Metro closing National Airport station Labor Day weekend

Metro closing National Airport station Labor Day weekend
Washington Business Journal - by Sarah Krouse Staff Reporter
Metro will close the Reagan National Airport rail station Labor Day weekend, leaving holiday travelers to squeeze into shuttles or pay for private transportation.


The Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority announced Tuesday its plans to close the Reagan, Pentagon City and Crystal City stops while it replaces 2,000 feet of rail, fixes the aerial structure at the airport stop and performs fire line maintenance on the Blue and Yellow lines.

The transit agency will also replace the Pentagon City stop’s entire rail interlocking, the system that keeps trains in sequence and allows trains to move from one track to another.

The stations will close at 9:30 p.m. Friday and reopen Tuesday morning at 5 a.m.

The Blue line will run from Largo Town Center to the Pentagon station and between the Franconia-Springfield and Braddock Road stops. Yellow line trains will travel between the Greenbelt and Pentagon stops and from the Huntington to Braddock Road stations.

Riders may have to wait up to 20 minutes for a train.

Shuttles to Reagan will leave from the Pentagon Transit Center and arrive at the airport between the rail station and parking garage.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 12:44pm EDT | Modified: Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 3:43pm

D.C. post offices targeted for possible closure
Washington Business Journal - by Jeff Clabaugh Staff Reporter
The U.S. Postal Service has pared its list of post offices targeted for potential closing to 413 locations nationwide, including nine post office locations in the District and three in Washington’s Maryland suburbs.

There are no post office locations in Northern Virginia on the current list.



The Postal Service has about 37,000 post office locations across the country, and closing or consolidating hundreds of them is part of massive cost cutting aimed at offsetting a dramatic decline in mail volume. The Postal Service posted a $2.4 billion loss last quarter and expects to lose more than $7 billion this fiscal year.

It has targeted $6 billion in cost cutting measures, which includes a hiring freeze, workforce reductions and buyouts and selling underused postal facilities.

D.C. post office locations on the latest list of possible closure or consolidation are:

Columbia Heights Finance, 3321 Georgia Ave. NW
Fort Davis, 3842 Pennsylvania Ave. SE
Ledroit Park, 416 Florida Ave. NE
Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave. SW
Navy Annex
Northeast, 1563 Maryland Ave. NE
Petworth, 4211 9th St. NW
Randle, 2306 Prout St. SE
Woodbridge, 2211 Rhode Island Ave. NE
And in Maryland:

Friendship Heights, 5330 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda
Silver Spring Center, 8455 Colesville Road, Silver Spring
Landover Hills, 7500 Buchanan. Hyattsville
Wednesday, September 2, 2009, 1:50pm EDT

Average salary up 3.4% in D.C. area
Washington Business Journal - by Jeff Clabaugh Staff Reporter
The Human Resource Association of the National Capital Area is out with its annual compensation report, indicating median salary increases of 3.4 percent last year.

D.C.-area employers are budgeting for median salary increases of 3.1 percent this year, HRA-NCA says.



The report, based on surveys with 324 Washington area employers, also says employee turnover between February 2008 and February 2009 was 18 percent, with voluntary turnover of 12 percent.

The financial services industry saw the highest salary increases at 9.3 percent. Publishing and broadcasting jobs saw the lowest raises, at 1.5 percent.

The median federal government employee increase was 4.2 percent in 2009.if