A Pain In the Asphalt



By Tony Kornheiser



Sunday, May 26 1996; Page F01

The Washington Post 



It's Memorial Day. That's the unofficial beginning of

summer. Ah, summer, the time to put the whole family into

the car, roll down all the windows, start the engine, and . .

. 



Ba-doom. 



. . . drop into a pothole the size of a storm cellar. 



Like everybody else who lives in the capital of the free

world, I have potholes on my street. Actually, I dishonor

them by calling them "potholes." These are foxholes. Two

GIs could share a smoke in one and still be safe from

snipers. 



These potholes are so large astronomers have given them

names. The one in front of my house is the Sea of

Tranquillity. Any day now, a minivan will tumble into it and

disappear from the face of the Earth just like . . . um,

Judge Crater! Get it? 



Aren't potholes supposed to be a winter thing? Hello?

Isn't winter technically over? 



Now, I am not going to join the chorus of faultfinders who

are always bashing D.C. and its mayor, Marion "I'm Out

of the City Right Now Renewing Myself Spiritually,

Please Leave a Message With the Day and Month of

Your Call" Barry. The mayor is trying to do the best job

he can, given the daunting problems of this city: 

dwindling tax base, a decaying infrastructure, a do-nothing

mayor, etc. 



I suspect Mayor Barry's official position on the potholes is

that we should just "get over it." With what, mayor, a

Bradley Fighting Vehicle? These holes are car-nivorous. 



The epidemic of these frame-shaking, bumper-breaking,

transmission-quaking, dead-waking potholes have made

us expert at what should be a new Olympic event --

slalom driving. D.C. is probably the only city in America

where one car can have the right of way on both sides of

the street. 



(If you doubt whether this is a problem confined to D.C.

only, I urge you to drive on a street that forms a border

between Washington and Maryland. The Maryland side

of the street is uninterrupted blacktop, as smooth as Bill

Clinton in a sorority house. The Washington side is an

arcade game. Any minute you expect little furry mole

heads to pop up so you can clobber them with a mallet.) 



As a public service, our city government has recently

begun painting large red circles around the potholes. What

an admission of defeat. It's like going into shark-infested

waters and protecting yourself by painting "Please don't

eat me" on your behind. These red circles are useless.

They become visible about 10 feet from the front edge of

the pothole, giving you just enough time to scream, "Holy

-- -- !" before your front end disappears with a thud that

can be heard in Reston. These circles remind me of the

chalk outlines around dead bodies, another of D.C.'s

growth industries. 



In the absence of government intervention, enterprising

locals have begun ingeniously marking off the potholes on

their streets. I have seen some people put folding chairs

around the holes, as though they were going to conduct a

seance and raise Jimmy Hoffa. The other day I passed a

pothole with a cone in it and figured it was one of those

traffic safety cones some people are using. Turns out it

was a coolie hat. These things are deep. 



It is time we faced the fact that the D.C. government is

never going to fix the potholes. The citizenry has to band

together and figure out what to do about the problem

themselves. 



Already some people are fashioning ingenious solutions.

Some potholes have mattresses in them. Some have

two-by-fours. The problems with these solutions is that

they are temporary. I would like to propose a more

permanent solution. It is a little radical, but it might just

solve all of D.C.'s problems. 



Here's what we do: We flood the city, make it a water

wonderland, like Venice. Who will care about potholes

that are five feet under water? We will all get around by

gondola (which we will call "gundolas" because, in a

necessary local adaptation, someone will have to ride

shotgun). The tourist industry will boom. And best of all,

all those downtown bicycle messengers would drown. 



But this is just a panacea. It will never really happen. The

Barry administration would never go for anything so

innovative and daring. They'll probably handle this

problem the way they are accustomed to handling all their

problems, by denying it's a problem. They will declare that

potholes are good. They will say the potholes are a city

landmark. Washington will replace the old license plate

slogan -- "Washington, D.C. -- Celebrate and Discover"

-- with a new one:



"Washington, D.C. -- Drop In Anytime."



© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company