poll

Morning Poll: New Clarendon Metro Plaza

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 10:15 a.m.) Arlington County has released sketches of a planned revamp of the plaza outside the Clarendon Metro station.

The project, set to begin construction later this year or early next year, is intended to improve the currently under-utilized space by creating “an active, multi-use plaza to accommodate the farmers’ markets, music events, vendors and other community activities, while enhancing pedestrian access to Metrorail and transit.”

The improvements include new pedestrian paving, street and plaza lighting, “seating walls,” movable tables and chairs, covered bike parking, modular newspaper racks and a Clarendon Boulevard curb extension.

(Correction: Earlier we asked about whether a tree on the site should be saved. It turns out that the tree was recently removed. The photo we used of the tree was from a county presentation this month, but it was apparently taken before the tree removal. We apologize for the confusion.)

What do you think about the redesign plans?

Morning Poll: Concerns About Property Records

By ARLnow.com

For years now, one has been able to input an address into an Arlington County web page and find information like how much the property is assessed for, how much it has sold for in the past, and the name of the property owner.

According to the Sun Gazette, however, county leaders are now deciding whether including the owner’s name in the county’s public real estate assessment database presents privacy concerns.

Over the weekend, the County Board responded to a resident’s complaint about its online property records system by asking county staff to “look into options for redacting the names of property owners” from the search results, according to the paper.

The system, an internet-based version of the real estate records available at the county courthouse, is similar to Fairfax County’s property records system in that it is only searchable by address, not name. However, a speaker at Saturday’s County Board meeting complained that unlike Fairfax, Arlington does not offer residents the option of having their name withheld from the records upon request.

What do you think should be done?

Morning Poll: Parking Rate Increases

By ARLnow.com

Parking is getting more expensive in Arlington. Starting today, parking rates are going up by 25 cents.

The hourly long-term meter rate is increasing from $0.75 to $1.00 while the hourly short-term meter rate is increasing from $1.00 to $1.25.

When first proposed to the County Board, county staff said the increase would “make Arlington rates consistent with other rates in the region, and will result in more efficient utilization of valuable curb space.”

“Especially in areas where short term parking is needed, the rates can help to encourage parking turnover,” staff noted.

Will the rate increase affect your parking habits?

Morning Poll: New Comcast Guide

By ARLnow.com

A week ago Comcast rolled out a new on-screen guide for digital cable customers in Arlington.

The new guide was touted in mailings as faster and easier to use with a few new features that had been requested by customers. Many local customers, however, have taken to our comments section to blast the new guide, which eliminated the sleep timer and picture-in-a-picture functions that were available with the old guide.

Now that you’ve had a week to try it out, how do you feel about the “upgrade?”

Screen capture via Comcast

Morning Poll: Parked Trucks on the Pike

By ARLnow.com

Delivery trucks are making a regular habit of blocking one lane of Columbia Pike in front of the new-ish Siena Park apartment building (2301 Columbia Pike).

The design of the building and the surrounding block seems to discourage delivery truck drivers from parking anywhere but right out front. Other than a tiny, often-full set of parking spaces cut into the sidewalk in front of the building, however, the only place for trucks to sit is right smack in the right-hand westbound lane of the Pike.

In big cities like D.C. and New York, commercial vehicles are often allowed to double park in order to make quick deliveries. It would be illegal for the average citizen to do it, but how else are employees of FedEx or UPS expected to do their job?

Should police look the other way on the Pike, as well?

Morning Poll: Dating in Arlington

By ARLnow.com

Earlier this month, Bloomberg News declared that single women had “long odds” when it came to dating in the District.

D.C. has a female-to-male ratio — 112 women for every 100 men — that’s higher than any of the 50 states. Plus, the article suggests, men in Washington are much more focused on their careers than on making good conversation.

The article’s conclusions are not directly transferable to Arlington, since it focused exclusively on the population of the District. So we ask: who has the harder time finding a suitable mate in Arlington?

Morning Poll: Groupon Return Visits

By ARLnow.com

Now that Groupon appears poised to conduct a $1 billion initial public offering that will value the company at $20 billion, some have been questioning whether Groupon and other ‘daily deals’ web sites (like Living Social) are actually worthwhile for the businesses that offer the deals.

