tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19231893137553412592024-03-06T00:33:05.205-05:00Imagine, DCWhat the DC Metro area COULD look like.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-3515165590832454952010-08-17T10:59:00.001-04:002010-08-17T17:12:36.908-04:00An EmailI know posting has been sparse recently as I have been busy with a new job and overwhelmed by selling my suburban house while preparing for a series of temporary work-related relocations. But recently I received an email regarding municipal land use policy that I wanted to open up to a wider debate. Please leave any constructive comments you might have regarding the issue.<br />
<div bindpoint="root" class="GBThreadMessageRow clearfix GBThreadMessageRow_Unread" style="border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 8px; zoom: 1;"><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Main"><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Info" style="margin-bottom: 4px;"><br />
</div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Info" style="margin-bottom: 4px;"><span bindpoint="authorLinkWrapper" class="GBThreadMessageRow_AuthorLink_Wrapper" style="font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">S </span></span><span bindpoint="reportLinkWrapper" class="GBThreadMessageRow_ReportLink" style="color: #777777; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 4px;"></span></div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body" style="color: #333333; float: left; font-size: 13px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 460px;"><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body_Content">do you think it is a good idea, bad idea, or value neutral idea for a small town to amend their ordinance protecting "open spaces" in order to allow for the refurbishing of an existing building to be transformed to affordable senior housing.<br />
(I don't know if "open spaces" is a standard term, but in this case it means land zoned for institutional use and includes areas that have a lot of property such as schools, churches, library etc)<br />
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I watched a LONG debate/discussion at a city council meeting and found I'm kind of in the minority in my opinion and wondered what a less biased person with actual knowledge of city plan would have to say.</div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body_Content">-s</div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_ReferrerLink" style="color: #777777; font-size: 9px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px;"></div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body_Attachment" style="font-size: 11px;"></div></div></div></div><div bindpoint="root" class="GBThreadMessageRow clearfix" style="border-top-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; height: auto; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 8px; zoom: 1;"><br />
<div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Main"><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Info" style="margin-bottom: 4px;"><span bindpoint="authorLinkWrapper" class="GBThreadMessageRow_AuthorLink_Wrapper" style="color: #333333; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Dave Murphy</span> </span><span bindpoint="reportLinkWrapper" class="GBThreadMessageRow_ReportLink" style="color: #777777; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 4px;"></span></div><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body" style="color: #333333; float: left; font-size: 13px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 460px;"><div class="GBThreadMessageRow_Body_Content">"Open space" is a very sketchy term. Gigantic empty lawns that nobody uses for anything are often considered "open space". On the one hand, if they can be used for something more meaningful, I'm all for it. If a building or set of buildings reinvigorates the town, absolutely it is a better use of the land, regardless of its use.<br />
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A great example in my opinion would be Four Corners, an area we both know and love... When they tore down the Kay Tract to build Blair High School, they demolished acres and acres of "green space". That area was a haven for homeless people and drug activity. It was unpatrolled, unregulated, secluded, and crime-ridden.<br />
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But when they tore out all those trees, what arose was a school already too small for its student body despite the fact that it was spread out over twice the real estate of the old school. The main feature that interacted with the rest of the "town" (if one were to consider Four Corners its own town) was not the main facade of the school, not the grand entrance, walkways, side buildings, or even athletic fields; it is the driveways and parking lots that front the school.<br />
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It secluded the student body, who for the most parts are residents of Four Corners and downtown Silver Spring, from the rest of the town. Was it a better municipal use of land than a bunch of trees with trash and homeless people? Absolutely. But does it contribute more to the townliness of Four Corners? Barely.<br />
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A good side effect was the pedestrian improvements that came along with a 3,200 student school, and Four Corners desperately needed those pedestrian improvements. But despite the fact that it is the most heavily traveled intersection in Eastern Montgomery County (for PEOPLE, not cars... more people move through that intersection than even Georgia and Colesville) no major mass transit improvements came with the school save for maybe a bus shelter or two.<br />
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Now consider the lawns providing the setback for St. Bernadette's. That is open space. It is green space. Is it serving the people of Four Corners? Does it serve St. Bernadette's other than to isolate it from the high speed traffic of University Boulevard or the "public school kids" that as a universal community of faith we ought to be reaching out to and embracing? The only thing I've ever used those fields for is stretching out a football team before a game at St. Bernadette's. And in 5 years of coaching and two years of playing, I can count the number of times I've done that on two hands.<br />
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Now consider something like this:<br />
<a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3922" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3922</a><br />
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Erik Bootsma, the architect that authored this article, is a Beaux Arts architect and a Catholic. He writes about religious structures often. Here's his website, it's great:<br />
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<a href="http://beatusest.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://beatusest.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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But back to the suburban church being retrofitted... American churches are often gigantic, isolated structures that are monuments to themselves. Whereas in Europe, Cathedrals are the centerpieces of the towns, in America you have junk like the Mormon tabernacle, which only interacts with people driving down the Beltway and in no other way serves as a structural outreach to the community. For all their questionable doctrine, this is actually my number 1 gripe with the Mormon church. They structurally isolate themselves from their surroundings, even in Salt Lake City. But nowadays, every church does that. They move from central locations to wherever they can have the biggest parking lot, assuring that few will walk to their services and ostensibly turning away anyone that does not drive a car.<br />
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If St. Bernadette's was to take the lawns in front of the parish and do something useful such as what Bootsma proposed there in Arlington, it would create a community directly affected by the parish rather than isolated from it. And for a religious institution, what better way to attract members than to make the primary structure (the church) the focal point of a community? And as far as traffic on University Boulevard goes, building frontage could slow traffic down, and a more permeable street network could actually relieve congestion there. A train line running up Columbia Pike would be nice also.<br />
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As for your case, affordable senior housing is never a bad thing in theory. But what are they building? Garden style apartments with ample parking that will eventually mock seniors who lose the ability to drive? Or a community of well designed buildings that will allow seniors to partake in society without forcing them to drive? In my opinion, the latter serves more use than an open lawn that nobody uses.</div></div></div></div><br />
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</div>Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-42225649177520206212010-06-20T15:48:00.000-04:002010-06-20T15:48:22.338-04:00Stupid Growth: Office Parks my Metro in Prince George'sMaryland's Housing and Community Development headquarters will be<a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2010/06/14/daily52.html"> the first Maryland state agency to move into Prince George's County</a>. In accordance with Governor O'Malley's transit-oriented development initiative, the offices will be relocated from<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Crownsville,+MD&sll=38.893755,-77.041025&sspn=0.00977,0.014699&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Crownsville,+Anne+Arundel,+Maryland&ll=39.028386,-76.634102&spn=0.078011,0.182991&t=h&z=13"> practically-rural Crownsville</a> in Anne Arundel County to a site adjacent to one of the Metro or MARC stations identified for O'Malley's plan.<br />
<br />
The four stations in Prince George's County identified by <a href="http://beyonddc.com/log/?p=1876">O'Malley's plan</a> are Laurel MARC, New Carrollton, Naylor Road, and Branch Avenue. This can be an excellent opportunity to implement a plan that could become a turning point for the County's future growth. My fear, however, is that it won't be.<br />
<br />
Prince George's County has a long history of squandering valuable property along transit stations. College Park Station is the best example of that. Surrounding the transit hub, which has Metro, MARC, and several bus connections is an office park fit for suburban Atlanta. Its poor pedestrian approaches and wasteful spread-out design offer maximum parking without any continuity of place among the buildings. Despite being very convenient to transit, the design and layout of the area scream "drive here!"<br />
<br />
Even worse in my opinion is Suitland. Suitland is a destitute area with high crime and a weak economy. When the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Suitland+Federal+Center,+MD&sll=38.955671,-76.838036&sspn=0.078091,0.182991&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Suitland+Federal+Ctr+At+Gate+7&ll=38.848866,-76.933029&spn=0.009776,0.022874&t=h&z=16">Suitland Federal Center</a> was built adjacent to the Metro, it came out as a sprawling officeplex with absolutely no orientation to the surrounding area. But don't worry, there is ample parking. Worse yet, the fenced monstrosity acts as a barrier between the town and the Metro station.<br />
<br />
