The Needle: Headgear Edition

Capital Helmetshare: The rides used by Capital Bikeshare are sturdy and slow as a tank, but that doesn't mean they can't crash—and if they do, your head's just as vulnerable as it would be if you crashed Adrian Fenty's Colnago. So DDOT is giving out helmets to go along with the bikes. Like the bicycles and the Circulator buses, they'll be bright red. Also like the bikes, chances are they'll be snatched up already when you go looking for them; officials are only ordering a batch of 500 to start.

Turn The Page: The population of vaguely clueless teenagers wandering around the vicinity of the Capitol South Metro station will soon be declining; the House of Representatives has decided to close down the page program, eliminating the fleet of blue blazer-clad kids who tote press releases and other piles of paper around the Capitol complex, on the theory that email does that just as well. The $5 million tab for the program probably doomed the program, which the occasional affairs various lawmakers have had with pages over the years never quite managed to do.

Cash Rules Everything Around D.C.: Sure, the economy is in the process of completely falling apart again. But before the last few weeks, we had it pretty good here; personal income in the Washington area was up 3.7 percent from 2009 to 2010, with people making $323.5 billion, the fourth-highest income in the nation. New York-area residents made $1 trillion last year, but if it's any schadenfreude consolation, they probably also lost about that much in Monday's stock market crash.

Skating USA: Since the Washington Redskins moved to Maryland, RFK Stadium's been sort of a lonely place; the Nationals moved to their own ballpark a few years after making their debut, leaving D.C. United as the only permanent tenant in the old facility. Now a skate park will be part of the mix, too. The Maloof Money Cup, a pro skateboarding tournament, will alight on East Capitol Street the first weekend in September, and afterwards the skate course will be open to the public. No word on whether crumbling pieces of the stadium that happen to fall during the tournament will be official parts of the course.