To be clear, the reasons behind the mass demolitions in SW had more to do with urban renewal than just with clearing a path for a freeway.

by Alex B. on Feb 14, 2012 2:58 pm • link • report

The rationale behind the large-scale demolition of Southwest's rowhouse neighborhoods goes far beyond the construction of the freeway.

Although buildings were undoubtedly removed to make way for the freeway, we were already clearing most of the quadrant for [now understood to be misguided] reasons that had little to do with transportation.

We also tore many buildings down to build Metro. It's hard to put a value judgement on these things. The portion of the SE/SW freeway that cuts across town occupies a fairly small amount of land considering the amount of traffic that it carries, and does a respectably good job of carrying this traffic compared to other urban freeways.

On one hand, it's good that we put a stop to freeway development, and didn't pave over the entire city, but on another, it's arguable that there are at least portions of DC's freeway network that serve the city and region well, even in spite of its half-built state.

Part of me wishes that we would tear down the SE/SW freeway, and dump all of the traffic from the bridges onto 14th or M St, forcing more folks to use Metro and the streetcar.

Another part of me likes having a high-speed artery running through the middle of town that I can use when the commuters aren't clogging it up, and wants to put our freeway network into a more "complete" state by burying road tunnels under K St and NY Ave, and building a more sensible 295-695 interchange along the railroad instead of the inexplicably-located 11th St freeway bridge.

by andrew on Feb 14, 2012 3:13 pm • link • report

Also, to be fair, 295/695 is a lot more about bringing people into (and out of) the city than simply a shortcut through DC for people traveling to/from Maryland. The growth rate in the core of the city would have been much less without the ability for people to drive in easily (especially since Metro is at capacity much of the time).

by Lester on Feb 14, 2012 3:16 pm • link • report

Alex B. and David, so-called "urban renewal" of the 1960's (or, as the late Julius Hobson, Sr. called it, "Negro removal") laid waste to many more blocks of Southwest Washington than the S.W. Freeway did.

by C P Zilliacus on Feb 14, 2012 3:17 pm • link • report

I guess I don't know the timeline of this. Were they building the freeway and thought "this would be a great time to level the rest of SW" or was it "we're leveling SW, this would be a good time to build the freeway" or did they just come about independently of one another?

by Steven Yates on Feb 14, 2012 3:26 pm • link • report

The growth rate in the core of the city would have been much less without the ability for people to drive in easily (especially since Metro is at capacity much of the time).

I'm not quite sure I follow this. Do you mean the population in the core would have fallen less rapidly? Otherwise, one would imagine that a lack of easy access via freeway would have kept more people in the city.

by oboe on Feb 14, 2012 3:32 pm • link • report

It's also instructive that "urban renewal" was *that* era's urban design fad, and enjoyed nearly universal approval among the smart set. We now look back in horror, but it should remind us that the current fashions in urban design (like "smart growth" a/k/a up-zoning) should be tempered with more than a little humility and caution.

by Phil on Feb 14, 2012 3:33 pm • link • report

@Lester, what growth? The city lost population in every decade from 1950 to 2000. There was some growth from 2000 to 2010, but the city's population is still only 75% of what is once was.

Are you talking about job growth?

by Paul on Feb 14, 2012 3:34 pm • link • report

@Steven Yates "this would be a great time to level the rest of SW" or was it "we're leveling SW, this would be a good time to build the freeway"

It's probably a little of both. By that I mean the country (and the metro area) was growing and it needed arteries. (I've lived in a country without motorways or major arteries, and believe me it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone.) So, given they were going to build these arteries, while they would have liked to have built them more extensively, in areas where the NIMBYs could be effective, it didn't happen. For example, we didn't lose Dupont and U Street and the 3 Sisters Bridge and the downtown loop never got built. And I use the NIMBY term in a sarcastic way since everything a NIMBY is per GGW applies to what happened here... proving, hopefully once and for all, that NIMBY is a good thing ... and not a bad thing as GGW has made it out to be. A NIMBY is what provided balance to an argument ... what ensures that the rights of individuals are ridden over roughshod because 'the majority' has something to gain by overpowering them and their rights.

by Lance on Feb 14, 2012 3:37 pm • link • report

@Phil-the difference is that in the history of city building (6000 years or so) the fad of the mid-twentieth century was an anomaly to the rest of the history of city development. "smart growth" a/k/a up-zoning is a return to embracing historic forms that worked for ~5550 years to develop great cities.

by Tina on Feb 14, 2012 3:38 pm • link • report

*what ensures that the rights of individuals are NOT ridden over roughshod because 'the majority' has something to gain by overpowering them and their rights.

by Lance on Feb 14, 2012 3:44 pm • link • report

Weird. The building in the lower left corner of that first photo is actually still there:

View Larger Map

Looking at the map, it looks like you could reconnect Delaware Ave with very minimal disruption.

by andrew on Feb 14, 2012 3:45 pm • link • report

@Tina. All too often "smart growth" just seeks to replace one set of preferences (low-density/auto-centric) with another one (high-density/transit oriented). Both are top-down impositions from on high, and both are not very respectful of the traditional kinds of organic, market-oriented development. Both depend on the heavy handed intervention of the state.

by Phil on Feb 14, 2012 3:46 pm • link • report

For example, we didn't lose Dupont and U Street and the 3 Sisters Bridge and the downtown loop never got built.

How do you explain the Barney Circle Freeway?

by andrew on Feb 14, 2012 3:48 pm • link • report

All too often "smart growth" just seeks to replace one set of preferences (low-density/auto-centric) with another one (high-density/transit oriented). Both are top-down impositions from on high, and both are not very respectful of the traditional kinds of organic, market-oriented development. Both depend on the heavy handed intervention of the state.

Phil, you mentioned upzoning earlier. Of course, up-zoning imposes nothing. It allows for greater development, if the market warrants it. It is more market-oriented than what it preceded. It forces nothing on anyone.

