...or, A Good Proposal For People Who Like Bad Proposals.  If this looks familiar, it's because I originally published it on April 25, 2005.  But if you haven't read it - it's new to you.  Yes, it's a rerun.

It's that time of year again: tourist season.  DC SOB has some good suggestions as to what tourists should do to avoid being drawn and quartered by angry locals, but I wanted to take it a step further.  Now, I know that DC makes good money from the tourists, and I'm thankful for that, but let's get one thing straight: tourists should be confined to the tourist areas.  Or rather, there should be a protective bubble for the important and easily angered washingtonians (read: me), into which tourists may not pass.  The bubble that I propose is delineated by the purple boundary on the map below:

The southern boundary would be M St., thus allowing the tourists continued and unrestricted use of downtown, the Mall, the monuments, Capitol Hill, etc.  The eastern boundary would be North Capitol, allowing the tourists to visit that shrine thingy and whatever else NE has to offer (???).   The western boundary would be, of course, Connecticut Ave.  Basically, I'm conceding Georgetown here.  I'm not going to fight for it because it would be a losing battle, and it's kind of a lost cause already, what with all the students and their collar erections.  This leaves two controversial issues, however: what about DuPont and Woodley Park. 

Regarding DuPont, I'm willing to make another concession.  Using taxi cab zoning logic, tourists will have continued use of the western side of Conn Ave, and the 19th St. Entrance of the metro station.  Tourists, will be prohibited from crossing Conn Ave to the east side, or using the Q St. entrance of the metro station.  Naturally, there will be a divider drawn in the metro station, Brady Bunch style.

Regarding Woodley, the Wardman poses an obvious problem.  As the largest hotel in the city it's going to continue to attract hordes of tourists to the area.  Personally I think we all be better off if they turned it into condos, as previously suggested.  Anyway, I'm conceding use of the Woodley Park metro station.  This pains me a great deal, as I used to live in the WP and I used that metro station every day.  I would venture to say that no other metro station suffers from tourist syndrome more than Woodley Park.  And, again, tourists would not be able to cross the street, with the exception of the crosswalk at the zoo and ONLY to enter the zoo.  Unfortunately, this means that tourists may still have access to Mr. Chen's.  I don't like sharing Mr. Chen's with them, but I know that it's good for business, thus ensuring that Mr. Chen's will be around for years to come.  So I'm willing to deal with it.  But only until we shut the Wardman down.  When that happens, we shall reclaim the WP.

The northern boundary is rather arbitrary.  I've drawn it roughly along Upshur St., thus allowing the tourists all that Friendship Heights has to offer (read: the Cheesecake Factory).  Unfortunately for Petworth, they are largely excluded from the bubble.  But something tells me that Petworthians don't have to deal with many tourists.

So there it is folks.  It's a preliminary plan, and I know there are going to be flaws so let the comments fly.  I know it will be hard to enforce, so naturally the punishment will be flogging.  Anyway, hopefully this plan will give us some relief from the fanny packs and strollers.