On the overhead wires: Despite living in and around Shaw/Penn Quarter for many years, I noticed an 'overhead wire' for the first time on 7th street NW between NYA and Mass this weekend. Won't say where, but you could barely notice it. Anyone know what/where I'm talking about?

On the gas tax: Since neither the gas tax nor transit fares are indexed to inflation, perhaps passing an indexed tax could be more palatable if legislators also indexed transit fares at the same time. That way people can't complain about inequities or whatever. meh, just a thought.

by JTS on Nov 9, 2009 9:17 am  

I'll vote "hate 'em" on murals. They're just too expensive to maintain. Any time that they're defaced, you can't just send out the public works crew, you have to hire an artist to do the patch-up.

by tom veil on Nov 9, 2009 9:30 am  

Did you check out the CSX project proposal submitted the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments? Despite the fact that the vast majority of the infrastructure work and spending will occur in the District of Columbia, the city isn't even mentioned. There are letters of support from the governors of Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania but nothing from the District. Every letter is "cc'ed" to any number of people, from the Secretary of Transportation to the CEOs of the major railroad companies, but not one includes the mayor or anybody in the city's administration.

So is city even in on the plans or are the feds and the railroads just going to proceed over the District's head? Again, D.C. government reminds me of the scene in Soapdish when Sally Field runs into a meeting and screams, "I feel that I should a part of this!!"

by Adam L on Nov 9, 2009 9:34 am  

I get the feeling that you could show the anti crowd a million photographs of streetcars with overhead wires in other cities coexisting with lush tree canopies, historic buildings, other traffic, etc. and they will still continue to make the same unfounded arguments. As fas as they are concerned, overhead wires on H Street (or any DC street)would ruin a street that is way nicer than any street in Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Melbourne, Barcelona, Strasbourg, Brussels, Milan, Munich, Koln, Lisbon, Portland, Toronto...... those cities are lousy places and we would never want our city to look those cities. Bottom line: these are anti-transit people who are looking for any argument to make their case, never mind in those arguments make sense.

by rg on Nov 9, 2009 9:40 am  

@SG - I agree that the leaders of the CHRS won't change their minds. But you still have to try to dispell their propoganda.

by Paul on Nov 9, 2009 10:03 am  

I don't even know why the debate on wires exists. It's all a matter of aesthetics which are a highly personal, individual thing. What you think is attractive I may think looks gauche. What we do know is that "any" overhead wires, regardless of how they may be hidden, are "less" attractive than no wires at all. No one walks down a street and says to themselves "Ya know what would really make this street attractive...overhead wires!"

There are tram and street car systems around the world that function perfectly well without and use ground level power supply. Why are people even arguing about this when we know a wireless system works?

by nookie on Nov 9, 2009 10:11 am  

Re: the Virginia Ave. tunnel: will the renovations to the tunnel make it more amenable to expanded passenger rail service, maybe even MARC trains running through to VA? Perhaps even an underground commuter rail station at/near the Capitol? Dare to dream...

by jfruh on Nov 9, 2009 10:16 am  

Whoops, just looked at a map and I see I'm mixing up the Virginia Ave. tunnel and the 1st St. tunnel.

by jfruh on Nov 9, 2009 10:19 am  

Nookie,
There are only a couple places where streetcars are operated with overhead wires. And they are expensive and not well tested systems.

Your logic is off-base. Nobody walks around and thinks, geez this street could really use a fire hydrant. The point is that they provide a needed function. It's a balancing act: function and form. However, in this case the function of wireless systems simply are too remote and speculative to insist on their form in all places.

The question that must be answered is this: Are you willing to put the streetcar project on hold another ten years to get a wireless system?

I am not.

by Reid on Nov 9, 2009 10:20 am  

Do I walk around and say 'this street really could use some overhead wires'? No.

Do I walk around and say 'this street really could use a streetcar'? Yes.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 10:26 am  

@jfruh Perhaps even an underground commuter rail station at/near the Capitol? Dare to dream...

