse St. NE, in Union Market, designed by Scape. There are pawpaws. I endorse the planting of pawpaws.
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The Mt. Pleasant NextDoor is losing its shit over a plan to build apartments on the site of a one-story dry cleaners, because new housing would price out the people around the corner…(checks Zillow)…living in homes valued at $1.3M.
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I’ve always found 17th St to be busy w ppl on bikes and got curious. Spent ½ hour this morning counting
#bikedc
riders, seeing 108 bikes + 7 scooters/skateboards. That’s 28% of 17th St traffic that would benefit from a protected bike lane.
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Story about Columbia Road is up; its hook is the tiny protest by project opponents. The piece is ok, but I'm disturbed that if not for supportive neighbors who happened to stop by, this would've been 3× interviews w. NIMBYs and a few moments w. the director of WABA.
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Here's an exceptional piece of information—a cross-section of one of DC's buried streambeds. South of Dupont Circle, the valley of Slash Run lay a good 15 feet below the modern surface.
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Lost streams of DC, a bike tour. This Saturday at 9:45 am. Got a good group, but there are a few spots left.
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It's only grassroots if it's from the Adams Morgan region of DC.
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I got a pool noodle, as an experiment in claiming the space that the law and
#bikedc
safety require.
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Since Chesapeake Bay ferries are under study, here's a map of the steamboat lines in 1926. Overnight from Baltimore to Norfolk! Ferry to the resort at Rock Hall, and easy access to Crisfield and Cambridge.
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Far from terrible! Excellent study in cartographic generalization, and in the simplicity of the US-Canada border.
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@miller_stephen
The “paid protester” line is stunningly dehumanizing. Whether sincere or rhetorical, it’s venomous and has no place in public process. I expect it from the extreme right, but left-leaning local activists should be ashamed.
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About three protestors along Columbia Road, site of new bus stops and protected bike lanes, holding signs that read “800 said no” and “why did DDOT do this.”
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Want to know how law enforcement uses Stingrays for cellphone surveillance?
@theintercept
obtained manuals
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@niawag1
@FLEETFEETDC
Also: there is now also a burgeoning petition in support of the project, up to ~500 signatures in a few days.
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@ddiamond
The Caspar Buberl frieze around the National Building Museum has about 1,300 soldiers, sailors, and quartermaster civilians, plus medical personnel and injured troops. They have their own boats, horses, transport, and artillery.
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I’m not sure this was an error so much as a copywriter speaking truth.
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I would caution against assumptions about decorum and past generations; consider the lapsed practice of picnicking in cemeteries, and the frankly frivolous design of American battlefield parks, more about tourism than contemplation.
Is there a reason why walking on the water is considered disrespectful to veterans? Is it just arbitrary or is it one of these things that hasn't been passed on to my generation?
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Little Free Library in front of the Alma Thomas house on 15th Street.
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That’s why it’s so beautifully quiet in Rock Creek Park: Beach Drive is closed near the zoo, as it should always be.
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Cross-country skier on Euclid St. NW. Adams Morgan and the whole region under a sea of snow, December 19, 2009.
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The number of DC MPD sworn officers, (1) starting the Y axis at 3000 and (2) starting the axis at 0.
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Historic rail lines of central Maryland and DC, with the hills and mountains that drove their routing. (Another version of this spring's color/hillshade study, now adding data.)
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Squall line howling into Adams Morgan, whole trees in motion, 15 minutes ago. Rain now. cc
@capitalweather
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They aren't actually stupid, so it can't be that they're unable to locate the (ample, multi-agency) materials. Either none of the existing planning docs passes "but what about the process" whinging, or they're badgering people who provided inconvenient survey responses.
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There’s nothing quite like waking along Rock Creek once the trees have dropped their leaves, the air quiet except for the babbling stream and the roar of 40 mph traffic. Pedestrianize Beach Drive already.
#walkdc
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@baddestmamajama
It's a workplace drama, not science fiction; changing the world isn't the point and indeed isn't possible within the show's frame. It is difficult to make compelling fiction about the realization of utopia.
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It’s getting wearisome over on the Adams Morgan list, but there are a few darkly amusing moments from the anti-bike usual suspects. I’m not sure everything is ok down in Dupont.