I'm not sure how you conclude that an action that conveys more property rights to the landowner is somehow a "heavy handed intervention of the state."

by Alex B. on Feb 14, 2012 3:49 pm • link • report

@phil-how do explain the greater value in $$ of properties in traditional walkable neighborhood compared to car-dependent mid-century style neighborhoods if not that "the market" is showing a prefernce? up-zoning, "smart growth and TOD aim to mimick the best of the traditional TOD and up-zoned neighborhoods from all the years before 1950.

by Tina on Feb 14, 2012 3:54 pm • link • report

No Phil, I agree with Tina - what you are trying to define as a "fad", what we call smart growth, is really just a return to pre-WWII urban planning standards. The only misguided, failed experiment in planning was clearly the Corbusiean, towers-intersected-by-highways along with suburban sprawl in the 1950s-1980s. Decades from now it will be looked at as a blip on the radar, so to speak.
As for Lance, his indignant comment is just plain nonsensical, and serves to highlight the fact that contemporary NIMBYs are riding on the coattails of their more legitimate predecessors. Fighting against modest upzoning and accomodation for pedestrians and cyclists is completely different from battling against a freeway to save a neighborhood. One could even argue that today's NIMBYs are more aligned with the Robert Moseses of the past!

by MrTinDC on Feb 14, 2012 3:57 pm • link • report

How about some similar photos of the Rossyln-Ballston corridor along with moaning about how the construction of the Metro led to the wholesale destruction of the existing neighborhoods there? Or how about 14th Street NW since the Green Line opened? You can argue the costs and benefits of a freeway all you want, but land uses in the city are going to change no matter what kind of transportation project you build.

by Maryland Ave on Feb 14, 2012 4:00 pm • link • report

By less growth (without the freeway), I'm referring to office and events that happen downtown and in the core. Realizing that not everyone wants to live in DC (for the record, I happen to live in DC), and that not everyone can use public transit (even if everyone wanted to, there are capacity limits as built), the freeway allows people who want to live in VA or MD the ability to drive to a job in the district, or shopping, or a ball game, or a night out, etc. Likewise, it allows people like me who want to live downtown to drive into VA for work (maybe I'll work downtown some time, but that's not in the near term for personal reasons). Without this flexibility, I would argue, the revitalization of DC would not have happened. Remember the constructions of roads ("urban rehabilitation") was the result of people flocking from the city, not the cause of it.

Like it or not, some people need to drive (some) places, and 295/695 serves a vital purpose. Although I certainly would rather it be underground.

by Lester on Feb 14, 2012 4:02 pm • link • report

Don't underestimate the impact of Life Magazine photos of the 1950's and 60's showing deeply poor slums in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. It offended our national self-image. It was an era where everyone believed in social engineering. Clean, healthy surroundings would result in industrious, happy people.

Nor was the goal of increasing home ownership a bad one. The suburbs get a bad rap now, but tens of millions leapt at the chance to own what had before been only a dream. And let's be honest, auto-mobility made much of it possible.

They may have been somewhat misguided, but they thought they were doing the right thing. Hindsight is 20/20. We'll see what judgments our children have of our efforts.

by Crickey7 on Feb 14, 2012 4:02 pm • link • report

Also, to be against something doesn't necessarily make you a NIMBY. It's when you agree to something in principle but are unwilling it to have it perceivedly impact you in a negative way. If I believe that no more schools should be built thats one thing, if I think that schools are good but don't want one built near me because I believe it would negatively impact me that's a NIMBY. That doesn't include the connotations that my beliefs about negative impact are spurious but it helps clarify what it is when people talk about nimby-ism.

Also while it is important to remember that in the 50's and 60's that was the urban design fad and that should humble us today, smart growth and new urbanism generally seeks to relax a lot of zoning codes or at least focus zoning on form rather than use which is the opposite of the paradigm that was prevalent in the middle part of the 20th century.

by Canaan on Feb 14, 2012 4:06 pm • link • report

MrTinDC, if you really believed in "pre-WWII urban planning standards," (which is to say the *absence* of government-imposed standards and the supremacy of private property rights) you'd remove all planning controls, junk all zoning codes, repeal all the historic preservation statutes and--least but not least--disband all the urban planning schools that churn out thousands of new planning bureaucrats every year. Plenty of people of good will, intelligence and discernment in the 1950s thought leveling SW was the right and proper thing to do. Like I said a few posts back, a little humility is in order. True believers always think they're on the side of everything that's good, true and beautiful.

by Phil on Feb 14, 2012 4:07 pm • link • report

Lets be fair -

A. the urban renewal movement addressed a real market failure - the negative externalities of blighted housing, which made it very difficult for the free market to transform such areas, and use of eminent domain necessary. The ability of urban pioneers to bootstrap renovation was a much iffier looking proposition esp in the 1950s and 1960s when urban renewal was at its height

B. Not all of the housing torn down was wonderful livable townhouses - in some cities (esp NY) it was fairly awful tenements.

C. People often confuse urban renewal with public housing, as both tended to favor tower in the park styles, but they were often quite seperate.

D. Not all tower in the park developments are that bad. Would you really tear down Peter Cooper Village in NY?

E. Yes, some humility is called for. Listening to other positions, and allowing for diversity of development. While there are some writers, and many folks on blogs who are extremists, I would say most of the new urbanist movemnt is humble in just that way - and in the face of really, really, over the top, illogical criticism.

F. In fact the principles behind neo urbanism are getting old for a fad. The call for transit as a balance to the auto goes back at least to the early 1970s. The recognition of the need to coordinate density and transit goes back the Regional Plan Association in NY in the 1970s, and was certainly becoming widespread by the 1980s. The openness to historic approaches to architecture (a phenomenon widely loved in suburbia, BTW) was part of post modernism from the 1980s - neo urbanism simply added an openness to historic approaches to city design. New communities based on these principles took off in the 1980s - Kentlands was started in 1988 - Seaside is older.

Perhaps some other people also need some humility.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 14, 2012 4:25 pm • link • report

So we either have to wholly adopt standards from before otherwise it won't be authentic thus repudiating anything any one who has ever wanted to adopt smarth growth policies has asked for because they may still have wanted to regulate something. Gotcha.

by X on Feb 14, 2012 4:26 pm • link • report

@Phil -this is why I said "smart growth" up-zoning and TOD" seek to mimmick the best" of traditional city formation. Of course we can learn from past mistakes with humbleness. You are arguing that the return to embracing the best of traditional city planning is a fad in the same way as the 50's Moses'-esque planning was a fad. I, and others, are saying that "smart growth" up-zoning and TOD is a return to traditional values that worked for ~5000 years before Robt Moses, and the type of planning typidfied by R.M. is an anomaly in the history of cities.

by Tina on Feb 14, 2012 4:27 pm • link • report

No, it's impossible to have a synthesis that involves the admirable social goals (even if sometimes it was only a code for moving out minorities) of the urban renewal period and the design practices that make places attractive for people to live, work and socialize combined with a mobility that focuses on moving people rather than cars.

by Canaan on Feb 14, 2012 4:31 pm • link • report

Sorry, Phil, I'm not buying it. ;) Pre-WWII planning was not completely unchecked willy-nilly development. One example OTOH is the NYC 1916 zoming law which resulted in lovely setbacks and towers on top of skyscrapers, NOT in Stalinist human hamster cages surrounded by surface parking. 19th and early 20th century urban planning wasn't defined so much as what was codified and proscribed, but by a tradition of competence and good practices that simply worked, such as the City Beautiful movement.