Union Station is a half-mile from the Capitol... just sayin'

by Adam L on Nov 9, 2009 10:32 am  

I don't even know why the debate on wires exists. It's all a matter of aesthetics which are a highly personal, individual thing.... No one walks down a street and says to themselves "Ya know what would really make this street attractive...overhead wires!"

nookie: do you think we're doing all this for you? Are you really unable to tell the difference between aesthetic and functionalist arguments, or are you just trying to derail the conversation by any means you can think of, like you did the last time?

There are tram and street car systems around the world that function perfectly well without and use ground level power supply.

The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data". If you can come up with more grounded systems than the one in Strasbourg, and any at all that can be or have been built in the timeframe DDOT provided, I'll be impressed.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 9, 2009 10:38 am  

Oh, please, now you are being childish. The visual aspects of a 3 foot tall fire hydrant easily shielded by ground shrubs etc are completely different from caternary wires directly overhead, running for ~40 miles on DC streets.

Couple of places? You don't make your argument any more valid when you say such ridiculous things.

Marseilles, Reims, Florence, Barcelona, Queensland Australia, Brazil, Dubai are among just some existing tram/street car systems currently using ground level power supply.

And what are you talking about with another 10 year delay? If you haven't been keeping up, DCDOT is already planning a wireless system for the street car project it is touting around the city in their open houses.

There is no need for a balancing act. Thats the whole point. There are numerous systems around the world, larger than DC's proposed systems that function reliably on ground power supply. There is no need to pit a variety of peoples aesthetic sense (in which you'll never get consensus)because we already have a proven system that doesn't need overhead supply.

I also find it the height of hypocrisy that street car frenzy folks such as yourself are more than willing to ignore or negate the long standing planning stalwart of the L'Enfant plan which clearly prohibits such things, yet are ferociously unyielding to them when it calls for "car" related transportation improvements.

by nookie on Nov 9, 2009 10:39 am  

Nookie,

No one's proposing catenary wires for DC. Catenaries are unnecessary for streetcar speed operations. Simple, unobtrusive trolley wire will do.

Also, the L'Enfant plan said nothing about wires. It also didn't say anything about height limits. Those restrictions all stem from later legislation.

Finally, that list of cities is of proposed uses of in-ground power, not actual operations.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 10:48 am  

With all these people complaining that the catenary will be ugly, nobody seems to have addressed the possibility that the catenary could be beautiful.

by Neil Flanagan on Nov 9, 2009 10:59 am  

Oh, please, now you are being childish.

Strong words from an anonymous commenter whose handle is "nookie", nookie.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 9, 2009 11:02 am  

Brazil? All of it? Hot damn.

APS (a proven, but expensive solution), or ART (an unproven and expensive solution) are both used with overhead wire outside of historical areas. The same is true in Nice, where the less-expensive battery system works great.

One consideration to make is that ART &APS power methods are proprietary and would lock the city into a vendor for the foreseeable future. The batteries, though, might just require some slight customization of an existing model.

by Neil Flanagan on Nov 9, 2009 11:07 am  

The examples of tree canopies co-existing with wires in Portland and San Francisco are not relevant in regards to Washington since neither of those cities experience ice-storms.

While infrequent, ice storms are a regular happening in the DC area. For groundpowered systems, the ice can be kept off of the power source with preventative spraying of chemicals ... in the same way that paved roads are kept from freezing up in the first place. For wire powered systems, the way you deal with the potential of an ice storm is by removing branches (and trees) that might fall on those lines when coated with ice.

