Inaugural mobility update

See the Washington Post article from Thursday, "Traffic Plan a Blueprint for Future," which states that all in all, things worked. Although it appears that there were major major screw ups with railroad services, particularly Amtrak, at Union Station. (Fire marshals closed the station due to crowding, plus a big portion of the hall was closed in preparation of an inaugural ball. Many people were denied service as a result. See the
article, "Ticket and Travel Troubles Cloud Inauguration Success," for more about the problems.

Reading various other reports such as this from the City Desk Washington City Paper blog, "Leaving the Mall: Hopeless by Jason Cherkis," it's clear that further assessment is needed, that there were a lot of problems, that security personnel from out of town didn't know enough to be helpful.

One of the problems is that the main organizers, Congress and their designees, aren't accountable to anyone locally. In theory, this is something that the National Capital Planning Commission could look into, although it is about event planning not "land use" planning per se which focuses on buildings and site planning more than actual use planning...

Similarly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration runs a confidential airplane safety hazard reporting system independently of the Federal Aviation Administration, through a working agreement between the two agencies, as an accountability check. There needs to be a similar review and accountability check on Inaugural planning, particularly with regard to mobility planning, and maybe NCPC is the agency to do it.