I hope this agency goes to Naylor Road station, where O'Malley made the announcement. And I sincerely hope they get it right. But if we get more Suitland and College Park, thanks but no thanks. Keep your office buildings in rural Anne Arundel County where they won't do any more damage to Prince George's County's transit access. Putting office buildings next to a Metro station is not all it takes to make good transit-oriented development.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-41464297424504456812010-06-15T17:57:00.000-04:002010-06-15T17:57:24.928-04:00A MARC solution for Fort MeadeI worked on Fort Meade for the better part of a decade. It made me hate commuting more than any Beltway traffic ever did. It is virtually impossible to get there without a car, and the parking is years of expansion beyond critical mass. The disastrous runoff and increasing traffic are wreaking havoc on the Patuxent River estuaries, and it is only going to get worse as Fort Meade receives almost 6,000 new BRAC jobs.<br />
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I have in the past <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3899">called for Metro service to the base</a> to service the 50,000 military, DoD, and contractors that work on the base and the adjacent facilities. And though that sure would be a nice connection, I am finally coming around to the reality that it would be more infrastructure investment that it would ever worth. The fact remains, however, that the base and surrounding facilities are not served by the MARC lines that run by either side of it. What more an obvious solution than to put a connection between the two of them?<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000488f42aed8da4a31f6&ll=39.108085,-76.75169&spn=0.063937,0.109863&z=13&output=embed" width="640"></iframe><br />
<small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000488f42aed8da4a31f6&ll=39.108085,-76.75169&spn=0.063937,0.109863&z=13&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">MARC Meade Line</a> in a larger map</small><br />
<br />
The idea would be to have trains leave Union Station and follow the Camden Line to Savage, where half of the trains would continue along the current Camden Line, and half of them would continue along a spur going eastward along MD 32. The spur would connect to the Penn Line at Odenton and continue to Baltimore and beyond. Stops along the way could include National Business Park, NSA, and the Fort Meade main gate. New tracks would be about six and a half miles long. Portions could easily be constructed along defunct railroad rights-of-way.<br />
<br />
The Camden Line, which runs along Route 1 all the way from DC to Baltimore, has several sites such as : <a href="http://www.mdot.maryland.gov/News/2009/December%202009/LaurelTOD.htm">Laurel</a>, <a href="http://www.brickyardstation.com/community.html">Muirkirk</a>, and Riverdale Park are struggling to implement transit oriented development by their respective MARC stations. The Camden Line, however, has by far the lowest level of service on the system, and that will still be the case when <a href="http://mta.maryland.gov/projects/marc%20plan%20full.pdf#page=29">MARC's 2035 plan</a> is complete. a Meade connection could be used to add more service to the southern half of the Camden Line, which could help encourage those TOD projects.<br />
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Best of all, this connection would bring a viable transit alternative to a growing facility with worsening traffic and catastrophic parking problems. It would bring regular, high capacity transit at a minimal infrastructure investment.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-61354177052299679742010-06-15T02:58:00.005-04:002010-06-15T02:58:00.557-04:00Against the Generistocracy<style>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Fifteen years ago, I was a nonconformist in high school. Like my older brother before me, I sported wild hair and listened to the latest parent-unfriendly rock music. And I loved visiting Phantasmagoria, a (literally) underground record store on <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Grandview Avenue</st1:address></st1:street> in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was an easy walk from my high school, a since-demolished private Catholic school that has, in its relocation, implied that they want to keep lower middle class students like me from ever attending there again. But in 1995, that school was a quarter mile from the Wheaton Metro station where I caught the C2 or C4 home, and occasionally I would stop in at Phantasmagoria or one of the other quirky little off-the-beaten-path shops in Wheaton along the way.<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In 1996, Phantasmagoria moved to <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Elkin Street</st1:address></st1:street>, next to one of my other favorite <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> venues, Legends Pool Hall. "Phantaz", as we called it, added a grill and a stage at their new venue, and all of the sudden <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Elkin Street</st1:address></st1:street> boasted two hip venues. The tight streets and nighttime activity created a sort of feral urbanism, an area to walk around and feel natural despite the fact that I was trying to distract myself from the continuing decay of community and the arts in suburbia. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Both Phantaz and Legends were places shady enough to be considered cool, but safe enough that my mother would reluctantly approve of me spending Friday nights shooting billiards and going to punk shows. Both were independent businesses, and both were affordable enough for crews of lower-middle class outcasts to seek refuge. In Legends, you were most likely to see Central American or Southeast Asian immigrants on the billiards tables or service industry types at the bar; meanwhile, Phantasmagoria attracted every kind of punk, indie rocker, metalhead, ska fan, or geek rocker you can imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> I never got into any trouble there, save for coming home smelling like cigarettes (which I don't smoke now, and certainly wasn't then). Nonetheless, I felt welcome and at home in the shadows and back alleys of Wheaton, not in Wheaton Plaza or fast food joints where my more clean-cut classmates might be found bubbling around after school.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Olney was well represented at my high school. In fact, the shiny new campus is up there, far away from the public transportation that allowed me to attend the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> campus. I was forced to spend a great deal of time in Olney, especially during my junior year when I dated a girl who lived up off <st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on">Emory Lane</st1:address></st1:street>. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The entire town disgusted me. I couldn't quite put my finger on why. I often cited the lack of mature trees and the spread out nature, but my friends would accuse me of being jealous of the affluence. There was no walking around. A seventeen-year-old with a ponytail caught milling around in that neighborhood must have looked like a fly on a wedding cake. The vast cul-de-sac mazes of huge colonials with vinyl siding were built to isolate and exclude, and there were no gritty little holes in the wall or back alleys for kids like me to feel at home.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That’s when I coined the phrase "generistocracy" to describe Olney and many other <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Montgomery</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">County</st1:placetype></st1:place> sprawlburbs. It described the people who lived in those crisp, new, bland neighborhoods that where completely devoid of any stimulation and hadn’t been around long enough to develop any character. Generistocracy helped me separate places like Olney from places like downtown <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethesda</st1:place></st1:city>, home of one of my favorite underground shops, a second hand boutique called Rerun that specialized in hippie attire and rock memorabilia. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bethesda</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> was wealthy like Olney, but Olney rubbed me the wrong way. I felt welcome in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethesda</st1:place></st1:city>. Olney made it clear that I had no business there. Downtown <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethesda</st1:place></st1:city> wanted me to come in and walk around. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethesda</st1:place></st1:city> didn’t have much to offer a kid like me the way <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> did, but it gave me a sense of place that I never got from the generistocracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Meanwhile, I'd continue to discover <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> outside the mall. There was Barry's Magic Shop and an antique toy store that specialized in trains. There was House of Cards, a baseball card store, and Nick’s Diner, which only served breakfast and lunch. There was a military surplus store where I bought most of the patches that were sewn on my jacket. And there were not one, but two music stores where I would stare enviously at guitars and drum sets. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It didn't sink in that these were independent businesses, the kind that didn't care if a kid with a ponytail would come in and poke around despite being unable to make a purchase more often than not. Shopkeepers in the mall always eyeballed me as if I were going to steal something. But the best part about them, the part that wouldn't hit me until much later, was how accessible they were. I didn't need a car, money, or an agenda. I could just be there and fit in. Had <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> gone all Starbucks and Panera back then, I don't know how I would have made it through high school.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">My girlfriend's father, a prominent local banker, forbade us to go to Legends, insisting we instead played pool at the billiard room in their house. <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> was just too dangerous for him. It was bad enough his daughter was dating a kid who in middle school hung out with his Salvadorian, Ivorian, and Cambodian friends in the garden apartments of Langley Park.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But for my part, I didn't drink, I didn't do drugs, and I didn't even smoke. I wasn't in a gang, I didn't get into fights, and I wasn't vandalizing. I didn't go to edgy venues looking for mischief. I just liked the fact that there was a place for me to be, and in Wheaton I felt like I fit in pretty well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I liked walking around. I liked being recognized and treated like a member of a community. I liked that the businesses welcomed me. I liked recommending these places to my friends who might actually buy something. And it made going to the bus station after school an interesting adventure, not a walk of shame for that poor kid whose parents hadn’t bought him a car yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I’m thirty now, and I don't go to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> very often anymore. More often I find myself in downtown <st1:place w:st="on">Silver Spring</st1:place> or <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethesda</st1:place></st1:city>. As much as <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> shaped who I am and how much I appreciate a sense of place, it just reminds me of high school too much, and I wasn’t very fond of my high school. Phantasmagoria closed its doors for good in 2001. Legends is still there, though it's been nine years since I last set foot inside. Many of the other small, independent shops have either gone dark or moved. <o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt;">But Wheaton still has a bit of that feral urbanism, set of raw streets with not-so-mainstream shops and businesses that feel a little off the beaten path despite the fact that they’re right in the middle of everything, versus the tame, boring set of chains in strip malls that litter much of the suburbs. As wave after wave of investment pours into the choice real estate around Wheaton Metro, I can only hope that the edgy underground <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wheaton</st1:place></st1:city> I grew up with can survive and thrive.</span>Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-87853760631597974452010-06-11T02:14:00.000-04:002010-06-11T02:14:02.850-04:00Links and Open ThreadI have been very busy with work and selling my house lately, and there haven't been many posts in recent months. I have a couple posts in the works that will be posted soon. In the mean time, consider this an open thread to talk about somewhere in DC that needs a little re-imagining. Off the top of my head, here's a few:<br />
