Jim

The Beltway being the worst road is one more thing we can agree on. The cabdrivers all moaned and complained when I made them go out Glebe Road then I-66 to Dulles airport instead of taking the Beltway because of the a-hole drivers and traffic jams since it was ten minutes longer but $10 cheaper on the fare.
I spent my early childhood in Philadelphia outside of the old Connie Mack Stadium near an ice-house (yes, I'm old- we loved the ice splinters from the ice blocks loaded onto the trucks for the home fridges in our dirt poor neighborhood). All the kids on the block used to offer to "watch your car" for a dime to the people who parked - or otherwise they might return and find them scratched and dented -a self-help economic version of bootstrap capitalism.