It’s going to be in the 90’s today so I suppose that means our journey into summer is complete. And with summer comes BBQs and with BBQs comes hamburgers.
Smacking some burger patties on a grill is pure summer gold if you ask me, but I don’t always have time to fire up ol’ sparky. Sometimes I have to go out to get my burger fix.
So the question of the day is: Where is your favorite place to get a burger in Frederick?
~Guy~
Categories: Food & Drink · Rants
According to this Gazette article the Metro will never come to Frederick.
James A. Gugel, chief planner with the Frederick County Planning Division, said this week that Metro will never extend so far north because of the topography of the land along Interstate 270 would make such a project too expensive.
Alright maybe I can accept that, I hope they get the metro as far north (Clarksburg maybe?) as possible though. Even that would help traffic on 270. But this next little bit of info is what really burned me up.
For residents hoping to ease their commute, county officials contend it is fruitless to bet on Metro. Add to the mix a bill this legislative session by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Bay to increase the state gasoline tax from 23.5 cents to 35.5 cents per gallon, and the future for commuters looks bleak.
Money from the tax is expected to bring in between $400 million and $600 million for transportation improvements outside Frederick County.
On Tuesday, Jenkins told Sen. David R. Brinkley (R-Dist. 4) of New Market and Del. Richard B. Weldon Jr. (R-Dist. 3B) of Brunswick that he has no intention of remaining quiet on the issue of the gasoline tax, since none of the money is slated for Frederick.
Hey TVMM Jr., lets just say I don’t really like your plan to much. If your going to gouge all of is with your crappy gas tax then we should all see the benefit. That cash should be spread around the state. We are all hurting when it comes to transportation woes.
So what do we get?
Under the Corridor Cities Transitway is a new bus service, or what transportation officials call ‘‘Bus Rapid Transit.” A separate road would be built for special buses that would travel along the same alignment as the MARC train, from Frederick to Shady Grove. The road would only allow buses. Jenkins said increasing MARC service is not in the plans. CSX, which owns the tracks, would have to make the decision to offer more service. The county has not discussed this option with CSX, he said.
This sounds good, but of course there will probably be about a hundred more studies before work on it ever begins. Maybe my kid can ride it to work when he grows up.
Public transportation has to be improved though. I road the MTA Commuter Bus from the Monocacy Marc Station to the Shady Grove Metro station a couple times last week. It was less stressful, but it took me much longer to get to and from work. I had to leave my house at 6AM to make sure I got to work by 7:30AM. Mostly because I have to catch a MoCo Ride-On bus once I get to Shady Grove.
The ride home was even longer and I got home about 45 minutes later than usual. The bottom line is that any bus service is subject to the same traffic as car commuters and only HOV lanes all the way from Frederick to MoCo and vice versa would help. Unless they build this bus only road, but I’m not holding my breath.
~Guy~
If you were the king (or queen) of Frederick for one day what would you do? What is the one thing you would change about Frederick if you had the power to do so?
You are the ruler so we all have to do what you say. Your wish is our command, so lay down the law in the comments!
P.S. Sorry there was no FFFA last week, I was super busy.
~Guy~
Categories: Rants
I think it’s unbelievable what happened yesterday, although I am surprised we don’t hear about this sort of thing more often.
Fortunately, I don’t have to commute on 270 anymore, so I was spared most of the traffic yesterday.
How about you ? Any inside scoop on yesterday’s incident? How about your favorite Road Rage story?
The much anticipated Giant grocery store opened in Urbana yesterday. I haven’t been yet but my daughter went yesterday and said it was pretty crowded. She also said that she knew quite a few people that work there so I’m glad that they hired quite a few local Urbana High School students to work there.
Hundreds of shoppers checked out the Urbana Super Giant during its grand opening Friday morning.
The Giant, at 3530 Sugarloaf Parkway, is the first large grocery store to come to the neighborhood, and residents have been longing for it.
For some, the wait has been years. For others, decades. The 56,657-square-foot store will be open daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
If the FNP keeps that link up for awhile you’ll be able to read some of the comments to the article from some local Frederick Countians. Most of the comments are pretty negative towards Urbana and the perceived notion that all who live here are spoiled Montgomery County transplants.
I can understand why most people would think that Urbana consists of only the Villages of Urbana and the Urbana Highlands. That is not true. There are some very long established neighborhoods in the Urbana/Monrovia/Ijamsville area as well as farm families that have been here for generations. Probably everyone in the southern part of Frederick County will visit this store at some point, but I’d just like to dispel the rumor that everyone in Urbana drives a Hummer and whines about the lack of amenities. And I should add that not everyone in those two developments is a transplanted whiner either.
Personally it bothers me quite a bit to see the farmland turned to housing development but it’s a process that seems to be a done deal. But please don’t disparage the entire area. There’s more to Urbana than just those two developments. Take a drive around southern Frederick County and you can see for yourself!
As an aside, since I do live in the rural part of southern Frederick County, I’d like to get the word out that it is now skunk mating season in our area. So watch out for skunks on the road. They’ve got a lot on their minds right now, and cars ain’t one of them!
Categories: Biz · Food & Drink · Growth · Outside Frederick · Rants · Shopping
Today’s FNP has an article about the crappy area traffic.