Neither Portland nor San Francisco have ice to deal with. They can run wires through their trees without having to worry that an ice storm will come around and break branches with the weight of ice.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 11:07 am  

Which brings up another consideration. In cities which experience ice storms (and we're in the middle of the East Coast's ice storm belt ... being south of places that get mostly snow and north of places that get mostly rain), wired power sources are simply not as reliable as underground wire sources. The reliability of a system dependent on overhead wires that can break when coated with ice, has to be less than a ground system that (a) can be easily treated to lower the freezing temperature and (b) is surrounded by 'ground' which takes far longer to freeze to begin with. (For example, water lines buried under the ground do NOT freeze ... the earth naturally insulates.)

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 11:17 am  

Lance, APS, as much as it has been improved, is highly susceptible to water infiltration. What does DC get more of, ice storms or torrential downpours?

by Neil Flanagan on Nov 9, 2009 11:21 am  

I noticed an 'overhead wire' for the first time on 7th street NW between NYA and Mass this weekend. Won't say where, but you could barely notice it. Anyone know what/where I'm talking about?

Funny, I noticed the same thing last week on H Street of all places. There are wooden telephone poles, and wires running along the south sidewalk running along H around 4-5th
street.

We've also got overhead wires running through our alleys on Capitol Hill.

by ibc on Nov 9, 2009 11:23 am  

@IBC, the prohibition isn't in the alleys ... only in the streets. The act specifically also gives DC the right to lay wires under streets, sidewalks, etc.

I found the Act quoted in this link:

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85054468/1900-07-14/ed-1/seq-3/;words=wires+Washington+Washingtons+acts+WASHINGTON+overhead+act+acted

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 11:32 am  

Lance, both Portland and Seattle do experience ice storms with nearly the same frequency as Washington, and both of those cities have overhead wires powering the entire multimodal rail network. In the case of Seattle, wires power half of the bus system in critical areas.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 9, 2009 11:35 am  

Yes, we have wires in our alleys. We have lots of trees, too. I don't recall massive power outages from trees falling on the wires thanks to ice.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 11:44 am  

@Alex, In the L'Enfant City, Pepco lines are underground. Those are telephone, Cable TV, and other types of wires you're seeing in the alleys. And the trees in the alleys regularly get trimmed by utility crews ... Which is what we don't want to see happening in our streets. We like our trees. It would be nice to have sleek and quiet streetcars replacing the noisy buses, but not at the cost of our views.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 11:52 am  

@J.D., The ice-storms out there may equal ours in frequency, but not in severity. For example, when there's a threat of an icestorm Portland keeps its streetcars operating around the clock to prevent ice from forming on the wires. Anyone who's lived here for a while knows that our ice storms are severe enough that that wouldn't work. The west coast also doesn't have hardwood old growth trees like we have here. Our trees are far more apt to snap under the weight of severe ice than they are to bend.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:00 pm  

@nookie:
Overhead wires in Marseille and in Barcelona, and in Rio de Janeiro [Brazil]. The closest thing in Queensland is Brisbane's Cityrail, which is a heavy/commuter rail system that is electrified with overhead wires in much the same way that the NE Corridor Amtrak is electrified.

No trams are presently running in Reims, Florence. Dubai has a fully grade-separated, third-rail Metro but no trams.

There are only two rail systems running that use any power technology other
than overhead wires or ground-level third rail: Bordeaux, in France, which uses the APS system for about 30% of its route, and Nice, France, which uses batteries to cross two squares with a total wire-free distance of about half a mile.

@Lance: Bordeaux doesn't get ice storms either, so it's an open question whether APS or overhead wires would fare better with ice storms. There are no other systems anywhere to compare the reliability of ground-level power in ice storms to overhead wires, so the claim that ground level handles the rare ice storm better is entirely speculative.

by thm on Nov 9, 2009 12:05 pm  

regarding murals ... I think they're generally a really bad idea. And their doubly worse when paid for (and encouraged) by our public officials. In all but exceptional cases, they look too much like grafitti to be viewed as 'art'. To the stranger driving down the street (or walking down it) it sends the message 'this street is lawless'. It's doubly bad when public officials pay youths to do them because it sends the message to this youth that 'it's okay to paint whatever you want on buildings'.