While consumers only see the great money-saving bargains — for instance, $40 worth of food at a local restaurant for $20 — merchants have to accept that running a Groupon-type deal is probably going to be a money-losing proposition in the short term. Since Groupon typically gives merchants 50 percent of its deal revenue, that means that Joe’s Restaurant is only receiving $10 for giving away $40 worth of food. Low-margin businesses like restaurants will often lose money on that — and the losses will add up, since Groupon can sell hundreds or even thousands of coupons at a time.

The silver lining for businesses that use Groupon — and the entire premise of ‘daily deals’ in general — is customer acquisition. The idea is that by getting a whole bunch of people to try your food (if you’re a restaurant) or services (if you’re, say, a yoga instructor) you can get a certain percentage of those deal purchasers to come back later and pay full price.

Very generally, businesses need about 10 percent to return to turn a money-losing deal into a money-making deal. But does that actually happen? The question is especially pertinent in Arlington, where lots of businesses have been trying out daily deals and where customers can simply jump from deal to deal, if they really wanted to.

If you’ve ever bought a daily deal (for a business you were not already patronizing) have you at some point returned to that business and paid full price?

Morning Poll: How to Spend a Hot, Humid Afternoon

By ARLnow.com

The mercury is expected to flirt with 100 degrees today as a heat wave envelops the region. Tomorrow will bring more of the same heat and humidity — but with a better chance of hitting 100.

If you’ve lived through just one summer in the D.C. area, this is nothing new. In fact, there’s an excellent chance that it will get even hotter at some point this summer.

With the Washington region’s notorious swamp-like conditions returning, we were wondering: what’s your favorite way to beat the heat?

‘Eco-Friendly’ Service Offers to Clean Stinky Trash Cans

By ARLnow.com

If you have dirty, smelly trash cans, and don’t want to clean them yourself, there’s a new service that will do it for you for a monthly fee.

Can-Scrubbers LLC recently started operating in Arlington, Falls Church and McLean. The company has a small, oddly-shaped blue truck that uses “high pressure hot water and highly effective degreasing cleaners” in an automated process to clean out filthy trash cans.

Can-Scrubbers says their process is “eco-friendly” since cleaning your own cans will likely “send contaminated waste material into the street and ultimately down storm drains and into our precious streams and rivers.” The company says it stores waste water in the truck, then filters it and sends it through the sanitary sewer. Also, the company says that its cleaning agents are biodegradable.

The service starts at $10 per month.

Morning Poll: Banning Kids from Dog Parks

By ARLnow.com

Arlington officials have been quietly listening to public feedback generated by a proposal to ban children under the age of 8 from the county’s dog parks.

At first, officials say, most people who contacted them were against banning kids. Now, with every major media outlet in town running their own version of the story, opinions are about 50/50.

Officials say the ban is far from a done deal. First, it must be cleared by county attorneys — although that seems likely, given that other Virginia localities, like Fairfax County, already ban young children. After it gets the legal go-ahead, Arlington Parks Department spokeswoman Susan Kalish says the matter will only be decided after some sort of community input process.

Kalish says that as of right now, there have been no reported incidents of kids getting hurt in dog parks. Should that change, however, the county is ready to act.

“The key is safety,” she said. “If it becomes an issue we will act immediately.”

The idea of banning young kids — and requiring parental supervision for children between the ages of 8 and 14 — was first suggested in February by the citizen groups that run the Shirlington and Ft. Barnard dog parks, though any action by the county would likely apply to all Arlington dog parks.

What do you think?

Morning Poll: Oil and Vinegar Store in Shirlington

By ARLnow.com

Shirlington Village Blog reports that a new store called Ah Love Oil & Vinegar hopes to open in Shirlington in two weeks.

According to its Facebook page, the store will offer “over 35 olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars… bottled on the premises for you.” The oils will be imported from around the world and dispensed from air-tight tanks, which will “[ensure] the best flavor intensity.” Each purchase will include recipes and mixing ideas.

The store will also offer olive oil-based soaps, skin and hair care products and a limited selection of foods to accompany the oils and vinegars.

We thought the store’s concept sounded interesting, but wondered about the business potential for a store built around two products that many people consider a twice-a-year purchase at the grocery store. Would you go out of your way to purchase olive oil or balsamic vinegar from a dedicated store?

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