The Maryland Transit Administration is conducting the Corridor Cities Transitway study, examining various alternatives for providing bus or light rail service along or near I-270. The service would operate along an alignment that would extend from the Shady Grove Metrorail station to an area just south of Clarksburg.
A draft environmental assessment study should be completed in the spring. Once the document is available, public meetings will be held to review the findings, and a decision will likely be made this summer, according to MTA.
The CCT, which would cost as much as $1 billion according to some estimates, would weave through employment and residential hubs to encourage commuters to leave their cars at home or in parking lots. Light rail is the public preference over buses.
Master plans in Frederick and Montgomery counties call for the eventual extension of the CCT north to Frederick. The CCT study is being conducted as part of a larger effort, the I-270-/U.S. 15 Multi-Modal Corridor Study, by the Maryland Department of Transportation. That study is examining a wide range of roadway improvements, including the introduction of express toll lanes on I-270.
At-large Montgomery County Council member Nancy Floreen, who serves as chairwoman of the council’s transportation committee, believes that while the CCT is a necessary project, it will not fix all the region’s traffic problems.
“The challenge is that the state is examining the CCT and widening 270 as alternatives,” she said. “We need them both.”
Every work day I suffer with thousands of people from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia on the hell that is 270. You crawl along at a snail’s pace and try not to go crazy. We need better mass transit, we need to widen 270, we need more jobs in Frederick so we wont have to commute, companies need to allow more flex time and telecommuting. What we don’t need is more studies.
~Guy~
Have you ever been writing an e-mail or another program and had spell check return a humorous result? It happened to me yesterday. We have a couple of friends coming from out of town to see Doc Watson at the Weinberg Center on February 3rd. We saw him a couple years ago when he played the Weinberg and it was a good show. If you have never checked it out, the Weinberg is a nice venue to see national acts, but you have to look closely for the bigger acts. This should be a nice, mellow show. He’s not playing out as much as he used to, so there may not be many more chances to see a true legend. I don’t know who he’s bringing with him on this show, but he usually brings someone good. In the embedded video with David Grisman and the last time we saw him at the Weinberg with Sam Bush. I don’t think it’s sold out, yet.
If you’re going to the Weinberg, I would recommend going to the box office instead of trying to get tickets on-line. In person, you can get the personal recommendation of the people working there for the best seats. On line, you just have to trust they’re giving you the best seats available.
Anyway, to the point of this post. I was confirming ticketing and seating with my friends via e-mail while watching football on the tube. I had a notion that the show might be during the Superbowl. As it turns out, the Superbowl is Sunday night, February 4th. The funny part is spell check for Superbowl came up as “superb owl”. So go see Doc if you can. Although he can’t see you (he is blind), he’s one superb old owl.
Categories: Rants · Things To Do
So I see in the FNP that a new owner has taken over the plans for developing the land that now houses the Banner School/Odd Fellows land at the corner of N. East Street and Market Street.
Obviously this is a very desirable piece of property in Frederick, but I have to question the intentions of the new owner. To keep it as is planned is a huge mistake. The roads are not equipped for 500 new houses and don’t get me started about the schools.
The new owner of the property is a well known developer in Frederick, but let me tell you, if he runs the new development like he ran the Sportsplex (which had the potential to be a real gem in this city) then I’d question his motives. Because he has no intention of changing the original plans for that development, which could potentially benefit the area if they scaled down a bit, while working within the infrastucture of the city, nope, he wants to keep the original plans of 500 homes (plus a dog run…yippee!! sarcasm ) , and, quite frankly that area can’t handle that kind of development.
Our oldest daughter works at the Best Buy in Frederick. She came home from work Monday reporting that there were already tents set up, waiting for the new PS3 game to be released on Friday. As the line continues to grow, I am concerned that the severe weather due to arrive today will wipe out the tent city and people will have to scamble for cover. What a shame that would be after waiting five days in line.
I don’t get it. A quick search shows that these games are going for as much as $3,000 on eBay, now. I would never consider paying that much for a game.
We live about 45 miles away from Washington DC. When we moved to this house in Ijamsville, we had no options for cable TV and using an antenna was not an option. If I remember right, we got approximately one and a half channels if the wind was not blowing too hard. When we lived downtown, we had cable and picked up the local news out of Baltimore. Frederick may be the second largest city in Maryland, but we do not have our own local channels.
So when we moved out of the city, we decided to get DirectTV satellite. I was very disappointed to learn that the only local feed was out of Washington DC. I had forgotten why we opted for news out of Baltimore rather than DC when we had cable, but it did not take long to be reminded why. There is a certain arrogance to DC. As I mentioned, that city is about 45 miles away, yet they constantly call Frederick a “suburb” of DC. In my mind, DC suburbs consist of the area inside the beltway, plus the congested areas just outside the beltway. To call a city that is an entity by itself, a small beautiful unique city, a suburb of Washington is just plain wrong and demeaning.
This political season is getting ugly here in Maryland. Because we have no choice but to pick up channels out of DC, we are subjected to the ugliness that is Virginia politics as well. I’m seriously counting down the days until this election is over.
I mean, just because we have two satellite dishes on our roof (one for DirectTV and one for Wildblue internet), two goats and two dead lawn mowers tractors in the yard, does that justify calling us “Frednecks” ?
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