I'd hardly describe power brokers like Robert Moses as having "good will, intelligence, and discernment." When they rammed 8-lane swaths of concrete through rundown but servicable, tight-knit neighborhoods housing working class and minority residents so that Don Draper could drive his gas-guzzling land yacht from his racist-covenants protected suburb to his downtown office, they must have had at least an inkling that they were doing something terrible. All the displaced people, lost neighborhoods, on top of the loss of irreplaceable historic buildings in city after city. Places like SW DC survived WWII unscathed, only to be obliterated as surely as Berlin or Dresden. Gets my blood boiling.

by MrTinDC on Feb 14, 2012 4:34 pm • link • report

If the Nimby argument didn't correlate so cleanly with where blacks and whites lived, I'd be more inclined to think that in this case ""A NIMBY is what provided balance to an argument". Look at where many urban renewal projects where located and it's apparent that creating a "firewall" to an encroaching black neighborhood and its effect on downtown land values becomes apparent. Of course cars where going to be accomodated on some level, but I'm old enough to remember many a white folk that said our cities death and many others was inevitable. The pre-WWII parkways where markedly different than the beohemoths that sought to destroy, rather than beautify ones access and departure from city cores.

Of course, I have to lay some blame on the footstep of the modernist principles of urban renewal with highways and towers intersperced as advanced by my main man LeCorbusier, but the powers that be where thinking about money, as usual. Race was a tool much like the idea that 19th century historic cities where obsolete to preserve owners investments from falling. White America was sold a bill of goods that the future was going to be suburban, and everyone had a role in the greatest swindle of all, at least if you buy that civitas is central to civilization. I think it's impossible to pin it all on one reason, but necessary to talk about them all and debate their importance. Those photos look like Post WWI Germany, except they sent us Gropious and Mies. http://www.aadip9.net/kim/2010/10/

by Thayer-D on Feb 14, 2012 4:40 pm • link • report

I would say most of the new urbanist movemnt is humble in just that way - and in the face of really, really, over the top, illogical criticism.

That seems convenient. One group is humble while the other engages in illogical, really over the top, criticism.

The term NIMBY is not endearing and is most often used in describing points of disagreement.

by HogWash on Feb 14, 2012 4:41 pm • link • report

"pre-WWII urban planning standards," (which is to say the *absence* of government-imposed standards and the supremacy of private property rights) you'd remove all planning controls, junk all zoning codes, repeal all the historic preservation statutes

This is not really true. Urban planning is a Progressive idea with a French background By the 1930s, most large cities had elements of urban planning, such as road and lot plans, building codes, zoning, eminent domain use, public parks, height controls, etc.

by Neil Flanagan on Feb 14, 2012 4:46 pm • link • report

Can't say I totally buy into the ideal of scrappy, tight knit urban neighborhoods being raped for the benefit of racist suburbanites. Take the Italian-Irish-Jewish Queen Village neighborhood in Philly, barely saved from demolition for various freeways. The WWII era inhabitants moved out to the suburbs anyway, and wealthier, often former suburbanite individuals bought their homes for gentrification.

As a purely architectural history and urbanism matter, it's a victory. As a matter of social equity? It's a wash.

by Crickey7 on Feb 14, 2012 4:48 pm • link • report

but by a tradition of competence and good practices that simply worked, such as the City Beautiful movement.

The City Beautiful movement worked? Like the vibrant spaces of the National Mall or the Cleveland Government Center?

I think it's better if we let movements with a predilection for monumentalizing everything go (this includes high modernism), and focus on economic and social development - which is what professional planners are already doing.

by Neil Flanagan on Feb 14, 2012 4:52 pm • link • report

Freeway opponents were definitely the height of NIMBY as they let the projects happen elsewhere because they were needed. The same series of events happened in nearly every American city - freeways were designed for the city, but somehow, what ended up being built went straight through the poorer (and usually blacker) sections of the city.

I'm glad we avoided the freeway plans in DC, but let's be real: freeway opponents across the country were interested in one thing: no freeway near me.

by MLD on Feb 14, 2012 4:57 pm • link • report

Unless you can figure out a way to deliver all the things that people who live and work in DC need to survive, things like gas for the gas stations, and food for the stores and restaurants, and building materials for the new construction, by Metro or "streetcar," you better have some freeway capacity into the city. You think a freeway destroys a neighborhood? Try thousands of commercial vehicles on narrow neighborhood streets.

Oh yeah, and lets not forget the construction workers who build this city. They almost all are immigrants and almost all live outside of the city, in many cases far, very far outside. By the time Metro is up and running they are already on their second cup of coffee on the job. What about the thousands of people who keep DC running at night, again, when Metro does not run? Nurses and techs at the hospitals, janitors, building cleaners? etc. Again, they don't live in condos in DuPont or townhouses on Capitol Hill. They scrape buy in an apartment complex near Leesburg. How are they going to get to work without a freeway system?

And of course this doesn't even factor in the many DC residents who commute into VA for work. Downtown is not the only job center in this area. What about Tysons and the Dulles Corridor. Good, high paying, white collar jobs accessible only by car. Should people who work out there not be allowed to live in DC?

One more thing, I always like when bloggers and "urban planners" who have rarely, if ever, ventured into SW DC (and no, the Nationals Stadium is not in SW) talk about what a "failure" the neighborhood is and how much change in needed. Meanwhile, those of us who choose to live in SW see very few vacancies, houses on the market for days not weeks, and a quiet residential neighborhood that is both accessible to the rest of the city (and Northern Virginia) and separated from it.

by SWDCman on Feb 14, 2012 5:01 pm • link • report

One more thing, I always like when bloggers and "urban planners" who have rarely, if ever, ventured into SW DC (and no, the Nationals Stadium is not in SW) talk about what a "failure" the neighborhood is and how much change in needed. Meanwhile, those of us who choose to live in SW see very few vacancies, houses on the market for days not weeks, and a quiet residential neighborhood that is both accessible to the rest of the city (and Northern Virginia) and separated from it.

I can say a lot of not-great things about SW, but I certainly wouldn't deem it as a failure, even if the ideology and methodology behind its genesis were regrettable in hindsight. It's certainly been neglected, but many of its shortcomings actually have easy and practical solutions. It's definitely a very pleasant neighborhood to be in.

by andrew on Feb 14, 2012 5:20 pm • link • report

Boy you sure see the violence done to the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor by development comparing these historical pictures:

http://www.historicaerials.com/api/img-server.php?op=fetchHistoricPhotograph&bbox=-77.0980857115074,38.9092717547509,-77.0665239730471,38.8777100162905&year=1964&stamp=true

http://www.historicaerials.com/api/img-server.php?op=fetchHistoricPhotograph&bbox=-77.0980857115074,38.9092717547509,-77.0665239730471,38.8777100162905&year=2002&stamp=true

by egk on Feb 14, 2012 5:29 pm • link • report

@hogwash

sometimes one side to a debate really is more reasonable then the other. Things arent alway equivalent.

