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I worked on a map almost identical to this ten years ago. A couple suggestions:

1. Makes far more sense to follow B&O to Burtonsville Road and go up that to the Beltway, then get on over to Colesville from there via the Beltway to Four Corners. No need for hard rock tunneling under hilly Colesville except for a brief section in Four Corners. The Four Corners metro stop can be under the Blair HS parking lot. This also better integrates with the Purple line which should be Metro anyway. Half of all trains coming down Rt 29 can go to Bethesda and/or Montgomery Mall via a Grosvenor interchange.

2. Go up 1st and 13th street. It's a straight shot, no major road closures, two wide streets with little traffic. and (for the sake of residents of that quiet street) traffic can be interdicted the whole way -- meaning the street closed to thru traffic for the duration and the entire tunnel shield bored instead of massive station pits under Georgia with all its utilities. Big cost savings. The drift shafts could still place all the station entrances near or under Georgia. This also better serves the north end of Columbia Heights (13th and Upshur) and the Bloomingdale / Eckington / LeDroit Park area (a station at 1st between RI and FL ave would be exactly midway between other existing Metro stations, about 3/4 mile from U St, RI Ave, NY Ave stations respectively.)

3. I also worked on the Columbia Pike (VA) metro idea posted elsewhere on-site. A comment on that -- there's already a ready-made junction south of the Pentagon intended for a Columbia Pike line. Only reason it's not being used is lack of political support from Washingtonians for expanding Metro (chiefly because they don't know what they've got or how good they've got it.)

by Brian Robinson on Jan 5, 2011 1:06 pm • link • report