A week or so ago I was driving up the George Washington Parkway and passed the 14th Street Bridge. Ahead was the bridge that takes the parkway over a little canal that leads to the marina there. For decades local law enforcement officials had referred to this bridge as the “humpbacked bridge” as in: “Respond to an accident, southbound on the parkway at the humpbacked bridge.” It was code, it was a secret language and only a few people knew it. I was part of the club because of my many, many years as a traffic reporter.

So imagine my surprise to see a sign placed on the parkway near the bridge that dared reveal the code and so brazenly identify the bridge by its secret name. “Humpback Bridge,” the sign declared. Why? Why after all these years would they let the cat out of the bag? Now it’s clear why they need the public to know what this bridge is called.

The Humpback Bridge is going to be replaced beginning early next year. It will get new barriers to make it safer for pedestrians and cyclists. It even has its own Web site www.humpbackbridge.dot.gov, that details all of the work and contains some snappy pictures.

Airport parking innovation

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They sure do a lot of innovating in the United Kingdom.This time they have developed a way of helping drivers figure out where they’ve parked at Heathrow Airport.

The system reads a car’s license plate when the driver pulls in and then follows it to the parking space. That information can then be retrieved by the driver on return to the terminal. All he or she has to do is put the parking receipt into the machine, and a display pops up that shows the section, level and parking space number where the car is located.

Pretty cool, but not any more effective than writing the parking space number onto a slip of paper that goes into the wallet.