I think "NIMBY" is overused, but thats one word. In response we get some really, really over the top stuff - how neo urbanism is some vast conspiracy to tell people where to live, its socialism, etc - even when its only askin for LESS govt control over development. As we see in this very thread. To find similar extremism on the pro-urbanism side, you need either to look at marginal, amateurish voices, or you need to focus on one fairly vocal individual - Kunstler. On the anti side, youve get prominent lobbies, media personalities, and even presidential candidates, IIUC.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 14, 2012 5:48 pm • link • report

SWDC

you seem to be equating the absence of inner city expressways to the absence of all expressways, and the absence of expressways to the absence of automobiles.

While I am NOT sure that the SE-SW freeway was a poor idea, or that inner city expressways never make sense, I think that its easy to envision a metro area where expressways are present, but do not run downtown, and where automobiles are nonetheless present downtown, via local streets, roads, boulevards, etc.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 14, 2012 5:51 pm • link • report

I'm worried that Douglas Willinger hasn't shown up yet. Hopefully he's feeling okay.

by oboe on Feb 14, 2012 5:58 pm • link • report

Willinger is working on a post decrying the destruction of urban vistas and virgin meadows to allow those nasty people from DC to fly and work at Washington National and the Pentagon. Not to mention the illegal dispossesion of Mr. Lee.

by charlie on Feb 14, 2012 6:49 pm • link • report

I'm thankful they did this. The less time I have to spend in SE the better.

by TGEoA on Feb 14, 2012 7:33 pm • link • report

I think Phil is an Agenda 21 conspiracy kinda guy.

by NikolasM on Feb 14, 2012 8:48 pm • link • report

@ Crickey7-

Parts of Capitol Hill and Georgetown where just as "scrappy" as SW, but somehow those citizens found the pull to thwart the urban planners and their grotesque plans. With that logic, why did the mansions of Chicago's south side get leveled for highways while the North side mansions get spared?

"Take the Italian-Irish-Jewish Queen Village neighborhood in Philly, barely saved from demolition for various freeways. The WWII era inhabitants moved out to the suburbs anyway"

It wasn't all about race, as I eluded to earlier, but the above statement exibits some of the faulty logic that contributed the urban renewal. If the WWII inhabitants moved to the suburbs, why didn't the new black migrants follow? It's becasue they didn't qualify for consideration. We've moved a long way from those days, but there's no shame in understading the full spectrum of our history. Block busting, red-lining, and various forms of market maipulations virtually quaranteed the "squalor" that led mainstream America (if you prefer) to want to level these neighborhoods. And while there's always been slum clearace, and in many cases it was perfectly warranted, it's clear that the scale and scope changed after WWII.

by Thayer-D on Feb 14, 2012 8:50 pm • link • report

The neglect of SW's bigger urban renewal history is a spectacular omission. The classic photos of the Capitol from squalor were taken in SW. The housing stock was in worse shape than any neighborhood in the city at that time. People were relocated elsewhere in the city. The Barney social agency in Adams Morgan (I think it may have moved to LeDroit or Bloomingdale)had followed relocated folks there.

The freeway would not have been the sole rationale. Instead the renewal area was conceived as more of a piece, but it took many years to develop and the area was still a construction zone in the early 70s.

Metro construction affected many areas. It contributed to the decline of F Street as a retail district (on top of the effect of the '68 riots).

by Rich on Feb 14, 2012 8:52 pm • link • report

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddotphotos/4950948823/in/photostream/

In the lower middle of this corner is a one-story triangular building. Probably a store of some kind, I don't know. (at the intersection of Potomac Avenue and 8th Street and M Street.)

The lot is currently occupied by the three story 810 Potomac Avenue:

http://www.capitolriverfront.org/_files/images/quiznospoint10.jpg

which looks like it came from well before 1968, at least as far as I can tell. Can someone give me some backstory here? Is it a new building? Or is this some kind of glitch in the architecture matrix?

by donoteat on Feb 14, 2012 10:25 pm • link • report

@Thayer ... "And while there's always been slum clearace, and in many cases it was perfectly warranted, it's clear that the scale and scope changed after WWII.

And it's changed once again. Instead of 'clearing the land', now we just clear the people and sit around looking at these buildings and saying 'how can we turn that cute 1 family modest rowhouse into a 3 family hipster condo building?" ... same thing ... BUT the building gets saved... kinda. Reminds me of a '70s movie where a neutron bomb was being used to kill 'the enemy' while leaving the buildings so that the winners could get their spoils.

by Lance on Feb 14, 2012 10:28 pm • link • report

@tgeoa

I'm sure SE feels the same about you.

by Falls Church on Feb 14, 2012 10:38 pm • link • report

@Lance - yeah, changing zoning to allow multi-family dwellings is a lot like dropping a neutron bomb...

by Tina on Feb 15, 2012 12:25 am • link • report

@donoteat

Whoa. Good eye. It looks like a really well-executed pop-up. If you zoom in, and look closely, you'll see that it looks like the same building, minus the turrets and top two floors. Almost everything else looks the same.

As far as I can tell, the upper floors were added sometime between 1980 and 2000 which is kind of surprising, given that the area wasn't exactly attracting new investments at those times. Maybe the top two floors were lopped off previously, and the building was rebuilt as a historic restoration? I honestly have no clue.

by andrew on Feb 15, 2012 1:03 am • link • report

FWIW, the Capitol Hill Historical Society was founded as an anti-freeway advocacy group initially. (http://gradworks.umi.com/32/74/3274392.html)

FWIW/2, planning trends decried here are actually part of a very long time frame. The basic ideas of suburbanism are from _Garden Cities of To-morrow_ published in the 1890s. And urban renewal is based on the planning ideas of the U Chicago sociologists first expressed in the 1920s and 1930s. The interstate highway system concept was first expressed in the mid-1930s.

Urban renewal in SW DC started in the early 1950s (after the National Housing Act was passed in 1949), and the federal govt. had options on purchasing land there starting in the 1930s.

Ask yourself this question, if the fed. govt. had options on SW, and you were a property owner, would you continue to invest in your property? So in some respects the photos of inner city blight in the mass magazines were produced by other conditions. Similarly, cities had faced 15 years of lack of investment or privation from the combination of the Depression and the War.

The freeway initiative was technically separate but tended to be coordinated with urban renewal projects.

The "real" issue about "what's right and what's wrong" and planning in DC at least in my opinion, is more foundational, and is about urban design and the design of center cities generally and DC specifically.