<br />
Walter Reed Army Medical Center<br />
RFK/East End<br />
Southern Avenue Metro<br />
Downtown Bowie<br />
Bailey's Crossroads<br />
Springfield<br />
Lincolnia<br />
Glover Park<br />
Fort Davis<br />
Suitland<br />
Annandale<br />
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_226008585"><br />
</a><br />
<a href="http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/06/04/why-nyc-residents-should-care-about-the-upstate-sprawl-bomb">Buffalo faces mounting issues</a> as suburbs spread out and city spreads thin.<br />
Rethink College Park talks about a <a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2010/2798/">Streetsblog video</a> on autocentricity<br />
Yonah Freemark looks at <a href="http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2010/06/02/washington-comes-closer-to-bridging-the-gap-with-its-new-streetcar-network/">what DC Transit will be</a> in just a few short years. <br />
And check out a couple of <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=6079">new transit ideas</a> that were posted on GGW.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-62972104627253941432010-05-04T18:10:00.000-04:002010-05-04T18:10:42.207-04:00I may not have to imagine much longer...As scenic and wonderful as Laurel has been the past seven years, it looks like I'll finally be making my way back into the District. My humble abode will be going on the market this month.<br />
<br />
I have a lot of history in the region here. I was born in Foggy Bottom. I grew up inside the Beltway in Silver Spring. I went to grade school just outside the Beltway, and high school in Wheaton. I attended Montgomery College, and I even lived in Rockville for a year. I joined the Army at 21 (pre-9/11, but just barely, if you were wondering) and resettled here after my basic and advanced training. I joined the Army to see the world, but they stationed me back in Maryland.<br />
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I purchased a house in Laurel in 2003 when I was 23 years old. I was a Specialist (E-4) in the Army at the time, making about $1,800 a month plus a housing allowance. It took a lot of scraping to stay in this house, but a couple of war zone deployments helped me pay the mortgage as my taxes skyrocketed during an unprecedented housing boom. After I got out of the Army, I languished in unemployment for about six months, during which I picked up odd jobs and took extreme measures to afford the mortgage until I managed to crack into a government job with an entry level wage suitable for allowing me to live somewhat comfortably while keeping my house.<br />
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I've come a long way since then, and so has the housing market, not to mention the city of Laurel and the DC Metro area. I know I am very fortunate to have survived the housing boom-and-bust and still have made money on my house. It was part determination, part luck, and part having smart people around me.<br />
<br />
But as it goes, my current job sends me all over the DC area quite regularly and Laurel is no longer a suitable staging point. I'm moving back into the city of my birth, to a yet-to-be-determined neighborhood. Having grown up in the shadow of the Capitol and lived just about my entire life here and being a person who loves cities, it is a powerful notion for me to be moving back into a city that has overcome so much strife. In my youth, the mass exodus from DC was taking place. By the time I was in the sixth grade, DC was the murder capital of the US. While I was in high school, my mother fought with me every time I wanted to go to RFK or the 9:30 Club, citing my safety. And even as recently as 2004, the Army forbade me from going into the parts of the city where I am currently looking to purchase my next home.<br />
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But in November 2008, Election Day, I saw a celebration at 14th and U, an intersection that for the past forty years had been overcoming scars left by race riots, neglect, and construction of the Metro. It was a historic day for many reasons as Obama became the first African-American president in a critical period for the nation, but for me it was different, something that had nothing to do with politics. All kinds of people celebrated in the streets of a fully rejuvenated neighborhood. Washington had returned to being a great American city. It made me want to go back. And now it looks like I can finally do that.<br />
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So I'll be posting about that experience, schedule permitting. And if anyone is looking for a spot halfway between DC and Baltimore, I know of a cute little bungalow off of Route 1.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-18470468711683323962010-03-30T22:19:00.002-04:002010-03-31T08:02:36.389-04:00A Bike Crossing and a Disconnected StreetI drive around the College Park Metro Station a lot. That area is home to one of the most notable examples on Prince George's County's long list of misguided transportation infrastructure disasters. The College Park Trolley Trail crossing at Paint Branch Parkway. <a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2009/1602/">Rethink College</a> Park has chronicled the embarrassingly over-the-top markings, signs, and traffic implements to bring notice to the heavily traveled bike path crossing.<br />
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Allow me to set the scene: The College Park Trolley Trail runs along the bits and fragments of a disjointed Rhode Island Avenue between Route 1 and the MARC/Metro tracks. It is a heavily used trail that connects north College Park to the University and the Metro Center, and this crossing is a crucial point on the path. Paint Branch Parkway is a four lane road with a double yellow line. The south side of the road has a sidewalk that goes under the train tracks to the Metro station. The north side has nothing between the train tracks and Route 1 despite several bus stops along the route. The only signalized crossing accessible to the north side of the CPTT is at Route 1, about a quarter mile west. And as mentioned above, there are no sidewalks to get there.<br />
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College Park has been trying to get a <a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2009/1848/">HAWK signal</a> at the intersection, an option the County dismissed quickly. There is another way to get the crossing signalized, however College Park is likely to foolishly dismiss it: connect Rhode Island Avenue to Paint Branch Parkway.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=38.983261,-76.930861&spn=0.001459,0.00228&z=18&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=38.983261,-76.930861&spn=0.001459,0.00228&z=18&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
<br />
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The CPTT and Rhode Island Avenue would intersect Paint Branch Parkway at the same place, and the vehicular intersection could receive a traffic signal on which the bike and pedestrian path could piggy-back. This would also improve street connectivity in traffic-clogged College Park. But that's exactly why the idea will probably never be explored. It would attract cars into the neighborhood, a notion that the University and the residents will likely balk at. Never mind the fact that it houses <a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2009/1112/">College Park's newest parking garage</a> at Knox Road and Yale Avenue. People won't want through traffic by-passing traffic-choked Route 1 on the narrow, speed-bumpy neighborhood streets.<br />
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Prince George's County, like most of the rest of the nation, favors funneling traffic onto main streets instead of keeping a permeable network of interconnected and redundant streets. Usually, this just isolates communities and creates traffic problems. In this case, however, it hurts (<a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2009/1356/">sometimes literally</a>) pedestrians and bikers who cannot count on Paint Branch Parkway drivers to obey the 35 mph speed limit or the state law that mandates cars stop at all crosswalks for bikes and peds.<br />
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In most other wealthy countries on earth, bikes, cars, pedestrians and transit find a way to coexist together on publicly maintained roads. This separation of modes with a grossly negligent safety situation once again emphasizes that in a country that is already bad at that, Prince George's County finds a way to prove they are one of the worst.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-91189849255739018682010-03-11T20:26:00.001-05:002010-03-11T20:29:14.805-05:00Look at SouthwestSouthwest was gutted by urban renewal a couple decades ago, and it became one of the less savory parts of the city. The area is now experiencing a revival, however the original street grid is still decimated by the elevated freeway and railroads and several of the residential and office complexes that occupy <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=4621">superblocks</a>. What would Southwest look like if all the <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3151">letter and number streets</a> and <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3215">diagonal avenues</a> were connected across the quadrant? Something like this:<br />
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<iframe width="640" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000481892f47c2e85e691&ll=38.876802,-77.019138&spn=0.032073,0.054932&z=14&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000481892f47c2e85e691&ll=38.876802,-77.019138&spn=0.032073,0.054932&z=14&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">Southwest L'Enfant</a> in a larger map</small>Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-40593346550087537692010-02-24T11:50:00.000-05:002010-02-24T11:53:44.451-05:00Imagine Lamond-RiggsNorthern DC has a huge swath of relatively dense urbanized area with little direct access to Metro. This area consists largely of the Petworth, 16th Street Heights, Brightwood, Manor Park, and Lamond Riggs <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/DC_neighborhoods_map.png">neighborhoods</a>, and the obvious reason is that there is no line running underneath Georgia Avenue. There are commercial corridors along this route on <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=934">Georgia Avenue</a>, Kennedy Street, Upshur Street, Blair Road.<br />
