Two More Signs of D.C. Decay

There are two stories in the news today which indicate a continuing decay in the nation's capital. First we have this:

Metrorail officials are considering adding permanent Spanish-language signs, system maps, fare-card machines and announcements in stations after a push by immigration advocates.

They say the idea has been discussed for several years within the agency's Office of Project Communications, but no official plans have been made.

The estimated cost of the changes is at least $500,000 per station and as much as $900,000 for a large, multilevel station such as Metro Center or L'Enfant Plaza.
"It would really depend on what signs, where, what they're made of, the cost of fabricating and installing them," said Murray Bond, director of sales and marketing at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. "It's a strain on the budget, but in a business sense, by giving people better information to use the system, hopefully they'll use it more, [and] every time they use it, we get a fare."

I've been on the Metro and it's a wonderful system. But even with English signs, we still managed to get on the train going the wrong direction during our vacation last year. Instead of enabling people to keep speaking Spanish and not learn English, how about making the English signs clearer and telling the Spanish speakers that if they want to use the system, they better learn how to read the signs. Spanish language signs to little more than encourage people not to learn English.

Scrappleface also has some comments on this story.

The other story involves the AIDS problem in the city:

The D.C. government wants all residents between 14 and 84 to be tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

In a massive campaign starting next week, city officials will urge 400,000 men, women and teens to take an oral swab test that delivers results in 20 minutes.

They say the rapid test should become as common a part of any medical exam as blood-pressure monitoring or a cholesterol check.

Organizers of the campaign hope the results will influence sexual behavior and motivate people with positive results to seek treatment.

How bad must the AIDS problem be in D.C. if the government wants to test everybody? That's not exactly something you want to put on your tourist ads.