DC was designed during the "Walking City" era (1800-1890) and the Walking City design was also supportive of transit-streetcars, the so-called Streetcar Era was from 1890-1920.
(Muller, P.O. “Transportation and urban form: Stages in the spatial evolution of the American metropolis,” in Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano, eds., The Geography of Urban Transportation (New York: Guilford Press, 3rd rev. ed., 2004), pp. 59-85.)

DC was designed by L'Enfant to optimize walking and transit (and biking). This design pattern was mostly maintained as the city consolidated and developed what had been Washington County, although there is no question that in the post-1920 period, cars were accommodated in housing development (e.g., rowhouses in some areas of Petworth and Brightwood had rear entry garages, in Manor Park, many houses had garages, and corner lots without alley access can have garages incorporated into the house, usually through side entry driveways).

But generally, shoehorning cars and freeways into the city isn't a good thing from the standpoint of how the city is designed and the kind of experience that the design is supposed to produce.

Basically the idea is that the city is good at particular ways of doing things and generating certain kinds of outcomes and should stick with that.

WRT the SE-SW Freeway, Joe Passonneau suggested at a forum at the NBM in the early 2000s that the freeway be torn down and boulevarded, not unlike what happened with the Embarcadero in SF (which was accelerated by an earthquake), but the idea wasn't taken up very widely, and certainly not by planners and elected officials.

by Richard Layman on Feb 15, 2012 5:36 am • link • report

this references the Muller work, but not directly:

http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Environment/E_Casestudy/E_casestudy1.htm

by Richard Layman on Feb 15, 2012 5:41 am • link • report

@ Lance- I'd have to agree with Tina in regards to your false equivalency, except to add that your use of "now we just clear the people.." Who's we, and how impotent are the people who get priced out that it's we vs. the people? What happens today is called the market place, and while it has it's rough side, in the past "we" didn't want to live near "them", where as today "white boy crazy!". It goes under reported, but that's actually a part of MLK's dream, and while dreams are utopian, I don't think it's a small achievement.

As for SW being specially deserving of total destruction becasue of some dramatically framed photos published for public consumption, I wouldn't be so gulible to marketing. Those photos can be found for Georgetown, Foggey Bottom, Capitol Hill, and many other sections of the city with titles like "A once proud section, Washington, D.C. These houses now are overcrowded with a Negro population and greatly in need of more sanitary methods"

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/related/?fi=subject&q=Housing--Slums--District%20of%20Columbia

You want a "slum"? just refuse to give home improvement loans for a while and restrict the inhabitants movement to exaserbate over crwoding, throw a depression in for good measure, and voila! You want to clear it to preserve adjacent property values? Where's that smart but misguided young man with his Corbusian ideas, now that's a plan GM, I mean the city council can get behind. I think there where many well intentioned people who did want to better peoples condition, and that shoudn't be over looked, but just like the realestate industry's "luxury condos" mantra, don't (always) believe the hype.

by Thayer-D on Feb 15, 2012 5:52 am • link • report

Sooooo, it's okay to tear down buildings, relocate people, and destroy neighborhoods for METRO, noisy bus routes, bike rental stands and now streetcars...but not okay to move cars in and out of a city so that people can work and play. It amazes me how many of the articles here by these new 'urban experts' reflect a desire of utopia over reason and the spending of other peoples money for what the majority do not want.

by Pelham1861 on Feb 15, 2012 7:44 am • link • report

Don't underestimate the impact of Life Magazine photos of the 1950's and 60's showing deeply poor slums in the foreground and the Capitol Building in the background. It offended our national self-image. It was an era where everyone believed in social engineering.

Except many of those shotgun shacks with no running water were replaced by crime-ridden high-rise povery storage boxes that took 35 years to tear down. They spent hundreds of millions to replace one kind of slum with another. But, hey, you got a freeway out of it!

by monkeyrotica on Feb 15, 2012 7:54 am • link • report

"All too often "smart growth" just seeks to replace one set of preferences (low-density/auto-centric) with another one (high-density/transit oriented). Both are top-down impositions from on high, and both are not very respectful of the traditional kinds of organic, market-oriented development. Both depend on the heavy handed intervention of the state."

Phil: That's a concern only from a libertarian standpoint. There was a lot of state intervention to produce today's low-density environment, so I only see it as fair to use state power to balance the equation and promote smart-growth. The state has eminent domain.

by RonG on Feb 15, 2012 8:08 am • link • report

Sooooo, it's okay to tear down buildings, relocate people, and destroy neighborhoods for METRO, noisy bus routes, bike rental stands and now streetcars...but not okay to move cars in and out of a city so that people can work and play

What "noisy bus routes" required eminent domain?

Likewise, what kind of condemnations for Metro were anywhere near the scale required for a freeway?

If you really want to rack your brain, you'll think about the kind of land needed for a freeway compared to a Metro line - and then compare their respective capacities.

So - which one of those is reasonable?

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 8:12 am • link • report

bike stations don't taking of property either. And while WMATA did cost some buildings on the surface--mostly at stations, although I do wonder some times if the stations at the surface could have been integrated into the buildings, e.g., it'd be better for WMATA to have kept the buildings on top and made lease revenue, plus the escalators wouldn't have been exposed to the elements--for the most part the undergrounding of the subway in the city had limited impact.

In any case Alex B. is absolutely right about the comparative impact of freeways vs. the subway. Thousands and thousands and thousands of dwellings would have been lost if all the freeways that had been planned for DC were actually built.

by Richard Layman on Feb 15, 2012 9:14 am • link • report

@Alex,

Latest DDOT numbers I can find indicate >95,000 vehicles transit this section of road daily. Average vehicle occupancy numbers mean just under 200,000 people travel this stretch of road daily (it's only about 2 miles long). Remember average numbers are just that - average, meaning a bus with 50 people averages out 50 single drivers to two people per vehicle.

Total weekday metro rail trips are about 1,000,000 passengers per day, on a network of 106 miles of rail. I doubt there are many sections of the rail network that consistently see greater than 200,000 passengers a day.

So the Southwest freeway is a pretty damned good investment. And I like the fact that (outside Metrobus), the drivers pay for the full operating cost of the vehicles traveling on the freeway. We subsidize the operating cost of metro heavily. We also subsidize the operating cost of the tunnels and the roadway, although as an interstate, the funding is primarily via gas tax for the roadway maintenance.

Although I'll be the first to agree it should have been built underground (like metro), or at the very least below grade (with street level overpasses for pedestrians, vehicles, and bicycles).

