Well they keep blocking streets around DC and shunting traffic this way and that with little rhyme or reason. I noticed that they allow bike and pedestrian use of many of the blocked streets, if they don't even allow bikes and peds its a clue that the big O is going to use the street. Yesterday I planned to come across the bridge from Arlington Cemetery but they had it totally closed even though the schedule said open... Later I heard Obama had done something at the Cemetery. The downtown is crawling with Pedicabs. Some out of town company must have smelled profit and brought a bunch in, DC doesn't really have many. They had scheduled to allow bike access on the trains for all weekend except the 20th. I checked with metro and with the supervisors before planning to bring my bike aboard. Then, yesterday they called the cops after us for having bikes. I double checked but I should have triple checked- metro changed its mind. I had planned to travel with inexperienced cyclists. I could do the distance but not everyone could. Apparently they won't allow bikes in a huge section of DC around the national mall "for security reasons"? Tomorrow I'll have to ride several miles around to get to where I want, I'm not even sure which bridges will be open to bikes, the story keeps changing. I'll just have to try each bridge one by one till I find one where the soldiers allow me through.

little rhyme or reason ? it is to keep lunatics away. this is pretty much the biggest event in 300 years of world politics,
and the most death threats of any previous president elect....
so expect some disarray

good journalism, gwd. Keep us posted!

I know to you DCers this is a giant PITA, but I sure wish I could be there for the party!

I'm glad I'm miles away from that mess. I have exactly one bridge to get me over the Ohio river by bike. I believe it's more than 50 miles to the next.

Hey thar hyperbole. I know that it IS a big deal (and I am excited), but come on,

That's what I thought when I first read 127's post. But the more I thought about it---at least on a symbolic level, it really is one of the biggest political events in modern history.

Whoopy! Americans are not as racist as everyone once suspected? = Lie

I agree this is important but really? I mean, "most important political even in modern history?" Women's suffrage? The Olympics in China? THE WAR IN IRAQ? I think its important but lets not over hype things just yet, lets see what the Big O can do first.

Really? I can think of a few that might match it for historical significance in the relative recent past: South African Presidential Elections in 1994, Israel formation in 1948, German elections in 1933, Reconstructed Japan Elections in 1946.

India and Pakistan founded in 1949, Communist China around the same time, my birth in 1955. The A-bomb, the end of Soviet communism, the fall of Saigon....I'm starting to sound like Billy Joel.

It's too soon to know the historical significance of this occasion (beyond the obvious--a Black president), but the symbolic significance is enormous. The political significance is greater than for almost any other transition also. Obama has the highest approval rating of any president since polling began in the 1930s, at the same time that Bush has the lowest rating. We all know that there will be huge changes in the next few weeks, and this is very exciting and a little scarey.

What happened 300 years ago? Was it the Battle of Poltava (1709) where Peter the Great defeated Charles XII of Sweden, thus effectively ending Sweden's role as a major power in Europe?

Bah...Wikipedia. Much too easy for you, the Research God. But still pretty clever!

We are not, in fact, as racist as we once were, nor are we, at this moment, nearly as racist or otherwise bigoted as a lot of countries that like to criticize us. Imagine the Germans electing a half-Turk to be their Chancellor. Or the Brits voting for a half-Pakistani Prime Minister. Or anyone, in any Muslim country, even voting for a Christian or Jew at all. Let's not even talk about Japan. We have huge faults as a nation, as the last few years have amply demonstrated, but the fact that a man born of mixed descent, of humble origins, raised by a working-class single mother, could rise to such high station speaks volumes about the vast promise that the US still holds, for its citizens and the world at large. I haven't been this pleased with my country in quite some time.

After 8 years of near-Fascism, hell yes, it's an extremely important historical moment. It's certainly a lot more important than the stupid Olympics in China. It's right up there with Brown vs the Board of Education, or the end of hostilities in Northern Ireland. If Obama is actually up to the huge challenges he faces, which is a big question, this might be the most important US presidency since FDR.

The October Revolution in Russia.

When Michelle Obama said something like she was proud to be an American for the first time in a long time, she got a lot of criticism. But I knew how she felt. We haven't been doing very well lately--really not since Vietnam, if you want to know the truth.

But electing a black man with a "foreign" name was a very big good thing that Americans did. It shows not only that we've learned some tolerance, but also that we've relearned how to take a chance--we acted on a good instinct and we dared to do something different. I think you could say that we had "the audacity to hope." As a nation, we have found courage and even some wisdom--qualities that I was afraid we had lost permanently.

Like you say, we can't know if Obama can conquer the enormous challenges, even though there is every indiction that he can. But no matter what kind of president Obama becomes, his personal success or failure will not undo this good thing that WE the American people just did.




And I bet that Obama will say something like this in his Inaugural Speech in just a few hours.

It certainly says that we have come far. I think it's interesting that despite the overwhelming influence of the baby boom generation, that we only had two boomer presidents.

Obama is interesting because as the first African-American president, he is literally that, his father was African, and his mother American. Michelle actually becomes the first person to live in the White House who can trace their roots to slave ancestors. It will be interesting to see how she uses her sphere of influence. A lawyer like Hillary, its unlikely that she will content herself to just raising the kids.