Yeah, there are some exceptions such as the Marilyn Monroe mural up in Glover Park, but those exceptions where usually produced by known artists ... and not by unknowns expressing themselves.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:06 pm  

@thm, Washington (and a number of other cities) successfully operated ground-powered streetcar systems for many decades starting at the end of the 19th century. The technology is proven. Bordeaux has taken that technology a step further by making it so only the sections the train is on are electrified at any given moment. If we think that is 'too advanced/experimental', then let's just do it the old reliable way that we did it over a hundred years ago ...

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:12 pm  

nookie,

Get your facts straight:

The entire Barcelona tram system uses overhead wires: any number of websites have numerous photos of Barecelona trams using overhed wires.

So does the entire Marseille system -- go to the official transit authority website and the first thing you see is a photo of a tram with an overhead wire! (http://www.rtm.fr/.) Got to the Wikipedia entry for the Marseille tramway and you see at least 6 photos of trams using overhead wires. (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramway_de_Marseille)

The bulk (9 km out of 11km)of the Reims system will also use overhead wires.

Even in Bordeaux, the cradle of APS, they had terrible problems with APS and 36km of the system's 50km uses overhead wires, including all new extensions.

In Brazil, the only streetcar/tramway that I am aware of is a heritage streetcar in Rio: it uses overhead wires.

There is currently no streetcar/light rail in Queensland but Translink, the transit authority in that state, is building a light rail line: it is likely to use overhead wires.

by rg on Nov 9, 2009 12:19 pm  

Lance, I can't say that I agree that ice storms in the northwest are less severe. What they lack in volume they make up for in physical relief: if an electrified train or bus fails on a hillside in Seattle, it could slide into an interstate highway, causing catastrophic losses.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 9, 2009 12:23 pm  

then let's just do it the old reliable way that we did it over a hundred years ago

If your standard of proven operations is frequent breakdowns, clogging, dangerous switching, and short circuits...

by Neil Flanagan on Nov 9, 2009 12:31 pm  

@Neil, I doubt that was the 'standard of proven operations'. If you're going to make allegations that the system didn't work before (despite it being in operations from the 1880s through to the 1960s) please back those allegations up with something to substantiate them.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:39 pm  

Lance, the system worked, but it hardly worked well. There were frequent breakdowns, and there's no way such a continuous conduit system would meet code today.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 12:48 pm  

Also, Boston gets plenty of ice storms. Yes they get more full-fledged snow storms then us, but they still get plenty of ice storms. The Green Line seems to work just fine http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=boston,+ma&sll=38.914144,-77.050381&sspn=0.075199,0.094242&safe=on&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts&ll=42.337481,-71.144783&spn=0,359.998753&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=42.337128,-71.144511&panoid=Ckry_I5IBjEOMGJrEIZ1pg&cbp=12,51.09,,0,-3.72">with lots of trees despite that.

by Reid on Nov 9, 2009 12:51 pm  

@Alex ... hmmm ... The prohibition on wires is also 'code' ....

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:53 pm  

Big difference in something not meeting code due to safety concerns and due to aesthetic concerns, Lance. You know it, don't be obtuse.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 12:57 pm  

Reid,

Follow that line down a couple blocks ... and this is why they're not having a problem ... and why we don't want wires in the historical city. We want our trees, not a pruned version of them:

View Larger Map

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=boston,+ma&sll=38.914144,-77.050381&sspn=0.075199,0.094242&safe=on&ie=UTF8&t=h&layer=c&cbll=42.337261,-71.143893&panoid=uuLgphRBj8M6_hBdaZLYyw&cbp=12,21.74,,0,1.9&hq=&hnear=Boston,+Suffolk,+Massachusetts&ll=42.337402,-71.144009&spn=0,359.998797&z=20

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 12:59 pm  

from NY Times archives:

TROLLEY CARS IN BOSTON; MANY DANGERS FOUND IN THE OVERHEAD WIRES. MEN AND ANIMALS RUN DOWN BY CARS OR INJURED BY THE HEAVY CURRENT -- FIRES STARTED IN BUILDINGS -- PERILS FROM LIGHTNING.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B00E6DC1F3BE533A25753C3A9679C94609ED7CF

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 1:03 pm  

Ah yes, the perils of living in 1891.