I'm not anti-rail, and I'm not anti-bicycle or anti-pedestrian. I frequent all modes of transportation (although I admit I don't bike much in the winter). However, I'm pro choice. And I chose to close to a freeway so I have the ability to drive when I want to.

by Lester on Feb 15, 2012 9:14 am • link • report

"Sooooo, it's okay to tear down buildings, relocate people, and destroy neighborhoods for METRO, noisy bus routes, bike rental stands and now streetcars"

tearing down buildings and relocating people for a bike rental stand? LOLOLOLOL!

Hogwash, if you read this, this is what I meant by "over the top".

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 9:23 am • link • report

@Richard "bike stations don't taking of property either. And while WMATA did cost some buildings on the surface--mostly at stations, although I do wonder some times if the stations at the surface could have been integrated into the buildings"

While you're correct that the integration of the new stations in old buildings could/would have been beneficial, I read the point made earlier in regards to destruction of neighborhoods not being because some buildings got leveled to put in the Metro entrances but instead because of (1) the disruption caused by the building of the lines which resulted in businesses going out of business and then (2) the change in dynamics caused by putting in a transit mechanism which encouraged building high density at the cost of destruction of the pre-Metro low density uses. The Rossyln Ballston corridor is a good example of this second disruptive nature of putting in Metro. Before the planning of Metro it was a far less dense, more livable area ... which has been replaced with Stalinist-type boxes providing relatively expensive housing options. Improvement? I'm not sure it is. Change? Definitely. ... change as dramatic as putting in superhighways.

by Lance on Feb 15, 2012 9:27 am • link • report

@lester

where did you get average passengers per vehicle for SE-SW freeway? Over 2 sounds very high to me. Note well, almost all express buses from NoVa terminate at the Pentagon and do not enter DC. And I would venture most private vehicles, by far, are single occupant only.

To me that suggests the real missed opportunity of the SE-SW freeway - the absence of a continuation of the Shirley busway/HOV lanes. That would have encouraged car/van pooling, and provided an additional transit link into DC, relieving pressure on the metrorail crossings. Or alternatively, to build it to accommodate LR transit. Of course Im being anachronistic - those were not priorities when it was built. And rebuilding it that way NOW would not make sense.

BTW, does anyone know if the HOT lane project in NoVa makes provision for future rail transit in its ROW in any fashion? In terms of height or configuration of the bridges, for example? It seems to me that it does not, and that also seems like a missed opportunity, though I suppose making that provision would have been very costly.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 9:31 am • link • report

I agree with you about Arlington, Lance. The focus on public transportation and density is quickly turning America into a Stalinist nightmare.

With density and urban living comes the death of freedom. It's time to oppose the socialist central planners so that we can live in the manner we want: low-density, drivable suburbs that are amenable to the two main instruments of human freedom, the car and the large, detached house.

by Tommy on Feb 15, 2012 9:38 am • link • report

@lance

In south arlington, in parts of DC, etc there have been transformations of the demography, and (esp in S arlington) the construction of denser housing, without benefit of rail transit. It appears to be driven by improved public safety, and in the District, improved governance generally. Is reducing crime, lowering taxes, and improving schools, ( all things that can lead to redevelopment) really forms of neighborhood disruption and destruction?

hogwash, another example of "over the top"

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 9:39 am • link • report

What is stalinist about the buildings in North Arlington?

When did Joseph Stalin get a patent on buildings over 5 stories?

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 9:41 am • link • report

@Lester

I'll leave aside the (questionable) assumptions you make on drivers paying the operating cost of freeways. The original question was about a) capacity, and b) impact on private property via eminent domain.

A highway lane can move about 2,000 vehicles per direction per hour. The widest part of the SE/SW freeway is 4 through lanes - so, 8,000 vehicles per hour in one direction.

Metro can operate right now at a max of 26 trains per hour, per track, per direction. They could probably squeeze a few more trains in there if they wanted to with some signaling upgrades. But we'll go with 26.

A metro car is full with about 125 people per car - but they can accomodate more if you squeeze (and people often do - the Orange, Red, and Green lines will hit this level of usage or higher during the rush right now).

So, 8 car trains, 125 people per car, 26 trains per hour, and you get a peak capacity of ~26,000 people per hour. Increase that to 30 trains per hour and you're moving 30,000 people per hour. Or, squeeze in 150 people per car at 26 tph (again, the Orange line probably hits this during rush) and you're well above 30,000 pphpd.

For those 4 through lanes on 395 - you've got 2,000 vehicles per lane per hour, so 8,000 total. You'd need an average vehicle occupancy of 4 people per car to top 30,000 pphpd.

Cars are nice, they just don't have much capacity. And the roadway has a tremendous footprint. The more realistic assumption is that cars in the region have more like 1.1 persons in them on average, dropping that capacity down to 8,800 people per hour. Even at a generous 1.5 people per car (which even some HOV lanes don't achieve), the capacity is on 12,000 people per hour for a massive freeway.

You can't really assume a higher per-car occupancy, because unlike transit (which is public), you can't just add persons to existing private cars. The closest thing we have to that is slugging. Even then, it only really works because of the HOV lanes, and the average occupancy there isn't anywhere close to 4 people per car.

Now, consider the footprint: those 4 lanes mean 8 total. Plus shoulders, plus on and off ramps, plus slip lanes, etc. An interstate lane is 12 feet wide, plus 2 slip lanes, plus some allowance for a shoulder and you're up to at least 140 feet of right of way required. Compare that to a metro track, where you probably need more like 12 feet per track and 25-30 feet of width for a station platform.

Bottom line - Metro carries more people in a smaller space.

Likewise, the geometry of train tracks means that Metro's smaller footprint can be accommodated mostly in existing rights of way for public streets. Therefore, the need for property acquisition is much smaller for a larger throughput capacity. Equating the property takings required for an urban freeway compared to an underground subway is silly, QED.

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 9:43 am • link • report

As an addendum to show how wildly optimistic my above calculation of freeway capacity is, see page 39 of this COG study of regional HOV lanes:

http://www.mwcog.org/uploads/committee-documents/ZF5WWltY20110602111921.pdf

I-395 in VA has two HOV lanes, and they achieve a person throughput of 6,400 persons per lane, per hour. The regular, non-HOV lanes achieve 2,400 persons per lane, per hour. Those are PM rush numbers.

2,400 per lane, per hour is (assuming 2,000 vehicles per hour) an average occupancy of 1.2 persons per car.

Add up those numbers for the peak hour (with reversible HOV lanes) gives you 6 lanes in the peak direction, getting about ~24,000 persons per hour through. So, a massive land hog of a highway, barely matching the capacity of a single subway line.

This isn't a value judgement against cars, just a statement of the geometric reality. Cars are spatially inefficient.

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 9:54 am • link • report

@Tommy:

With density and urban living comes the death of freedom. It's time to oppose the socialist central planners so that we can live in the manner we want: low-density, drivable suburbs that are amenable to the two main instruments of human freedom, the car and the large, detached house.

