Way to go, National Park Service!

I'm not in the least reluctant to bash the National Park Service for various ills, so let me be equally quick to praise them when they do something good.

The National Mall, as the 1.8 million folks who strolled by on January 20th might have noticed, could use some work. In addition to nearly half a billion dollars of unfunded maintenance, the Park Service is answering calls for better food options, more restrooms, and generally more amenities. Proposals for upgrading the Mall have been percolating up for some time now. While funding still has to come from that big white building at the east end of the Mall, help is on the way! The latest plans are rolling out and there will be public meetings this week at the Old Post Office on Wednesday, the 11th from 5-7 and Saturday the 14th from 12-2 to discuss the latest. I'll be at the Saturday one and tell you how it went. Feel free to pass along any questions you might be interested and I'll see if I can't get them answered. You can even use the new Twitter feed!

And this weekend we had a more immediate sign of improvement. The Park Service has announced they are replacing all the signs on the Mall. But if things are clearly marked and correspond to the maps, how will we spot the tourists? Part of the reason I started this blog was to help the poor guy looking at the map, then at the sign, then at the map, and wondering how they could possibly be reconciled. If he could just follow the well marked signs, what am I going to do?

Way to go, NPS. Take all the fun out of it.