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While it is not economically feasible right now to dig underneath Georgia Avenue, that area is likely to get a streetcar connecting Silver Spring to the next station along Georgia, the Georgia Avenue/Petworth station (which technically is in Park View, just south of Petworth). The eastern reaches of this area would not benefit as much from this new transit line, however the opportunity exists to add a Metro station along the Red Line in the Lamond-Riggs neighborhood at Kansas Avenue and Blair Road:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Kansas+Avenue+and+Blair+Road&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.368578,64.248047&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kansas+Ave+NW+%26+Blair+Rd+NW,+Washington,+District+of+Columbia,+20011&ll=38.962452,-77.0107&spn=0.008726,0.015686&t=h&z=16&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Kansas+Avenue+and+Blair+Road&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=36.368578,64.248047&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kansas+Ave+NW+%26+Blair+Rd+NW,+Washington,+District+of+Columbia,+20011&ll=38.962452,-77.0107&spn=0.008726,0.015686&t=h&z=16" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
<br />
This station would lie about halfway between Takoma and Fort Totten, which are just under two miles apart. It would directly serve the Blair Road retail corridor, and if placed on the southeast side of Kansas Avenue, the New Hampshire Avenue corridor would be directly served as well.<br />
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What makes this site particularly amenable to a transit station is the plethora of suitable approaches. Peabody Street heads west and in less than a mile hits Georgia Avenue in the Vinegar Hill/Fort Stevens area. New Hampshire and Kansas Avenues head southwest into the heart of Petworth, an important neighborhood in the heart of northwest, densely populated and undergoing a true renaissance. New Hampshire Avenue also heads north through Takoma Park towards Langley Park, and this new station could serve as a hub for bus lines along New Hampshire.<br />
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Blair Road already connects this area to the Takoma station area, and linking transit-oriented developments can have a synergistic effect on the areas, like along the Orange Line in Arlington or the downtown areas in DC. To the south, Blair Road becomes North Capitol Street and crosses Riggs Road/Missouri Avenue near Fort Totten, another area which is <a href="http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2009/01/knee-deep-in-new-development-at-fort.html">rapidly</a> <a href="http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2009/11/arts-at-fort-totten.html">growing</a>. As Takoma and Fort Totten grow with more walkable, transit accessible developments, a station placed in between them could induce a string-of-pearls transit-oriented development environment that could become the focus of the northern part of the District, improving transit accessibility and the potential for growth and development. And it could be done without spending a single dime laying more track.<br />
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I imagine the first criticism of this station would be that it increases the time it takes to get downtown. For some, yes. However, there is an express train from Silver Spring to Union Station known as the MARC Brunswick Line. For many residents in Lamond Riggs, Manor Park, Takoma, Brightwood, and Petworth, it will most certainly shorten the amount of time it takes for them to get downtown. Considering the benefits of added grown and increased economic viability, adding one or two minutes to get downtown might be worth it. It certainly was at the New York Avenue station, which opened just six years ago and has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoMa,_Washington,_D.C.">induced billions in economic investment</a>, even during troubled economic times.<br />
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What would this station be called? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3TWgZfK_Q7WbbWtr_iabdTm7ycCEAkFCM3N7rlZJXw4Zhnbe28K9dXpJja59f45D4KECKNhyQuh7_PPcCNMy10fQfha2PBaYlAjUWgAgZ_VqKr00moG7m160h50ZmJ7sceJXqi1J3ijLH/s1600-h/ExportTest1.png">Track Twenty-Nine suggested "Kansas Avenue"</a> some time ago, however I am partial to naming it after the neighborhood, Lamond-Riggs, or perhaps Fort Slocum after the nearby park and Civil War fortification. Though perhaps not well known right now, Lamond-Riggs has the potential to become a keystone for development along the northern edge of the District.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-8541789162222118592010-02-17T02:19:00.001-05:002010-02-17T02:26:42.052-05:00Sneak Peek at Imagine, DC Transit VisionFurther explanation forthcoming, but at the GGW meet-up in Silver Spring tonight, a couple folks asked me about it, so here it is<br />
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What is on it?<br />
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-Potential extension of existing and under construction Metro Lines (including Silver), separated from each other to maximize capacity<br />
-Two Metro Light Rail lines, the Purple Line (proposed) and the Black or "Columbia" Line (which hits Columbia Pike in MoCo, Columbia Heights, and Columbia Pike in VA)<br />
-A vision for DC streetcars (red), Ride-On streetcars (light blue), streetcars for municipalities in Prince George's (various blues and purples), ART/DART (light green) and Fairfax Connector (white)<br />
-Southern Maryland Area Rail Transport (SMART light rail, in yellow)<br />
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What's not on here yet:<br />
-Corridor Cities Transitway<br />
-MARC/VRE<br />
-Baltimore Transit<br />
-A "Pink Line" heavy rail inner loop<br />
-A "Brown Line" crosstown light rail<br />
<br />
I probably won't add these, it doesn't mean I don't think we should have them: <br />
-Tram/Streetcar stations<br />
-Intercity/HSR/MagLev<br />
-Rapid/express bus (vision supplants most of this with rail anyway)<br />
-Redevelopment and suburban ruralization that would ideally accompany this sort of plan<br />
-Bicycle facilities (not my wheelhouse... yet)<br />
-New/changed/removed freeways, parkways, and interchanges, as well as newly tolled roads<br />
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Here's a disclaimer: I am not under the delusion that this vision is feasible, politically expedient, affordable, cost effective, or in any other way possible. But I imagine it would be able to quickly and safely transport most of the area's growing population after gas prices breach the threshold of affordability.<br />
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Sorry I am currently incapable of putting together a beautiful graphic like many of my fellow transit nerds at BeyondDC, Track Twenty-Nine, or Greater Greater Washington, but hopefully the arrangement I have thrown together on GoogleMaps will give people an idea of what I'm going for here.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-86980537692740736332010-02-07T04:36:00.001-05:002010-02-08T11:21:53.716-05:00Keeping Money In the CommunityMy <a href="http://imaginedc.blogspot.com/2009/12/new-years-resolution.html">New Years resolution</a> was to eat at more independently owned food joints. Originally, I opted to do this to get a better taste for DC cuisine, but there is a reason that benefits everyone to seek local fare from locally owned restaurants. That money comes flowing back to you by keeping the money in the place where you live. And this goes for everything, not just food.<br />
<br />
I purchase some pork tenderloin at the Wal-Mart in Maryland City, the money goes a lot of places. New York investors, Chinese suppliers, various distributors, and of course the fat cats in Benton, AR where Wal-Mart started. But where doesn't it go? Laurel. Prince George's County. And for the most part, the State of Maryland. My hard earned cash is going to support gated communities like <a href="http://www.hsvpoa.org/">Hot Springs Village, AR</a>, the <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&source=hp&ie=UTF8&q=hot+springs+village+arkansas&fb=1&gl=us&ei=YmFuS76SA8_e8Qav8_GIBg&ved=0CBEQ8gEwAA&view=map&geocode=FaQNEQIde_N0-g&split=0&iwloc=A">largest gated community in the United States</a> and not surprisingly convenient to Benton. <br />
<br />
If I purchase the same pork tenderloin at the <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/laurel-meat-market-laurel">Laurel meat market</a> on Main Street, my money is not going through all the corporate filters of a Wal-Mart. The product is more likely to come from the state of Maryland and will probably be fresher. A larger percentage of the taxed monies will go to the city of Laurel, Prince George's County, and Maryland. And a retailer that depends on the community. Those taxes will go towards <a href="http://walklaurel.blogspot.com/">investment in my city</a>, not a segregated community halfway across the country with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Springs_Village,_AR#Demographics">disproportionate lack of minority population</a>.<br />
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River East Idealist had <a href="http://rivereastidealist.blogspot.com/2010/02/prosperity-in-river-east-part-2-wealth.html">a great article</a> last week on how River East residents can keep their money in River East and break the debt cycle in which many less fortunate River East residents are mired. Her first point was to stop attending colleges you can't afford. I like to think I'm living proof that this works. I have an Associates of Applied Science from Montgomery College. I educated myself where I lived, and I now have what could be considered a decent paying job and a rather prestigious position in Federal Government. Of course, if you can find a way afford a degree from a better more expensive school, go for it. But educating yourself outside your means is not necessary. I believe I am doing much better than most of my friends with bachelors degrees from more prestigious institutions because I do not have six figure student loan debt. My six figure debt is a mortgage on the house I own. <br />
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Another observation she made: stop financing cars. If the money Americans spent on the interest alone of financed cars were instead spent on public transportation infrastructure, I wonder how much better our systems would be. If that were the case, I speculate many Americans would not even bother to own a car. At the very least, I bet Metro would not be facing such a <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=4650">tremendous budget gap</a>.<br />
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There are a plethora of ways we can keep our money in the community continuing to benefit us. But it is important that those methods be accessible to everyone, regardless of their socio-economic status. Policy ought to be enacted promoting locally owned businesses over chains, mass transit over car ownership, and better investment in local schools to create sharp minds and keep them nearby. The status quo will continue to send money to out of touch corporations and Wall Street investors while siphoning investment away from our own communities.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-14146481322940522682010-01-12T00:48:00.001-05:002010-01-12T00:58:56.976-05:00Depressing Places<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JdzA2QWwuKI/S0wOdDVQ6HI/AAAAAAAAAE4/IIhSzws53KI/s1600-h/Columbia+Gateway+Business+Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JdzA2QWwuKI/S0wOdDVQ6HI/AAAAAAAAAE4/IIhSzws53KI/s320/Columbia+Gateway+Business+Park.jpg" /></a>This weekend, my job had me going to a site up in <a href="http://www.hceda.org/realEstateDetail.aspx?ds=Columbia&tp=Land&id=26">Columbia Gateway</a>, a sprawling, depressing office colony in Howard County. It is an intimidatingly isolated, desolate, oppressing void of a place. I grew furious trying to figure out which anonymous LeCorbuseurian complex housed the site where I was meeting my colleagues. It was a very depressing landscape, and I couldn't wait to leave.<br />