Good job, Lance.

by Alex B. on Nov 9, 2009 1:04 pm  

@Alex B, Lance:

The issue isn't so much that the system wouldn't meet code, but there is no engineering code anywhere that could be used to guide the design of a re-creation of the underground conduit that DC had. DC's system was designed in 1895, before there was a National Electrical Code (1897) or National Electrical Safety Code (1913). The most recent new similar system was London's, which was designed in 1903.

by thm on Nov 9, 2009 1:14 pm  

@Alex:

Ah yes, the perils of living in 1891.

hmmm ... so, when we're talking about the dangers caused by OVERHEAD WIRES, it's 'the perils of living in 1891' and apparently the assumption is that we can do it better now. We can do it so that

Well ... why aren't you willing to make the same assumption about underground power sources? Bordeaux has proven you can ... Do we have inferior engineering here in the US ... I don't think so.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 1:21 pm  

@Lance:

There are no trees on H:

View Larger Map

also, those trees along Boston's green line, at least from a cursory glance, look bigger than any trees along the proposed streetcar routes.

by JTS on Nov 9, 2009 1:21 pm  

So if we go with an underground power rail, the road salt will corrode it, and if we go with overhead wires, the ice with destroy it.

That Ogdenville monorail is looking better every day.

by monkeyrotica on Nov 9, 2009 1:26 pm  

Wikipedia's concise reply:

Conduit current collection was one of the first ways of supplying power to electric streetcars, but it proved to be much more expensive, complicated, and trouble-prone than overhead wires. When electric street railways became ubiquitous, it was only used in those cities which did not permit overhead wires.

Cities which maintained functional, high-ridership streetcar networks throughout the 20th century all switched over to wires. Our tolerance for labor costs, construction costs, construction inconvenience, and unreliability in a system like this has reduced significantly since CCC was prevalent. It no longer sits right for safety-conscious, reliability-conscious engineers to have that kind of current in that location. Buried conduit build-outs are no longer as cheap & easy as they were when the legislation was written by the light of a natural gas chandelier and the chamberpots were emptied into the streets.

We're looking at considerable climate shifts which may dramatically increase the chances of flooding parts of the L'Enfant City in the lifetime of a streetcar system, coupled with enhanced storm sewer drainage requirements.

by Squalish on Nov 9, 2009 1:53 pm  

@Squalish: It sounds like the Wikipedia entry could have been written by one of the 'wired' folks on this blog ... actually, I bet it was ...

No, we don't need a hurried, not thought through solution. We need to do it right ... and not on the cheap. The streetcars are a nice to have. But not a requirement. We have buses and we have cars and we have metro. They're not giving us anything that we don't already have that would be worth so much as to mess up the aesthetics of this city. For the sake of getting streetcars in here that you're all wrong about how difficult it would be to do it without ruining the views ... 'cause if ruining the views is truly the only vialble solution, then I'd bet we're not going to have streetcars in here.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 2:24 pm  

Ruin the views of Shoe City Shoes & Sports on H street?

by Steve on Nov 9, 2009 5:22 pm  

@Steve: 10 years ago the views along Connecticut Avenue in Dupont were similarly 'not so fantastic' ... filled with places similar to Shoe City Shoes & Sports. 15 years ago they were worse, filled with places that ran the gammut from pizza joints, burrito shops and bars to strip shops (and I don't mean automotive places.) If the opportunity for Streetcars had come about 10 - 15 years earlier, would it have been okay to place wires on Connecticut Avenue to further depress the area? No, of course not. And again, it's not like we need the Streetcars. Besides, the feds will never allow it. Wasting time on the possibility of wires can only set back the implementation of streetcars in DC. People advocating wires for our streetcars aren't helping us get streetcars. They're making it harder for us to get them.

by Lance on Nov 9, 2009 5:48 pm  

@Lance: further depress the area

Indeed, because every place where they've installed streetcars with wires has turned into a colossal shithole.