Funny how the anti-urban cabal that's controlled this country since the 50s needs a strong regulatory regime and enforcement to impose this "freedom" on an resistant population. End the Orwellian compulsion of the state and our nation's population centers would look much like every other place where humans have been allowed to choose how to live since ancient Sumer: in vibrant urban environments.

Of course, there will always be many who cravenly embrace Big Brother's Plan, mulishly insisting that "Slavery is Freedom" and "We have always been at War with Eastasia" and "Americans choose two hour commutes and strip malls" but as long as a thirst for liberty exists in the heart of even one man, we will have urban planners.

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 9:55 am • link • report

And speaking of peace, liberty, and the American Way, where the Hell is @Bertie, anyway. He's supposed to be here by now.

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 9:56 am • link • report

Ah yes, the sorry rosslyn ballston corridor where single family homes are in easy walking distance of a group of 5 metro stations, high end dining and retail and bike share. Certainly not livable by any standard except for the booming population and property prices and constant opening of new buildings and businesses even during the worst parts of the recession. All while actually lowering traffic levels on the local streets. Stalin wishes he could have accomplished as much.

by Canaan on Feb 15, 2012 10:00 am • link • report

"A highway lane can move about 2,000 vehicles per direction per hour."

At a reasonable level-of-service. Back home, MnDOT has had measurements of 2,400 and even 2,500 vplph.

The PlanItMetro briefs I've seen suggest the Metrorail car max is about 120.

Metro track, IIRC, is somewhere between 14 and 15ft per track.

That said, your point is valid.

by Froggie on Feb 15, 2012 10:12 am • link • report

I wish folks would stop bashing Stalin-era architecture. It's just unfair, as JS presided over a relatively bright period for Russian design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotelnicheskaya_Embankment

You're probably looking for something like "Brezhnevian Architecture." *Shudder*

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 10:14 am • link • report

I said this once before but it still seems relevant: I live by the proposed route of the Inner Beltway and used live by the path of the North Central Freeway---thank God neither was built.

by watcher on Feb 15, 2012 10:23 am • link • report

@Froggie

Yeah, the max capacity of a lane is indeed dependent on the service characteristics.

As for Metro's max capacity per car, I've seen Metro use the 120/car number before, too. Just from personal observation, however, I know the cars can and often do hold more than that. At ~66 seats, meaning you'd have 54 standees. I've seen cars that easily exceed that threshold. Nonetheless, that's the 'official' number based on sf of standing area.

It's a perfectly good planning metric, too - a train car with 120 people will certainly feel quite full - but you could squeeze on a few more folks.

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 10:34 am • link • report

People say Suitland Parkway was disastrous to the Barry Farm / Hillsdale / Anacostia neighborhoods/

by John M on Feb 15, 2012 10:50 am • link • report

I know it's popular among many to villanize highways, but claiming the construction of the SE SW Freeway was responsible for the "destruction" of SW DC neighborhoods is a bit of a stretch.

The area was slated for urban renewal, like many across the US at that time, and block after block were leveled to make way for it. That would have occured regardless of whether or not the freeway was built.

Also, it is safe to say that few if any freeways built in this region were as disruptive as Metro construction, especially in DC (indeed, most of the freeways planned to built in the District were scrapped). Large sections of downtown DC were virtually impossible to navigate during Red Line construction; Green Line construction during the early 1990's practically ruined sections of Shaw and SE.

Nationwide, highways are hardly the sole cause of "destroyed neighborhoods" or "divided cities". Nearly every major US city - and many small towns - are bisected by railroad tracks and have been since the 19th century. The division caused by railroad tracks are more than just physical. "The other side of the tracks" isn't just a figure of speech.

by ceefer66 on Feb 15, 2012 10:54 am • link • report

Lance, I was talking about DC. However, there is no question that in some parts of the city e.g., NoMA, at the Columbia Heights station, at the Petworth station, in between 2nd and 3rd st. NE between Union Station and the "NY Avenue" station there is a fundamental change in the nature of the use of the space towards intensification. The historic preservationist in me sometimes has problems with it, while the urban planner part of me understands the necessity of the leveraging of transit, not to mention all the positive impacts on neighborhood revitalization. In fact, witnessing the impact of the NY Ave. Metro station on the (north of) H St. and NoMA areas turned me into a transportation planner.

And I am familiar with what happened in the R-B corridor, after all that was a process that was still in its earlier stages in 1987 when I came to the city, and would occasionally deal with for work someone living in the Virginia Square area.

Those are choices, no different than the choices involved in building freeways.

I agree that impact on commercial districts and neighborhoods from construction projects, either freeways or subways, can be negative. Although I will say from observation is that many of the businesses that do fail are likely to have been marginal anyway. Even so there should be mitigation programs in place at the outset to minimize the problems, and a temporary reduction in property taxes because of the impact on revenue generating capability of the businesses during the construction phase, such as what happened on U Street in the early 1990s (I still remember rumbling over the "railroad ties" used during the cut and cover construction of the green line).

by Richard Layman on Feb 15, 2012 10:57 am • link • report

tearing down buildings and relocating people for a bike rental stand? LOLOLOLOL!

Hogwash, if you read this, this is what I meant by "over the top".

I get your point. But is it any less over the top and dramatic than this:

Funny how the anti-urban cabal that's controlled this country since the 50s

I don't think it is.

by HogWash on Feb 15, 2012 11:15 am • link • report

@Ceefer

Also, it is safe to say that few if any freeways built in this region were as disruptive as Metro construction, especially in DC (indeed, most of the freeways planned to built in the District were scrapped). Large sections of downtown DC were virtually impossible to navigate during Red Line construction; Green Line construction during the early 1990's practically ruined sections of Shaw and SE.

No, it is not safe to say this.

Metro construction was disruptive, to be sure. The key difference is this: once Metro construction was over, the street was returned to its previous condition.

Once a freeway is built, that land never returns because there's a freaking freeway on top of it. 395 through SW DC is essentially a block wide - those blocks are never coming back. The blocks where Metro was built all 'came back' to the city.

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 11:19 am • link • report

Yes, Metro construction was disruptive but unlike highways, the disruption was only temporary.

by watcher on Feb 15, 2012 11:22 am • link • report

@hogwash

I dont think the country has been run by "an anti-urban cabal" or that todays it run by an urbanist cabal. however either of those claims, while far fetched, is at least conceivable. I mean there COULD be some nefarious thing going on behind the scenes - or one could engage in an exagerated charecterization of real policy biases.