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Then it dawned on me that thousands of people work here every day.<br />
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<i>Columbia Gateway</i>.<i> Photo by Howard County</i><br />
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I find my self oppressed by the traffic-choked pedestrian-hazardous landscape of Laurel Lakes, and I am doing everything in my power to move. But push comes to shove, I can walk to the store. If someone is causing problems in my neighborhood, it will be noticed and police will be called. Those police shouldn't have too much problem finding the suspects. It is Lower Manhattan compared to Columbia Gateway (except they have the skyscrapers up there). <br />
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Perhaps I am ruminating on the concept too much. I may be reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Man-Made-Landscape/dp/0671888250/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b">too</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Home-Nowhere-Remaking-Everyday-Century/dp/0684837374/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263272054&sr=8-5">much</a> <a href="http://www.kunstler.com/index.php">James Howard Kuntsler</a>. But then CNN illustrated human's desire for beautiful and memorable settings. The visual stimulation of the beautiful planet in the hit film <a href="http://www.avatarmovie.com/"><i>Avatar</i></a> is striking people on such a level that going back to the cul-de-sacs, drive-thru fast food joints, and office parks of reality has <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/11/avatar.movie.blues/index.html?iref=allsearch">caused them depression</a>. <br />
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I have not seen <i>Avatar</i> yet, but I plan to do so soon after reading the CNN article. I know the symptoms. I was a little depressed when I returned from my two months in Europe, having seen such awe-inspiring places as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontevrault_Abbey">Abbey at Fauntevrault</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelle_Fra"></a> the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_American_Cemetery_and_Memorial">American Cemetary</a> in Luxembourg, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelburg_Castle">Heidelburg Castle</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelburg_Castle">Chateau Vianden</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes">Ardennes Forest</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergstra%C3%9Fe">Die Bergstrasse</a>, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam#Canals">Amsterdam canals</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_d%27Angers">Chateau d'Angers</a> and then returning home to the billboard littered landscapes of Route 1 in Laurel. Fortunately, I go to downtown Silver Spring, Clarendon, H Street, Hyattsville, Chinatown, or one of the DC area's many other great places, and I get over it. They may not be on par with the beauty and sense of places as the Abbey at Fauntevrault, but they are memorable places designed for enjoyment of people.<br />
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Perhaps the visual magnificence of <i>Avatar</i> is so otherworldly beautiful and James Cameron has accomplished something truly profound. I'll let you know after I watch it. But perhaps many Americans are already depressed by their lack of access to truly beautiful places, and <i>Avatar</i> simply defined that their need for such places that was already festering inside them.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-26199471131100114432010-01-07T22:49:00.001-05:002010-01-07T22:50:27.809-05:00Coast Guard HQ: 2,000 Cars, No BoatsA historic campus. An idyllic untouched corner of real estate in close proximity to the seat of federal government for a great nation. The headquarters of an esteemed branch of the military and an a department headquarters for a government agency. No nation on earth could improve on a venture like that. But in the United States, we throw in a 1900 space garage.<br />
<br />
The United States Coast Guard Headquarters design <a href="http://dcmud.blogspot.com/2010/01/ncpc-reviews-coast-guard-headquarters.html">has been approved</a>. I'm not an architect nor am I capable of eloquently stating my disgust at a <i>coast guard</i> headquarters that <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFbmF5U0BAfLJLGTJHlTXN4HJDdUi_w7khVXh4J7snNN_7A9bIn5XEVGDsop0YH9X8EJZ99vjl9wODJEQHIg3DNK0a-iwJt09Z1Rl-HJAGTOPkJEuwTjxKteqXnkQy8d9wAGX1sVbSbqJk/s1600-h/USCG+birds+eye.jpg">looks like a spa retreat off in the woods</a> despite the nearby convergence of two navigable rivers, but I will openly take issue with the 1,973 space garage. It is definitely better than surface parking, but this is a historic site, virgin land with views of the convergence of the rivers, the Capitol, and the monuments. Real estate in America doesn't get more prime than this. And DHS is dropping a greenified Tyson's Corner transplant with a huge garage in the middle of it, complete with a sexed up drainage pond and ample parking.<br />
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I've advocated that a <i>campus</i> like this <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1575">ought to house an institution of higher learning</a>, particularly UDC. To me, that would be the ideal way to dignify that site (Although I don't know what your average UDC student would think about moving into dorms that formerly housed mental patients... but one would think the good people hat DHS and the Coast Guard would have similar concerns!)<br />
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I'll admit my reaction is perhaps a bit pessimistic considering that I have not seen an illustration or elevation that contextualizes the complex amongst the St. E's buildings, but with streetcars imminent, location near two Metro stations, and traffic congestion already problematic, a huge parking garage has me worried that this is just going to be another office park like those in Columbia, Gaithersburg, or Tyson's Corner.<br />
<br />
The garage is built into a slope visible from Haines Point. Several measures were put in place to minimize the visual impact of the structure, such as putting more of it underground and a green wall system on the northern facade, however on an important site like this with available transit alternatives, I would expect better planning and land use than a green-guilt version of the same disposable crap office box we have all come to know and hate.<br />
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Students of architecture, I beg your input on this one. I am at a loss for words. If the Army built something that ugly, I would be even more embarrassed as a veteran than I am when West Point gets annihilated by the Naval Academy in football every December.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-24459833789919112872010-01-03T02:57:00.001-05:002010-01-03T21:17:39.696-05:00Imagine a streetcar on Alabama AvenueWhen DDOT unveiled its <a href="http://ddot.dc.gov/ddot/frames.asp?doc=/ddot/lib/ddot/masstransit/streetcar/maps/map_futurealignments.pdf">Streetcar vision</a> in October, I was little disappointed by the amount of service in River East. Indeed, the area's reputation has been mired in negativity for quite some time, which has lead to, for better or worse, a very different kind of land and economic development in Wards 7 and 8. This is evident in the distribution of services proposed by DDOT.<br />
<br />
River East has experienced a great deal of suburban style development. <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.860697,-76.968005&spn=0.00452,0.008347&t=h&z=17">Wickedly suburban</a>. Affordable housing is often not accessible to the six Metro stations that serve this third of the city. Isolated affordable housing can often turn out to be frighteningly similar to ill-fated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt_Igoe">housing</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini-Green">projects</a>. Requiring people of lower income to rely on automobile transport greatly increases their cost of living, further exacerbating the poverty. But shiny new developments in River East, for all their efforts at civic improvement, are still <a href="http://southeastsocialite.blogspot.com/2009/11/4th-street-vistas-are-in-full-affect.html">focused around the automobile</a>.<br />
<br />
What really disappointed me about DDOT's plan is that all the streetcar lines appear to run THROUGH River East. Along the Anacostia River, perhaps, but they fail to connect many of the neighborhoods to the system, including several that are not very accessible to Metro. This plan would lead me to infer that Congress Heights and Fairlawn are and will be for the foreseeable future dependent on the rest of the city to be a viable place to live. The lines connect River East to the rest of the city, but they don't connect River East to River East. Not as much as it could, at least.<br />
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With <a href="http://www.ryanavent.com/blog/?p=2263">DC's population rocketing past 600,000</a> and developers running out of "River West" real estate to develop, Benning, Deanwood, Anacostia, Washington Highlands, Hillcrest, Fort Dupont, and the rest of River East's many neighborhoods will becoming increasingly attractive for development. But the same type of dense, walkable, transit-oriented, traditional neighborhood design is not possible if River East goes as underserved by streetcar as it is by Metro (6 stations versus 31 in the rest of DC and not transfer stations). So I conceived a line that would make it feasible to live in Congress Heights and work in Capitol Heights without taking Metro all the way to L'Enfant Plaza first. I give you a proposal for a ninth streetcar line, the Alabama Avenue line:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.00047c3c4de0e0e7ee1d3&ll=38.872058,-76.958885&spn=0.06415,0.109863&z=13&output=embed" width="640"></iframe><br />
<small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.00047c3c4de0e0e7ee1d3&ll=38.872058,-76.958885&spn=0.06415,0.109863&z=13&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">River East Streetcars</a> in a larger map<br />
</small><br />
Blue indicates lines laid out in the DDOT plan, purple indicates possible future streetcar extension laid out in the plan, and red is the Alabama Avenue line. Obviously, significant portions of the line also run along Southern Avenue and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue. It connects prominent neighborhoods to Metro stations and other streetcar lines. It puts more of the rail transit infrastructure within walking distance for District residents who will benefit most from its service and economic development. It is intended to interact with the neighborhoods as places where a significant portion of the District now lives and could potentially work in the future.<br />
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Where the city will ultimately have a streetcar <i>network</i>, River East will only have <i>lines</i>. The Alabama Avenue line would create a network that would compliment the existing Metro stations and the already-planned streetcar lines. It may not generate enormous ridership projections right now, but it would certainly draw more walkable urban development to Alabama Avenue and the other proposed corridors. We plan roads in anticipation of future development. Why can't we make that same investment with our streetcar network?<br />