Give me a break.

by Michael Perkins on Nov 9, 2009 6:22 pm  

just in case my unclosed italics decides to spread.

by Michael Perkins on Nov 9, 2009 6:27 pm  

the overhead wires are not that bad -- they're almost completely invisible -- it reminds of the moonwalking bear video -- unless you're looking for them, you don't see them.

that said, i'm very sympathetic to any argument that talks seriously about viewsheds. i was actually surprised at the tall-buildings folks around these parts who were so anxious to get rid of the sun. weird. it struck me as very careless, even reckless. it was just a big IF I JUST YELL LOUDER ABOUT HOW AWESOME TALL BUILDINGS ARE, AND HOW STUPID AND EVIL MY OPPONENTS ARE, THEN I WILL BE PROVEN RIGHT, BY DEFINITION.

i'm also very unsympathetic to any argument that accuses the other side of being a car lover -- the lowest form of human being. people care a lot about trees, as they should. tress have myriad direct and indirect benefits for any environment, but particularly an urban environment. go to the physically- and psychologically-harshest landscapes on the planet and you'll notice one consistency among them -- no trees.

so, i have a radical idea -- why not let the folks from the Capitol Hill Restoration Society (CHRS), and any other group that loves or hates the streetcars and/or overhead wires, have a little sit-down and talk it out? figure out a strong pro-transit, pro-tree position you can take, and roll with it to the city council. done and done.

of course, that would probably require that DC actually have a walk/bike/transit org that represented the people of the city on issues like this. oh well, too bad. guess DC will be stuck with car-centricity for the foreseeable future.

p.s. that newspaper article didn't seem to mention CHRS in any capacity -- i just noticed the guy's name on one of the articles was a member of the board of CHRS. the article was not signed, nor endorsed in the paper, by CHRS -- is that their official position -- no overhead wires, even if it means no streetcars?

by Peter Smith on Nov 9, 2009 11:11 pm  

@Lance

"To the stranger driving down the street (or walking down it) it sends the message 'this street is lawless'."

By that logic, Philadelphia must truly appear to be the most lawless city on the planet, with its 2,800+ murals. Strange then that I've never heard it described that way.

by Chris Loos on Nov 10, 2009 10:14 am  

I love murals, Chris, but if you've never heard Philadelphia described as lawless, I have to wonder if you've been living on this continent for very long.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 10, 2009 10:47 am  

Incidentally, Lance: I think your timeline raises more questions than it answers. Do you really feel that pizzerias and burrito bars are less productive uses than a profoundly crappy shoe store? Do you feel that the continuing unaffordability of both retail and housing choices in an historic neighborhood is unequivocally a positive good? And, more importantly, what do either of these things actually have to do with trolley wire at all?

Peter: What's wrong with some tall buildings in some areas? Obviously they shouldn't go everywhere or detract from important viewsheds, but I think that strategically deployed they could release a certain degree of pressure on real estate markets while serving as nodal gateway structures to the L'Enfant city.

by J.D. Hammond on Nov 10, 2009 11:13 am  

Yet again, this debate on wires comes down to two sides talking past each other. While one side argues that form is the most important factor, the other side says that streetcars' function is more important.

"Streetcar-now-or-bust" people claim that any streetcar as soon as possible would fill the void in function, both as a transit option and as an local economic boost. However, as I have said in the past, there is no vacuum of bus transit along the proposed streetcar corridors.