I'm guessing that Kennedy-like he will issue some kind of call to encourage everyone to have patience and for everyone to exert an extra effort and to pull together.

I can only imagine that this will also be a big boost for basketball, and possibly athleticism in general. Maybe the President's Council on Physical Fitness will be resurrected. I know it still exists, but I haven't heard of it doing much lately except being a shill for General Mills.

We'll have a few clues later today.

Last night was odd. Many cops out at the intersections and parties at the non-profits and labor unions. Traffic was so weird it felt good to just slice through it all. The cops were busy dealing with the cars so bikers could just move along. I met a friend at a restaurant then we went to a birthday party down in the historically black neighborhood where Duke Ellington lived. No problem finding parking or getting around for us.

I just returned from volunteering at one of the bike valet stations near the white house. We parked some 950 bikes in 3 hours. It was pretty cold out before dawn. Some people were crazy enough to go down to the national mall in the middle of the night. Many people who came by bike made the exact same comment- "I'm soooo glad I biked here. Thanks for volunteering to do this. " People arrived by bike dressed up in fancy clothes.

I rode home after my shift. I didn't wear thick enough gloves. Later I'll go back out just to see the craziness. Biking is always the best way to get around DC but today it is doubly true and in spite of the cold I see many bikes out on the streets. Some people who came to the bike valet station had old dusty bikes and said they almost never ride, but today they did.

I hear on the radio right now Obama is taking the oath.....

Thanks for the update. On TV I saw a bike briefly riding alongside the motorcade from the White House to the Capitol. I wondered if it was you. More likely a security person.

The Inauguration went off with barely a hitch. Obama wasn't sworn in until 12:06, so for six minutes I guess Biden was the leader of the free world, since he had already taken his oath. (Biden seemed to be having more fun than anybody else.) The other minor hitch was when Chief Justice Roberts bungled the oath. I don't think he did it on purpose, even though then Senator Obama did vote against his confirmation.

The speech was good. The main thing I got from it was a call to every American to shoulder responsibility, to make America great, in the sense of us again being a moral leader for the world. He laid some well deserved blame on Bush and Wall Street, without mentioning any names. Obama's references to "the lash of the whip" and segregation were moving, and a timely reminder of how recent in our own history these atrocities were committed, and how far we have yet to go to overcome them. But mostly the speech looked to the future rather than the past. He talked about the need for us to set aside ideology and concentrate on what works. After Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes, it will be nice to have more pragmatic leadership. We Americans can agree on goals but we sure fight hard about the proper means to an end.

For me, the second most thrilling moment (after tha actual oath-taking) was when the former President flew off into the ignominy of history. The only thing that could have made that moment greater was if Bush had been in handcuffs and leg irons, as he should have been.

Egypt had a Christian prime minister not too long ago.

Americans are just as racists as ever, just in a more subtle way which can be far more dangerous. I see it every day of my life that I have lived in this country. I have been around the world as well and have seen other places that are racists as well. However, I do not think that we need to pat ourselves on the backs just yet. It maybe that Obama becomes our token black president. Only time will tell I feel.

I was extremely disappointed that the new president and first family did not ride bicycles down Pennsylsvania Avenue after he took the oath.

Maybe I will see it in my lifetime.

At least they walked part of the way. It'd be cool if they could ride, but we want them to be safe, also.

One of the newscasters was wondering how many miles the "Beast"--the battleship size Cadillac--gets per gallon. I was thinking--more like how many gallons per mile? And when the president travels outside of DC, they carry two of those Cadillacs in cargo planes--along with the Marine One helicopter.

The uniformed secret service that hangs around the white house use mountain bikes. Also DC and the Transit police have bike officers.
I tuned the speech out when he talked about maintaining and fighting to preserve "The American Way of Life.". Meaning crass materialism and the car dependency that hogs the worlds resources. If we don't change course we'll get to where we're heading.

About the bike officers, I rode for miles on the closed roadways through the national parks around here passing many soldiers and police. The police were mostly in their cars blocking the entrances to the roadways. The soldiers were out on foot. There were other bikers with me and pedestrians using the roadways. The first bike cop I came across ordered me off the roadway. I can only speculate that he was one of the thousands of cops from out of town that they instantly deputized for today, and that he came from a place where the cops consider it part of their job description to harass transportation cyclists. Usually when they close that roadway for downed trees or floods the park police let cyclists use the road except where they're working. When the road is open to cars, cyclists are still allowed to use it but all but the racers prefer the MUP. Today the MUP was crowded with people walking back from the inauguration so it wasn't so pleasant for cyclists, thats why we were in the road.

About the pedestrians. I was surprised at how far people were walking for transportation today. The subways must have been very crowded, they don't walk that far on the 4th of July. This is a good thing, those peds might get an idea that they can walk places. I passed a guy maybe 4 miles from the mall talking on his cell phone saying he was walking back from the inauguration.

They were interviewing some people that had walked over 4 miles to the mall this morning when the metro all but ground to a halt because of the crowd. It was an amazing sight to see that mass of humanity and to think most of them got there under their own power or via mass transit.

Aaron

If a bicycle is good enough for the Queen of the Netherlands. . . . .

Don't recall hearing about any threats on her life though...

Aaron