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Cross-posted on <a href="http://imaginedc.blogspot.com/2010/01/imagine-streetcar-on-alabama-avenue.html">Imagine, DC</a>Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-14517052571393338372009-12-31T03:02:00.000-05:002009-12-31T03:02:22.078-05:00New Years ResolutionWith the new decade upon us, I have decided to make on very important New Year's resolution: Eat at fewer chain restaurants. Recently I've been discovering local hole-in-the-wall joints like <a href="http://yellowpages.washingtonpost.com/dumm+s+pizza+subs.9.14074903p.home.html">Dumm's</a> in Riverdale Park. Want a decent half-smoke but you're in Silver Spring? Try <a href="http://www.quarryhousetavern.com/">Quarry House Tavern</a>. When i'm hankering for a sub at work in College Park, do I go to Subway, Potbelly's or Quiznos? How about <a href="http://www.junglegrille.com/">Jungle Grille</a> on Route 1 instead? Need a quick late-night meal in South Arlington? Try <a href="http://www.bobandediths.com/">Bob and Edith's Diner</a>.<br />
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Apart from the fact that you are likely to get much better customer service and more/better food for the dollar at locally owned establishments like these, they keep money in the community. Panera might be great, but nothing beats the sandwiches at the <a href="http://theparkwaydeli.com/">Parkway Deli</a> in Silver Spring. And better yet, the define a sense of culture unique to a very small area, like my old haunt the <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-corner-pub-silver-spring">Corner Pub</a> in Four Corners, or the <a href="http://www.stainedglasspub.net/10306/index.html">Stained Glass Pub</a> in Glenmont.<br />
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<a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2369041126_0d9ec43ed1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2129/2369041126_0d9ec43ed1.jpg" width="320" /></a>The punk rocker in me likes to think that I am keeping my hard earned cash out of the pockets of "the man", but the fact of the matter is it is an economically sound decision, and it enriches my sense of local culture. Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street is a hyperbolic example of how a food restaurant can capture the character of a neighborhood. Some places are late night joints for bargoers, like <a href="http://www.tasteediner.com/">Tastee Diner</a> in Silver Spring and Bethesda and <a href="http://www.osmanandjoes.com/">Steak and Eggs</a> in Tenleytown. And what UMD student has never spent a late Saturday night at <a href="http://www.platosdiner.com/">Plato's Diner</a>? <br />
<i>Plato's Diner in College Park. Photo from flickr by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevensnodgrass/2369041126/">Steve Snodgrass</a></i><br />
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I tend to move about the entire region so if anyone has a favorite watering hole, lunch counter, or grease pit that's not of the ilk of McDonalds, Chipotle, TGI Fridays, or Panera, by all means share with me and the rest of our readers. So for one of your resolutions this new year, I encourage you to forgo Starbucks for your morning coffee, and instead patronize a more local institution and keep the money flowing around your neck of the woods.<br />
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And of course, Happy New Year, DC!!!Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-42597281672959418082009-12-19T16:59:00.002-05:002009-12-19T18:47:42.239-05:00Snow Emergency: Don't WalkHaving experienced many of my Christmases as a youth in Buffalo, I'm generally nonplussed by big snow storms. This one has confined me to my house, however, and I've been watching the madness unfold on News Channel 8, where they are warning us not to venture outside our houses if we don't have to do so.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg84P4mhRDfAjpn1SvrdoWmSfTT7NcRRa8Nat0e8zvjSUrFsZki8k8mwSMC9WrMQcyfVMKxdQkV4IjOivWqZ1hT7LbBxvUV94H_ZB8_FogvX_YU9O4olLKN5vrBgFejoFMYZYPRfh-j4JY/s1600-h/Nov-Dec2009+092.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg84P4mhRDfAjpn1SvrdoWmSfTT7NcRRa8Nat0e8zvjSUrFsZki8k8mwSMC9WrMQcyfVMKxdQkV4IjOivWqZ1hT7LbBxvUV94H_ZB8_FogvX_YU9O4olLKN5vrBgFejoFMYZYPRfh-j4JY/s320/Nov-Dec2009+092.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><i>Route 1 in Laurel, taken from the front of the Greene Turtle. Plenty of cars were out despite warnings, making pedestrian conditions hazardous. Photo by the author.</i><br />
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Generally, that's very good advice. However, they were showing footage of pedestrians crossing streets and dismissing it as wildly dangerous behavior because, hey, cars gotta use those streets! Certainly driving conditions merit warnings, but why are we chiding the pedestrians instead of the people driving non-emergency vehicles? How are pedestrians expected to stay out of the streets when public services are focusing efforts on clearing roadways while ignoring sidewalks?<br />
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Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson declared a state of emergency because so many county residents failed to heed warnings not to drive. I saw a few of those obstinate drivers on my walk to the Safeway in my neighborhood... which of course was closed. In fact, the only things open in Laurel Lakes Shopping Center were a nail salon (?) and a liquor store. Eventually I found an open 7-11, but suffice to say there was a lack of healthy diet staples. The proprietor, Pankaj, had walked to his store this morning to make sure Laurel Lakes could at least purchase Hot Pockets and yogurt smoothies if nothing else. This really made me wish my neighborhood had live-work units. Not to mention sidewalks.<br />
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Despite my lack of healthy food, open shops, and decent pedestrian facilities, at least I wasn't <a href="http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/12/19/did-d-c-cops-overreact-to-snowball-fight-14th-and-u/">threatened with a gun during a snowball fight</a>. A public gathering in the public realm at 14th and U NW was broken up because... wait for it... a car was hit by a couple of snowballs. The man brandishing the weapon was an off-duty policeman. The message: People don't matter in a snow emergency. Cars do.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-38758054917172630672009-12-05T00:00:00.000-05:002009-12-05T00:00:12.036-05:00PG Stands for Poor GrowthNow, I like to stick up for my county. I believe that in many ways, Prince George's County has been dealt the short end of the smart growth stick. But the fact is that the county government isn't even trying, and it seems that any smart, transit oriented growth that does occur happens by accident or coincidence.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/34/68726969_96242af297.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/34/68726969_96242af297.jpg" width="133" /></a><br />
</div>What puts me over the edge was this <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/26/AR2009112602057_2.html">Washington Post</a> article in Greater Greater Washington's <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=4241">Breakfast Links</a>. A concrete plant has been approved near Sheriff and Cabin Branch Roads near Fairmount Heights.The Post article points out the multitude of other industrial plants near this site, surrounded on all sides by middle class residential zoning. GGW highlights this concentration, pointing out that the region in majority black. Pushing around non-wealthy minorities is <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=2952">not a new thing</a> Prince George's County.<br />
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<i>Cheverly Metro Station. Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/genista/">Genista</a> from Flickr</i><br />
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But what the Post doesn't point out is that the site where this concrete plant has been approved is less than a mile from Cheverly Metro station, one of the most underused stations on Metro. And it's on the same side of US-50 as the Metro station, meaning that useful growth could potentially occur in that area if Prince George's County wasn't treating it as a dumping ground for undesirable industry. It's a location inside the Beltway with easy access to the city and multiple forms of transit, including two Metrobuses that directly serve the site, five Metro stations within two miles (Cheverly, Landover, Deanwood, and Capitol Heights, and Addison Road-Seat Pleasant), and an Amtrak and MARC station at New Carrollton under three miles from the site. This is not the first, but only the latest controversy where PG County has throw its citizens under the bus and tried to <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1720">drop an industrial plant in residential areas near Metro stations</a>.<br />
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This site could be used for transit-oriented development at Cheverly station. It could be a crossroads between Cheverly and Capitol Heights. Instead it is home to an asphalt plant, a recycling transfer station, and a clay mine. And now, coming soon, a concrete plant. These uses would be far more suitably placed along US 50 outside the Beltway just a few short miles away, alas those areas have been blanketed with very low density McMansion developments. Byzantine laws promoting sprawl in PG will continue to force industrial growth in inappropriate places, including Fairmount Heights, one of the <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1545">oldest black settlements</a> in Maryland.<br />
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Prince George's County will not continue to prosper as it runs out of agricultural land while continuing to neglect its valuable inner ring suburbs. Transit investment will continue to be difficult to justify, making it more difficult to fund. And PG will continue to mean poor growth until the county's planning begins to take a look towards the future with regard to land use economy.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-35835979262396580002009-11-21T10:46:00.002-05:002009-11-21T21:53:43.459-05:00Core Capacity & Freemark's Pink LineThe Transport Politic often showcases unique and clever transit solutions visualized by the site's author, Yonah Freemark. Recently he looked into the WMATA system and made an <a href="http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/11/19/stretching-the-limits-of-washingtons-dense-core/">interesting proposal</a>: a separated Blue Line, and running along it, another investment, a so-called Pink Line. Though Freemark's plan would add invaluable capacity and connectivity to our system, I believe a similar vision could be achieved without building another costly Potomac Crossing. That's not to say we shouldn't, but perhaps a closer term solution might look more like this:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000478e328750a18fbbf7&ll=38.885688,-77.102051&spn=0.256553,0.439453&z=11&output=embed" width="640"></iframe><br />
<small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000478e328750a18fbbf7&ll=38.885688,-77.102051&spn=0.256553,0.439453&z=11&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">Pink Line</a> in a larger map</small><br />
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The existing Potomac crossing where the Yellow Line connects Downtown and Pentagon City is underutilized and ought to have it's capacity increased before another crossing is built. This alternative combines the cross-Arlington connectivity that Freemark envisions without the circuitous route back through Rosslyn. This investment could be increased even more if the <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=2750">Green and Yellow Lines could be separated downtown</a>, which might prove cheaper than the Blue Line separation. Another advantage would be that this line could just be an extension of the Silver Line, which would eliminate the need for a new line color.<br />
