The 11th Street Bridge is one of the city’s plain-Jane spans. Two ribbons of concrete over rusting steel, it was built when commuting, not aesthetics or neighborhood values, was weighed.

Only one span has a name: The downstream bridge is named for Cpl. Kevin J. Walsh of the Metropolitan Police Department, who jumped into the river to rescue an apparent suicide Aug. 4, 1986. The suicidal woman was rescued, but Walsh drowned.

The double span takes up an enormous swath of desirable riverfront in an area where development has already landed and more is planned, and far-ranging plans were discussed last month to rebuild it. In addition, as it is configured, there is no link to the logical commuting route, I-295, a source of frustration for years.

The District Department of Transportation held a workshop May 25 to outline the leading ideas for reconstruction of the bridge. Because of expense, the spans will remain where they are, but other changes are planned.

The steel underpinnings of the bridges are to be replaced with much thinner members, though the height above the water of 28 feet will be maintained. The roadbed is to be widened by 40 feet, making a 100-foot traffic path in each direction.

But under the new configuration, there will be separate lanes for local travel, commuter travel and even pedestrians, who now use a tiny pathway inches from speeding traffic. More important, new ramps will connect the bridge to I-295 north and south.

Fenty may inspire Williams to run

One good thing that may come out of the wild ambitions of Councilman Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4), who announced last week that he will run for mayor: This may goad Mayor Anthony Williams (D) to run again.

Williams has a cheerful loathing for the spic-and-span Fenty, whom he sees as an opportunistic blowhard. The two men are opposites: Fenty is a glad-hander who is out “with the people” at public meetings. Williams is reserved and cerebral and visibly bored at routine D.C. community gatherings — usually occasions for back-patting interspersed with venting by fringe characters. It’s say it versus do it.

Williams can rarely rouse himself to show enthusiasm for campaigning, but that may change, thanks to Fenty’s candidacy. Fenty won his first term in 2000 by relentless footwork among the householders and apartment dwellers of Ward 4 — which is half black “Gold Coast” and half Georgia Avenue ghetto.

He’s jabbed Williams again and again by calling him a friend of the rich and powerful (code for white as well) and repeating the D.C. politician’s mantra: improve the schools, build more housing and do something about “the youth.”

What gets Williams’s ire is that Fenty has literally done nothing about any of these things but talk — he hasn’t been on the council long enough. By contrast, Williams has done much to build additional moderate-income housing, tried to take over the schools from the mired-down D.C. school board and created thousands of jobs here by aiding and abetting the city’s longest and largest construction boom.

Fenty, who has youth (34), good looks (writer-about-town Harry Jaffe called him “ripped from the pages of GQ magazine”) and considerable charm, suddenly adds a character to a mayoral race where Williams’s opponents seem stale and predictable: Councilman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), council Chairwoman Linda Cropp (D) and Councilman Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5) are the most prominent. He also has the advantage of a certain freedom. He will not have to give up his six-figure salary or his Council seat to run. His entry also deals a blow to the other candidates, who, in this strange city of lockstep Democratic politics, are not likely to join together to support him against Williams — and fragmented opposition will undoubtedly help the incumbent mayor.

Fenty’s entry will test the tried and true of District Democratic politics. With the progress the city has made in every department, from finances to crime, housing and population growth (though that has yet to be acknowledged by the Bureau of the Census), it remains to be seen whether a more left-leaning candidate, wedded to the dream of D.C. statehood, talking the talk of more of everything for all, can beat Williams. But if Williams fails to run, Fenty must be considered the favorite.

Keep all knives sharp

The article about the danger of long, pointy kitchen knives was about the last straw. Only The New York Times seemed to carry it. A group in England wants to ban kitchen knives because they are used in crimes. Painful crimes such as murder.

It was just one more reminder that safety, as a philosophy, has replaced most other principles in this country. Principles such as skill and expertise, competence, care, practice, moderation, etc., etc. I have even heard parting messages such as “be safe” intoned by well-meaning people.

I’d like to take the opportunity, therefore, to start a support group for people who love parachutes, slippery slopes, gambling, tree climbing, rat hunting, heavy surf, taking risks, driving fast, having sharp knives, going out in storms, riding bicycles, paddling kayaks, even (forgive me) using firearms against innocent woodland creatures and sailing at night.

Of course the lust for safety was exacerbated by 9-11-’01. And of course the nation’s capital was the prime exemplar; hundreds of millions have been spent for the safety of government buildings and to protect against truck bombers who have yet to appear.

If you follow the precepts of safety, almost the only thing you can do is huddle in your dwelling and hope the windows and doors are proof against secondhand smoke. Even then, there is the possibility lead may lurk in the paint. It’s almost certainly in the water. An asbestos pipe covering could be in the basement. And someone might have broken a mercury thermometer or a furnace thermostat. Then there’s radon. Outside, a thousand dangers lurk in traffic, pollution, criminals, spilt anti-freeze, pollen and heat exhaustion.

But back to that prime and obvious danger, the kitchen knife. A trio of British doctors has called for laws “requiring knife manufacturers to redesign their wares with rounded, blunt tips,” reporter John Stewards wrote May 27. The doctors argued that no one could explain why the classic kitchen long knife has a point and that stabbings are involved in many murders.

Chef Anthony Bourdain, who runs the New York branch of Philippe LaJaunie’s Les Halles restaurant here, responded that pointy knives had become almost an extension of a chef’s personality. “Where there is no risk,” he was quoted, “there is no pleasure.” That’s enough for a motto for my new group. And I do promise to take my medication.

METRO

• Barry Watch: The Ward 8 councilman and former mayor, Marion Barry, is in an undisclosed location, recovering from pneumonia contracted over the Memorial Day weekend. Prognosis apparently good, but whereabouts still under wraps after he checked in to Greater Southeast Hospital last Tuesday. ...

• Watch out for cameras: New speed (and revenue) cameras have been installed in the following near-Hill locations: 100 block of Michigan Avenue N.E., 600 block of New York Avenue N.E. and 3400 block of Benning Road N.E. (all westbound). ...

• Joe Fengler and his notably effective Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6A have won a significant victory for local businesses on the fast-developing H Street N.E. strip. Rush-hour parking prohibitions have been removed from 3rd to 15th streets N.E. ...

• St. Coletta’s, the chool for mentally retarded and autistic District children now building its campus near the D.C. General Hospital site, got a $1 million grant from the Freddie Mac Foundation to help its $24 million building program. The school will take care of education for more than 10 percent of the city’s “cognitively disabled” students. ...

• Mark your calendar if you want majesty. The latest puff on superupscale Capitol Hill will be on display June 15 as author Tom Groom speaks about his book The Majesty of Capitol Hill at the June membership meeting of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, St. Peter’s Church, 2nd and C streets S.E. 7:30 p.m., it’s free. ...

• Ferry entrepreneurs tried to sell boat commuting here four years ago, but financiers weren’t willing to risk it. But now D.C.’s transport czar, Dan Tangherlini of the D.C. Department of Transportation, is behind an 18-month experiment with the idea. Half-hour intervals with stops at the Navy Yard, Bolling Air Force Base, Georgetown’s Washington Harbor, Old Town Alexandria, and a Prince George’s County stop are contemplated. One spur: baseball crowds. ...

• Military music floating in the air above 8th signals that the Marine Band has begun its season of Friday-night Sunset Parades — a show of precision marching and predictably great Sousa marches — and the Wednesday-night concerts at the Capitol. The Tattoo is at 8:45, and reservations are required. The concerts are, as ever, free. Online booking at www.marineband.usmc.mil.