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A senior defense official confirms what the flights tell us: there’s been a large movement of active-duty military police and engineers to the DC area.
The KC–135s from Salt Lake were prob carrying Utah National Guard personnel.
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Ever wondered why Champlain St. runs down a little valley, or what Dupont looked like before the city came its way? I looked at Adams Morgan/Dupont/West End's little lost stream for GGWash.
From stream to sewer to secret,
@imagineterrain
maps out where Slash Run once flowed and how its historical course still affects DC today:
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Housewives! Save waste fats for explosives! A poster by Walter Richards, c1942.
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@VLBenning
@GordonAChaffin
@luzcita
I subscribe to
@GordonAChaffin
+ Street Justice b/c he’s doing dogged, detailed reporting that you and your staff have *failed* to do.
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@PYZC773
Was stopped at an intersection this morning. Psycho just goes around the other side of the median to run the light.
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The “800” might refer to NIMBYs’ markedly unpopular petition, which netted about half the signatures of the petition in support. It also might nod to the number of individual emails that Lance has sent to the Adams Morgan list. Who knows?!
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@asmall_word
DDOT's having an online meeting about the project on Thursday, 6 pm. It's quite close to the scheduled start of work, but it would be good to have supporters on line, just in case.
Columbia Road NW Bus Priority Project – Pre-Construction Information Session
content.govdelivery.com
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A glimpse of the two arms of Slash Run that flowed through north Dupont. (Caveat: everything about lost streams is guesswork and approximate!)
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The Vignelli Archives discovers early, even-more-diagrammatic concepts for DC Metro maps.
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I still cannot fathom how anyone who has ever used a road would just blithely assume that drivers on a major street come from the neighboring census tracts.
@mattyglesias
Those "outlier tracts" are NY Ave, where the 45 mph speed change catches a ton of people coming off the interstate; and the notorious traffic camera on 295 catching traffic going through a construction zone
Even on this stylized map it's obvious cameras are mostly on major
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Hook Hall is running a relief center for out-of-work restaurant staff.
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@maddiestone
The most significant server I can think of, now in a museum, complete with screen.
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@shawmainstreets
@DDOTDC
I'm sure other folks will be along to post links to the ~5 billion older studies that tell us that none of that will happen, but here's a link to a new literature review out of UC Davis. Business will be fine.
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@HazelDomain
@fun_vampire0
@nwraae
@linaposting
This. I teach design, web development, and data visualization to traditional-aged college students. Cloud-based software (Google Docs, notably) has demolished the mental model of files living somewhere.
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@SolarpunkVC
The tank enjoys better visibility for the driver (and under safety rules, needs ground guides when it is being moved in tight quarters).
From Mastodon: it is unfair to compare a modern pickup truck to a tank because the M1 Abrams battle tank has better forward visibility and is less likely to run over our kids than a street legal consumer truck.
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@twkovach
@sevensixfive
@TheeFerringer
Convenient. If you just left the store and realize you forgot the milk, you can go grab it, and your vehicle will only have moved a few feet since you left. Downside: roadtrips to Florida become generation-ship exercises.
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Somehow I'm just not sure that redevelopment opponents were candid and truthful when they were gathering signatures.
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The dockless car program continues. 15th St. at Meridian Hill, across
#BikeDC
15th. St. (sort of) protected lane.
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One beautiful thing about design, of course—it's a perfect reason to be interested just about anything.
@mgoldst
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Every day, I’m increasingly convinced that traffic enforcement should comprise “have the traffic control officer douse the vehicle with gasoline and toss in a road flare."
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This is a tough time for restaurants, certainly, but Petula Dvorak's column just doesn't ask enough questions. And it's misleading: while 50 restaurants closed in the DC area, last year, 100 new ones opened.
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Making land along the Potomac River, 1890. The dredged channel is at the bottom of the map, and the filled areas toward the top. Signature is by LTC Peter C. Hains, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
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Lost streams and interior flooding are in the news, here in DC, following this week's tragic flash flood on Rhode Island Ave. Here's some perspective on what the history and data can tell us. (Thanks to
@jg_bollard
for thinking about the DOEE buried streams maps.)
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