Reston's Plague Year: Week 4 (Updated 4/17)

One of the largest and most affluent school systems in the country, Fairfax County Public Schools has now had to halt the distance learning that it spent a literal month planning for because of continued technical issues. Everyone is very sorry! In a RESTONIAN WORLD EXCLUSIVE, we've acquired grainy video footage of their feverish efforts to fix Brokeboard, or whatever, in time to start things back up next week:

Again, don't blame the teachers. Not their fault. Blame hucksterish edtech vendors and overconfident administrators that weird Internet thing.

Speaking of highly competent public agencies, we've learned that when the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station was built, contractors forgot one little thing: that it would eventually become a through station as the Silver Line crawled towards the far particleboard reaches of Loudoun County. Actually, it's a bit more complicated than that, to be fair, but the good (or "good") news is that all it took was an unprecedented global pandemic and economic shutdown to give folks the time to fix that little oopsie:

Metro now appears to be open to a complete multiweek shutdown of the Wiehle-Reston East station.

“The best part of that situation is that due to the extreme lack of ridership at Wiehle Ave., the ridership is down to approximately 350 people a day. WMATA is favorably looking at doing a complete shutdown for two to three weeks instead of 15 to 16 weekend shutdowns. This will really increase the efficiency of the testing and get it done much earlier in the project,” [Airports Authority Vice President Charles] Stark said.

They're also speeding up work to get rid of Gate 35X at National Airport, so assuming we'll ever get to fly again, that's almost a fair trade.

The Reston Association is holding a virtual pet fashion show, because why not. Good on them!

Cabin fever intensifies:

I do believe somebody liberated the guts of an old VHS tape and strung it all around the Reston woods. Everyone deals with quarantine differently! pic.twitter.com/3xvtdDy9FL

— Addison Del Mastro (@ad_mastro) April 16, 2020

As humankind languishes, the animals are getting tired of biding their time:

Spotted a few eagles this morning during our walk! One flew about 10’ over our heads!!! #Reston #eagles pic.twitter.com/bWadsZrGnD

— Bob Johnson (@RJVoices) April 15, 2020

Will they or the rats become the next apex predator? Our money is still on capybaras, but you never know.