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New track miles are most valuable in the core. Unfortunately, they're also generally the most expensive new track miles. But the benefits to the entire region are huge across the entire system, making it a worthwhile investment. And it's about time we started considering "the rest of Arlington" more a part of the core.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-14597616625263858712009-11-03T14:07:00.000-05:002009-11-03T14:07:46.198-05:00A Car Crash Hits HomeI got word last night that the star basketball player from my high school was <a href="http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=93024&provider=top">killed in a traffic accident</a> on the B-W Parkway. I didn't know him on a personal level, only from being a freshman going to basketball games and seeing him lead the team to a win over powerhouses like DeMatha. But it hits home a little more when you know the person involved in the car accidents that take lives all too often on our region's roads.<br />
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Last week when swine flue deaths in America topped 1,000, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/24/swine-flu-barack-obama">the President declared a national emergency</a>. Meanwhile, we have grown to expect 35 times that number of deaths on our roads <a href="http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx">every year</a>. So much was made of the Metro accident this summer, as it should have been. But 9 people were killed. How many people have died this year on the Beltway alone? This is a dangerous paradigm to accept as a part of our daily life.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-72149143527807892022009-10-29T12:56:00.000-04:002009-10-29T12:56:42.374-04:00Playoffs? Playoffs?!!Posts have been increasing lately, but I somehow managed to get my football squad into the playoffs with out 2-6 record. Excuse the Jim Mora reference in the title.<br />
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We're now practicing at our home field under the lights (which makes a huge difference this time of year) because there are fewer teams practicing. Funny, it makes the program smaller and thus better served by the community it represents. The players have a much easier time getting to practice, and team moral has improved quite a bit. Just one more reason I decry the robust, "big box" approach to youth sports that the suburbs have been taking these days.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-33726107687676892632009-10-26T20:03:00.001-04:002009-10-27T23:33:56.349-04:00Imagine the Green Line North ExtensionMonday night, Prince George's County <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102501408.html">voted on its transportation master plan update</a>. I would have attended, but I wonder if the vote and public meeting was intentionally held on an evening where the Washington Redskins Monday Night game at FedEx Field in Landover would make traffic unbearable for northern (urbanism friendly) Prince George's County residents to drive to (highway friendly and transit inaccessible) Upper Marlboro. It's just conjecture, but I would not put it past the county government.<br />
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The master plan calls for the <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1597">creation, extension, or widening of several highways</a> throughout the county, allowance for greenfield development outside the Beltway, and some other Cold War-era fixes to Prince George's transportation problems. The counties ample highways have been described to me by my coworkers as "the only thing worth visiting in Prince George's County". As a resident, I disagree wholeheartedly, but it is hard to dispute that many people use the B-W Parkway, I-95, US-50, MD-4, MD-5, and Indian Head Highway as through routes to get to "nicer" exurban communities in Howard, Anne Arundel, and Charles County.<br />
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The master plan did, however, propose many <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1651">transit improvements</a>. Most notably (for a Laurel resident like me, anyway) is the Green Line extension proposed through Beltsville, Laurel, and on to Fort Meade. The county's proposal for this extension doesn't cater directly to greenfield development like older proposals for the extension that followed I-95 to MD-32 on a circuitous route through southeastern Columbia en route to BWI. The route I have envisioned below follows the CSX corridor in Prince George's County, as indicated in the master plan. If the Green Line is extended to Fort Meade, it would probably look a lot like this:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="480" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000476edbabc7f4c7f58a&ll=39.069579,-76.808853&spn=0.127944,0.219727&z=12&output=embed" width="640"></iframe><br />
<small>View <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116593657961505095512.000476edbabc7f4c7f58a&ll=39.069579,-76.808853&spn=0.127944,0.219727&z=12&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">Green Line Extension</a> in a larger map</small><br />
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Stations:<br />
<b>Beltsville </b>(Baltimore Avenue and Powder Mill Road)<br />
<b>Muirkirk/Konterra</b> (Baltimore Avenue at Muirkirk Road)<br />
<b>Laurel Lakes</b> (Cherry Lane between Baltimore Avenue and MD 197)<br />
<b>Laurel</b> (Main Street at First Street)<br />
<b>Savage/Annapolis Junction</b> (Brock Bridge Road at Dorsey Run Road)<br />
<b>National Business Park</b> (MD 32 and National Business Pkwy)<br />
<b>National Security Agency</b> (MD 32 and Canine Road)<br />
<b>Fort Meade Main Gate</b> (MD 32 and Mapes Road)<br />
<b>Odenton Town Center</b> (Odenton Road and Morgan Drive)<br />
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Fort Meade is the <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1392">largest job center in the state of Maryland, and it is currently unserved by transit</a>.This train extension would enable reverse commutes from Washington, DC and the Route 1 corridor while facilitating transit oriented development along Route 1. Servicing Fort Meade also would meet some of the transportation challenges that presented by the BRAC's relocation of 5,700 jobs to Fort Meade; Metro access to the bases facilities would eliminate the need for highway widening at the massive job center in Central Maryland. The existing transit on the corridor, the MARC Camden Line, suffers poor service because it shares tracks with the CSX freight trains, does not serve Fort Meade, and has not induced any transit oriented development. This alignment would most likely overcome those shortcomings and better integrate northeastern Prince George's County into the urban fabric of the DC Metropolitan area.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-86753913115847169772009-10-24T15:40:00.000-04:002009-10-24T15:40:20.463-04:00Google MapsThis week <a href="http://maps.google.com/">Google Maps</a> began using a new symbology on its maps.line features and place names are now outlined/shadowed, making the maps much easier to read. The new maps are more aesthetically pleasing, professional-looking, and sharper at every scale:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.895112,-77.036366&spn=0.354314,0.452499&t=h&z=11&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.895112,-77.036366&spn=0.354314,0.452499&t=h&z=11&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="350" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.893154,-77.009676&spn=0.011073,0.014141&t=h&z=16&output=embed" width="425"></iframe><br />
<small><a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.893154,-77.009676&spn=0.011073,0.014141&t=h&z=16&source=embed" style="color: blue; text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br />
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They actually remind me of the maps put out by <a href="http://www.adcmap.com/catalog/index.php">Alexandria Drafting Company</a> (ADC), the local standard in road atlases for a good long time.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-59433722929735081922009-10-23T01:59:00.000-04:002009-10-23T01:59:00.662-04:00SuburbaneToday I stopped in Calverton to fill up on gas. Much to my surprise, the Sunoco station on Cherry Hill Road offered "NBC at the pump", a TV screen with news and entertainment snippets. I had to sort of chuckle at the combination of two uniquely suburban inventions.<br />
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I often wonder what of our American toys were popularized or invented because of suburbanization. I've opined in the past that youth sports rose to prominence because of the suburbs. But the popular axiom "it takes a village to raise a child" is virtually lost in isolated, homogenized suburban culture. My mother, who grew up in a Sicilian ghetto in the West Side of Buffalo back when it was a thriving industrial city, used to bemoan the amount of television I watched growing up. As a pre-adolescent, however, I had few other choices for any type of sensory stimulation.<br />
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The Northwest Branch ran along the eastern edge of my neighborhood in a steep wooded valley. Despite the hiking path running through it, I was not allowed to play down there because I could get hurt or abducted and there would be no one around to help. Acres of wooded wonder just blocks from my house, and I couldn't utilize it. I was not allowed to walk along or cross University Boulevard for safety reasons. I was allowed to walk home from school along University Boulevard, as well as cross over the Betlway, but that of course was under the watchful eye of a twelve year old wearing an orange patrol belt. These two restrictions confined me to the Franklin Knolls and Montgomery Knolls subdivisions, which included two outdoor community pools, an elementary and a middle school, a synagogue-cum-Baptist church, and a nursing home. Oh, and I almost left out the acres of colonials, ranchers, and cape cods arranged in a hilly, illogical road network.<br />
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Newer, shinier suburbs sprouted up in outer Silver Spring and other towns by the late '80's, leaving few children my age in my neighborhood. It was mostly empty-nesters like the holdover Jews from before the synagogue left, the old Greek, Italian, Armenian, and Irish Catholics who moved in at a time when out neighborhood was still connected to a Catholic parish, before the Beltway partitioned it. We might have moved out in the early '90's when the neighborhood really started going down hill. Many of my neighbors did. These were the neighbors that had somewhat prestigious government jobs, like my old next door neighbor the Secret Service Agent. My father fell into this category, but tragically he passed away in 1992, and with three of my siblings in college, my mother decided to stay put. <br />
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By that time, I was older. I had slightly more freedom. But any semblance of "community" that existed in the Woodmoor shopping center or the Four Corners area a mile down University Boulevard had long since been replaced by generic strip mall shops. No satisfaction of place there. I also was discouraged from riding the C2 and C4 buses because of "bus people". (My mother eventually convinced me to drop this prejudice that I learned in school, and in high school I became a "bus person"). While most of my friends had a Nintendo or a Sega Genesis, my mother refused to let me and my younger brother partake in video games. Video games are also quite practical in the suburbs. If I could immerse myself in Super Mario Brothers 3 for a couple hours a night, it would fill the void where I should have had a sense of place. Lack of video games led to me talking incessantly on the telephone.<br />
