Washington Area Ranks 11th in Transit Access; Audit Finds DC Nonprofit Mishandled $1 Million in City Funds: Morning Links

The Washington Area was ranked 11th among cities around the country on transit access. Photo courtesy Flickr user StreetsofWashington

Happy Friday, Washingtonians. Capital Weather Gang says today is going to be pretty much exactly like yesterday, with some sun and a 40 percent chance of evening thunderstorms. It’ll be humid, with highs in the upper 80s. You can read the rest of their weekend forecast here. Oh, and WTOP reports that weekend commuting will be kind of a nightmare, with Wilson Bridge work clogging up the Beltway, the America’s 9/11 Foundation memorial ride blocking off roads in Arlington, and track work on the Red, Blue, and Orange lines.

Washington Area Ranks 11th in Transit Access: Liz Farmer at the Washington Examiner reports on a Brookings Institution report that—though it finds 9.5 percent of the area’s households don’t have a car—ranks DC 11th in metro areas in transit access. Farmer also notes that there’s a disparity in commuting time between suburbs and urban car-free residents. Those in 62 percent of suburban residents have a commute that’s more than 90 minutes. In the city, only 38 percent have commute times that long.

Audit Finds $1 Million in Mishandled Funds: DC’s auditor found that former Mayor Adrian Fenty misappropriated $1 million from 2006 to 2010 to a local violence-prevention group called the Peaceoholics, reports WJLA. The organization is believed to have been improperly co-mingling grant money in its bank accounts.

MLK Memorial Nearly Ready: TBD published a photo of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial, scheduled to be dedicated on August 28. An early viewing will be open to the public on DC Day, what Mayor Vince Gray’s office originally intended to be only open to DC residents, but Freeman Klopott at the Examiner says there was too much interest to ticket the event. TBD’s Ryan Kearney advises readers, “Wait two or three weeks! The weather’s nicer in September anyway.”

More Emerges on Death of Viola Drath: Wednesday Aaron Morrissey at DCist posted the charging document for the man police believe strangled the 91-year-old columnist and Georgetown socialite. Some pretty gruesome details emerged from the document, which charges her husband, Albrecht Muth, with murder—including that Drath suffered abrasions on her “neck, bruising to the scalp, fractured interior neck cartilage, petichial hemorrhages in both eyes, fractured ribs, and a torn right thumbnail” and neighbors heard a “sinister” laugh.

Briefly Noted: The DC Lottery truck is on the roll after two DC agencies ruled the vehicle can park on streets. . . . A man was robbed and pistol whipped while going through a Taco Bell Drive-through at 12:51 AM Thursday.

Subscribe to Washingtonian
Follow Washingtonian on Twitter

More>> Capital Comment Blog | News & Politics | Party Photos

Kay Steiger