On the other hand, some of us contend that a wireless streetcar, with enhanced form, increases the benefits that they bring. For the same reasons that people think streetcars enhance an area, a unique and innovative wireless streetcar system takes those benefits to the next level.

The very success of streetcars is form-dependent - not function-dependent. Functionally, they actually offer less than buses. It's the design, aesthetic, and form of a streetcar system that makes them successful. Wires are part of that streetcar form and would no doubt have an impact on ridership. In my opinion, a wireless system would only further enhance the value they bring to an area, and would not involve DC planners changing existing laws to get it done.

Come on, isn't it THAT much cooler to ride on the San Fran cable car than it is to ride on any wired streetcar?

by SDJ on Nov 10, 2009 12:04 pm  

Re: murals.

Murals are great and can add some much needed life to drab concrete walls. Well, as long as they don't use bubble letters. I hate that script - it's absolutely atrocious.

(Ooh! And my prove-you're-human words while posting this comment are "with smirnoff"...props to whoever made that happen.)

by SDJ on Nov 10, 2009 12:20 pm  

the problem with the so-called "murals" so common in the ghetto parts of DC is that they are not designed nor executed by professional artists. Also- they use political portraits of the same people over and over again- it gets really sickening to see frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King repeated over and over by the same lousy hobby artists. There needs to be a concerted effort to produce professional murals in the places where they are needed and a new kind of subject matter needs to be introduced. If it is done right and professionally- a mural can add value to it's surroundings. The problem is that too many people are not aware that real artists can actually be PAID to paint or mosaic real art murals- and they are so used to seeing garbage - not even good cartoon art- that is just plain ugly and offensive- so they have a knee jerk reaction and say "let's do away with all murals and public art"

WRONG WORONG WRONG

as for the streetcars, the CHRS is an incredibly moribund and ossified group of mostly elderly and reactionary car -centric idiots who want a suburban paradise in the city.These are the same a$$holes that are pushing for a mega parking lot for Hines- mere feet from a Metro station.
Go to a CHRS meeting and you will see almost exclusively old people who do not want any change at all- good or bad- unless it benefits them directly. It is a kind of club for people who do not like the young people moving in and do not really like cities .

They are also not an elected body and yet have way too much sway and intimidation power over far too wide an area.
A new group needs to be established to counter this group of dangerous fools. They are anti- small business and anti street, and one wonders why they call themselves a "restoration society" when most of their emphasis seems to focus on cars and parking preservation issues.

by w on Nov 10, 2009 3:27 pm  

Your November 9 Breakfast Links paragraph "Streetcar wires AND trees?" is in error. I am the author of the piece entitled "Streetcars and Viewsheds" that appears in the November issue of the Hill Rag. I am a member of several community organizations but did not purport to speak for any of them. CHRS was never mentioned in the article.
 
Personally I support street cars, with adequate planning
I support better access to both sides of the Anacostia.
I also support the preservation of our 120 year old heritage of our view sheds. Washington is a planned city with vital vistas and views that make it unique in the world, and those views are located throughout Washington. Why does the city think neighborhoods are any less important than federal areas when it comes to preserving wire-free views?
  
The thrust of my article is that transit improvements, in the form of streetcars, can be realized without sacrificing our planning values because there are alternatives to overhead wiring. My stated conclusion in the article is that a win-win can be achieved by investigating these alternatives

by Monte Edwards on Nov 11, 2009 3:25 pm  

The original entry was inaccurate, making a disappointingly sloppy assumption. The Capitol Hill Restoration Society has taken no position with regard to streetcars. Nothing in the article by Monte Edwards states that he is speaking for CHRS, nor does he refer to any position taken by CHRS.

Where did this statement by the moderator come from?

by David H on Nov 13, 2009 11:54 am  

David H and Monte Edwards: I've corrected the post. I apologize for inaccurately characterizing this as CHRS's position, which came from the original linked article (where I see you have also commented to correct the record).

by David Alpert on Nov 13, 2009 12:00 pm