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Alexander Graham Bell once said that one day there would be a telephone in every major American city. It's easy to see how he would grossly underestimate his invention before the society was partitioned, isolated, and homogenized into suburban culture. The satisfaction of human interaction could be feigned through talking on the telephone, and later through its successors, the internet and the cell phone. Yes, these inventions have been quite useful and successful across the world. With <a href="http://gsmworld.com/">over four billion subscribers worldwide</a>, cell phones are considered the fastest propagating technology in the history of mankind. But the rise popularity of phones, like television, video games, and the internet, for better or for worse, is likely the product of the suburb induced loneliness that so many Americans suffer, completely unaware of the shortcomings of their environs.<br />
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Back in Buffalo, where many of my cousins live, one can still purchase a 4 bedroom single family house for under $7000. My aunts and uncles fled the West Side to McMansions in Williamsville and Amherst. The butcher on the corner of my grandparents' street is currently vacant. And Buffalo continues to spread itself thin. If you haven't recently moved to the most far flung, newly built suburb, you live in an undesirable area.<br />
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Meanwhile, Franklin Knolls made a bit of a comeback recently. My older sister now lives there with her family. The neighborhood owes its recovery in no small part to its proximity to Downtown Silver Spring and its revival. Our region has dropped that deleterious paradigm. Georgetown, where my older brother slummed with gutter punks in 1987, is now one of the most desirable and prestigious neighborhoods in the region (to the tune of I'll-never-be-able-to-afford-it). Georgetown was built 250 years ago for beauty and comfort, which back then came from sense of place. over time, it remained a memorable place. It became dignified and urbane, so much so that when the flight from the city occurred, those charms didn't abandon it. And in the flight back into the city, Georgetown immigrants would easily settle in to the timeless, memorable environment. In Franklin Knolls, my nephews will be far less likely to need television, video games, and telecommunications to find sense of place and social satisfaction like I did when I grew up there. <br />
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As for those vast mazes of colonials and cape cods in Silver Spring, they're slowly getting sidewalks, crosswalks, mixed use development, and better integration to their surroundings. With urbanization, I believe an area becomes more dignified, more memorable, more urbane. With suburbanization... well, I guess the only word to describe it is suburbane.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-9236151193605660912009-10-19T02:28:00.000-04:002009-10-19T02:28:12.431-04:00Transit CapacityLast month I criticized the plan to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091403370.html">scale back Tysons Corner because of the need for increased freeway capacity</a>. The more I think about it, the more merit I see in the notion that a revamped Tysons Corner will be desperately transit-starved. Freeways, however, are not the panacea. <a href="http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tysonscorner/drafts/tysons_factsheet_oct09.pdf">The plan</a> to urbanize the region's most prominent edge city will bring thousands more jobs and residents to the area. Even if the area becomes more self contained, it will require much greater capacity for transportation in and out of the area's densest job center.<br />
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<a href="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/357948331_0dc881e12c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="185" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/357948331_0dc881e12c.jpg" width="320" /></a><i>Downtown Silver Spring from the Metro station. Photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindgutter/357948331/">mindgutter</a></i><br />
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Tysons will have 4 stations, but they will only be able to handle about 40% of the rides of stations at Silver Spring, Bethesda, Rosslyn, and King Street. Matt Johnson at <a href="http://tracktwentynine.blogspot.com/">Track Twenty-Nine</a> created an <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIlfCiYgjk9Ymu_xl10xHwBh-1LN-yeQo9UFGLEFVBoNFBu_2P8RFCPkjAET4AgyHHhGvXH8l3R7C16zjhkRnA-B769zo_AssQCTdmhDVelYEt9H5ItXHtI6Cx_HXVJii3wnE5Qt35Xdk/s1600-h/Metro-ServiceSchematic-SilverLine_Edit.png">excellent diagram</a> showing how track sharing by Metro lines closer in to the city prevent the same capacities on the outer spokes of the system (except on the Red Line, which does not share tracks with any other line). Even with four stations, the capacity of the line does not stack up to urbanizations in Montgomery County, Arlington, and Alexandria. Can it support an even larger development with less system capacity? Can the already-clogged North Arlington Orange Line corridor support the additional riders with its finite capacity? Optimal success of the Tysons plan would require more Metro capacity such as a <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=422">separated Blue Line on a new Potomac crossing</a>.<br />
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I'm also lead to wonder if this has not contributed to the overall inferior urbanization in Prince George's County. No station in Prince George's has more than 60% capacity because the Green, Blue, and Orange lines all share track inside the District (though the northern section of the Green Line as the potential to do so if the Yellow Line ever runs all the way to Greenbelt regularly). Certainly the County's poor planning policies have contributed to the lack of urban development around virtually all 14 Metro stations, <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.840635,-76.975547&spn=0.00554,0.011158&t=h&z=17">often</a> <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.916072,-76.916893&spn=0.005535,0.011158&t=h&z=17">egregiously</a>, but perhaps lack of capacity has contributed as well.<br />
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The stretch of Metro in Prince George's County with the most service, the northern Green(/sometimes Yellow) Line has experienced the most development. Prince George's Plaza Station has probably seen the most. Though not exactly Downtown Silver Spring yet, <a href="http://www.universitytowncenter.net/interactive_map.html">University Town Center</a> is probably the best example of urban development around a Metro station in Prince George's. Much has been planned for <a href="http://www.eekarchitects.com/portfolio/20-sustainable-design/60-west-hyattsville-metro-station-master-plan">West Hyattsville</a>, <a href="http://www.asg-architects.com/expertise/townPlanning/metro/index.htm#">College Park</a>, and <a href="http://www.greenbeltstation.com/index.php">Greenbelt</a>, though little has come to fruition. <a href="http://www.pgplanning.org/Projects/Ongoing_Plans_and_Projects/Community_Plans/New_Carrollton.htm">New Carrollton</a>, which will have added capacity once the Purple Line comes to town, also has grand plans for development. Stops on the Blue and lower Green Lines, however, are not experiencing as much planning buzz.<br />
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I have never heard of any study that implies the impact of station capacity versus development around stations, but it stands to reason that the more capacity, the more successful and robust development can be. The Orange Line corridor might be somewhat of an exception. West of Rosslyn, the Orange line can handle about 60% of the trips Silver Spring or Bethesda can handle. The strip is anchored, however, by Rosslyn, which has the same capacity as Silver Spring and Bethesda.<br />
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David Alpert suggested <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=2750">some</a> <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=2751">innovative</a> <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=2752">ways</a> to create more system capacity by separating the Green and Yellow lines and rerouting some of the Silver Line trains. This would help Prince George's County, Tysons Corner, and other locations in Virginia and still be cheaper (in theory) than a separated Blue Line. If Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Rosslyn are models we seek to emulate, station capacity ought to be equivalent of those successful areas.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1923189313755341259.post-88033337713118570772009-10-14T22:41:00.005-04:002009-10-15T00:27:44.260-04:00Bolling Air Force WasteNeil at GGW had a great article about <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3783">the proposal to narrow the Anacostia River</a> (dubbed the McMillian Two Plan) and bring a bit of Paris to eastern DC. If it works and can be done with environmental prudence, I am absolutely in love with the idea. It strengthens the urban fabric of the city, it extends the grid to an underdeveloped but historic part of the city, and it creates more monumental space in the city.<br /><br />But my favorite part? <a href="http://greatergreaterwashington.org/image.cgi?src=200910/burasplanlarge.jpg&ref=3783">The plan</a> appears to redevelop the northern part of Bolling Air Force Base. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolling_afb">Bolling AFB</a> is an abominable waste of valuable riverfront real estate. Some might argue that the Nation's Capital ought to play host to military facilities. As a former soldier, this is a no-brainer. Of course it should. But DoD property within the District ought to use the space in a manner that is congruent with the rest of the city. Across the Anacostia River, <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.865358,-77.014439&spn=0.011077,0.022316&t=h&z=16">Fort McNair</a> interacts with its urban environment productively and in keeping with the other infrastructure surrounding it. Bolling AFB looks like it could have been built on an empty greenfield an hours drive from the city:<br /><iframe marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.839039,-77.018752&spn=0.026742,0.018239&z=15&output=embed" width="425" frameborder="0" height="800" scrolling="no"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.839039,-77.018752&spn=0.026742,0.018239&z=15&source=embed" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); text-align: left;">View Larger Map</a></small><br /><br /><br />Does an Air Force base (especially one without an active air strip since 1962) need to take up this much land? Does the <a href="http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Washington,+District+of+Columbia&ll=38.836946,-77.021574&spn=0.00277,0.005579&t=h&z=18">utterly suburban housing stock</a> need to sit atop land above one of the most iconic rivers in the world? I'm sure this is no problem at <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Minot_AFB_-_ND_-_18_May_1995.jpg">Minot AFB</a> in North Dakota, but the District of Columbia has only 68 square miles. Should almost 5% of it be devoted to isolated, wasteful suburban style land use? Perhaps its time to consolidate Bolling's facilities into something that works better with the city surrounding it, and redevelop Southwest's Potomac waterfront in a manner more suited to its urban environment.Davemurphyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07331653772702609738noreply@blogger.com2