DEBORAH SIMMONS: Fresh big-money PAC and Vincent Gray on the move

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

There’s a new group of movers and shakers in town, and they call themselves FreshPAC. They are pro-Muriel Bowser and plan to raise $1 million by year’s end to back the mayor’s agenda. They are a third of the way to their fund-raising goal.

Miss Bowser has a lengthy agenda. After all, she’s mayor and has to deliver if she wants to break the progressive mold begun with Adrian Fenty’s love affair with gay marriage and bicycles and win re-election in 2018. Unless, of course, Miss Bowser has her sights on Eleanor Holmes Norton’s congressional seat.

So, while ideas are making the rounds and there’s money on the table, I’m putting in my bid for the city: Build a flyover ramp along New York Avenue NE.

You read that right. Construct a flyover ramp that will take motorists and bicyclists from the D.C.-Maryland border near Routes 295 and 50, and pave the way for them to get downtown and beyond in smoother fashion. The goal is to alleviate the daily bottlenecks at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road NE, New York Ave. and Florida Avenue NE, New York Avenue and North Capitol Street NW, and New York Avenue and the Third Street tunnel in Northwest.

I already hear you naysayers, you anti-motorists who think driving is an ecological sin and say we need more green space — as if toiling around in horse-drawn carriages that give back to nature is an alternative. Well, the only green that tourists, Metrobus drivers and commuters want to see are green traffic lights, and the only color our bean counters are beholden to is black.

Look, Miss Bowser is an ambitious politician. She’s adept at tempering her tone to get her point across. Fine. But D.C. needs a change agent, and there’s no conservative who wants to be D.C. mayor.

D.C. needs leaders and movers and shakers who can see beyond what’s in front of their noses.

You know, people who can see the forest, not just the trees. That’s why New York Avenue is the perfect corridor for a flyover ramp.

Referred to as New York Avenue Extended since shortly after the Great Depression, this gateway into the city was planned but never materialized, as major traffic congestion was realized even in the mid-1950s. Every mayor since 1980 has pondered what to do with New York Avenue, and their end result was always the same: The road surface was made smoother.

So, hey, if these donors to the pro-Bowser political action committee want to be agents of change for the city, really want to give the city a “Fresh” start, they and the mayor can dust off earlier studies and proposals and build a flyover.

And if they need another how-to, they can look to the Springfield Interchange in Northern Virginia.

Just please do not make the New York Avenue project a bowl of yat gaw mein like Springfield’s mixing bowl.

Speaking of ex-mayors

Remember Vincent Condol Gray?

The former D.C. mayor who perched under a dark federal cloud of suspicion his entire four years in office? The former big-city Democrat who saw acquaintances get swooped up by the feds on sundry charges, including the income-tax evasion charges that reeled in an indictment earlier this month of former Gray fundraiser Reuben Charles? The soon-to-be 73-year-old Mr. Gray who won’t rule out another run for office?

Well, if you thought Mr. Gray ran as fast as he possibly could in 2014, he did. He just couldn’t outpace Miss Bowser.

What’s happening now in the nation’s capital is largely due to the federal takeover that began in mid-’90s, when the city was financially and politically bankrupt of ideas, innovation and an apolitical energy. Liberals had broken D.C.

Now we’re at least trying to build anew — the population, the housing stock, the political machines, the retail and entertainment — and we need to keep moving in that direction.

But with Mr. Gray?

The name of the ex-mayor is being tossed around as a potential 2016 candidate to run against one of two other Democrats: lackluster Ward 7 Council member Yvette Alexander or her at-large colleague, Vincent Orange.

A hearty citywide turnout is expected in 2016 — not because of the candidates or the issues — but because the presidential elections will be on voters’ dockets.

When a politician is out of office for awhile, especially the way voters kicked Mr. Gray to the curb, it’s easy to believe he has a different perspective.

Then again, proverbs, parables, idioms, adages — see where I’m headed?

Mr. Gray has neither the charisma nor the political cachet of a “Comeback Kid.”

The wheel of fortune is spinning.

• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.