However the implication that there have been buildings torn down for bike stands, is flat on its face absurd in a way that, I think is qualitatively different. Things like this are just tossed out right and left.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 11:24 am • link • report

@HogWash

Funny how the anti-urban cabal that's controlled this country since the 50s

That's a pretty low bar, buddy.

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 11:24 am • link • report

@Walker, as with most things, it's all subjective.

No, I don't think insinuating that an "anti-urban" conspiracy theory is any more or less "radical" than the idea of conspiracy to raze land and dislocate people to make way for metro, bike stands, and streetcars.

You think only one is conceivable. I think both are..equally.

by HogWash on Feb 15, 2012 11:43 am • link • report

@egk

Violence done to Roslyn-Ballston corridor?

There was some violence done by nearby Rt. 66, but the development you refer to is mostly a Metro-generated, national model of walking/bike friendly revitalization of a largely seedy corridor. I lived there when I was younger - now it's a mecca for young people and a boon to Arlington. Not perfect, not finished, but far from "violence".

by ryneduren on Feb 15, 2012 11:51 am • link • report

@Hogwash-most regular readers recognize @oboe uses hyperbole to humerous effect in making a point.

Repeating @Alex. B and others, The individual auto as a means of mass transit is extemely inefficient.

And yes, the way the auto is used with tens of thousands of people a day driving to commute to work is a mass transit system. The vast majority of the seats are empty. The vast majority of those autos have one person in them leaving 3/4' of potential unused. There's nothing as inefficient or wasteful in terms of getting masses of people around, e.g. all those thousands per hour driving across the SE-SW freeway.

Leaving aside cultural preferences, blah blah, viewed from the perpective of a transportation system, at least 3/4's of the potential is unused every day in the design of creating a method for individuals to drive by themselves as a form of mass transportation.

by Tina on Feb 15, 2012 11:55 am • link • report

"No, I don't think insinuating that an "anti-urban" conspiracy theory is any more or less "radical" than the idea of conspiracy to raze land and dislocate people to make way for metro, bike stands, and streetcars."

much like the conspiracy to raze land and dislocate people to make way for highways, parking lots, and yield signs.

See, the problem isnt the conspiracy. Its the grouping of yield signs, and bike stands, with things that require razing of houses. I see you engage in similar rhetoric. I dont think anyone on the "urbanist side" not even Oboe, would claim that houses have been razed to make way for yield signs, or parking meters.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 11:59 am • link • report

To weigh in on the term "Nimby" and what urban design is currently "smart".

My pet peeve is people who advocate for greater density but themselves live in 3000 square foot and up urban residences that formerly housed many more people. A "Nimby" is basically a hypocrite.

Add to that developer apologists who advocate for new developments in already successful neighborhoods that are proven profit-makers while land surrounding many Metro stations lies empty or vastly under-used. The whole point of urban planning is enticing/forcing developers to areas with existing transit infrastructure which is underused

Urban planners of the 50's & 60's who advocated for freeway-oriented growth were considered the smart planners of their time (and would have certainly described themselves that way). Those who fought this in DC and saved Dupont/Logan neighborhoods were certainly labeled eccentrics out of touch with modern times and progress. Understandable that they now are leery of the new self-proclaimed "smart" people. I'm certainly not sold on the premise that making Dupont/Logan another Crystal City is much smarter than making it a freeway interchange.

Amsterdam and Sydney are certainly not full of dumb planners. I believe both are now paying people to move out of the urban core where infrastructure is over-burdened. Maybe they're unique cases, maybe not.

My concern is that whole sections of DC that were urban residential centers and have underused transit are going to waste because they are not currently trendy. Our housing stock in DC is suitable for the 900,000 who formerly lived here and until those beautiful neighborhoods are restored I'm hesitant to advocate for DC subsidizing new human filing cabinets in currently trendy neighborhoods.

by Tom Coumaris on Feb 15, 2012 12:01 pm • link • report

in what way is the district subsidizing new development near DuPont Circle?

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 12:09 pm • link • report

@Tom

The whole point of urban planning is enticing/forcing developers to areas with existing transit infrastructure which is underused

Huh?

Ah, no. I would not agree with this definition.

Our housing stock in DC is suitable for the 900,000 who formerly lived here and until those beautiful neighborhoods are restored I'm hesitant to advocate for DC subsidizing new human filing cabinets in currently trendy neighborhoods.

Much of DC's declining population can be attributed to shrinking household size.

http://www.neighborhoodinfodc.org/pdfs/demographic_trends05.pdf

Avg HH size in 1970: 2.72
2000: 2.16

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 12:27 pm • link • report

@Alex B,

Blocks did "come back" (for those who could afford it) after Metro construction. I'll give you that.

And it is true that once (some) freeways were constructed, the land was permanently "lost" - at least from its original purpose.

But the benefits provided by the highway - mobility for individuals, faciliting commerce, etc. were also just as permamanent as the supposed "damage". Just like that provided by the railroad tracks - which BTW normally don't get covered up like Metro.

We could go on ad nauseum about the cost/benefit of transit vs. highways. Suffice to say the pros and con are in the eye of the beholder. Transit advocates can and often do justify any transit project regardless of the capital, operating, or social costs while eggagerating the benefits and begrudging every penny spent on highways - all while claiming that driving is "subsidized". On the other hand, those who depend on highways can advocate for paving over whole swatches of the landscape while complaining about transit subsidies.

My personal favorite example is the way we look at development: when it occurs as the result of transit, it's "smart growth", a "benefit" of "economic development"; if it occurs because of a highway, it's "sprawl".

Then there's "induced demand": we must build transit to encourage it - some would even implement policies to force people onto transit. Meanwhile some say don't build roads because people will want to use them.

It's all relative.

by ceefer66 on Feb 15, 2012 12:29 pm • link • report

@Tina most regular readers recognize @oboe uses hyperbole to humerous effect in making a point

AWalker, I see you engage in similar rhetoric. I dont think anyone on the "urbanist side" not even Oboe, would claim that houses have been razed to make way for yield signs, or parking meters.

This is why I suggested that it was subjective. You defend oboe's use of "hyperbole" as just that..hyperbole...he really doesn't believe that. Yet, I believe that suggesting that houses were razed for "bike stands" is simply another example of hyperbole because I don't really think that the poster "really" believed that homes were razed to install bike stands.

For one, it's illogical. However, you ascribe "radical" notions to the idea. Oboe? Oh well, he's just kidding around.

Subjective.

by HogWash on Feb 15, 2012 12:40 pm • link • report

@Ceefer

My personal favorite example is the way we look at development: when it occurs as the result of transit, it's "smart growth", a "benefit" of "economic development"; if it occurs because of a highway, it's "sprawl".

Then there's "induced demand": we must build transit to encourage it - some would even implement policies to force people onto transit. Meanwhile some say don't build roads because people will want to use them.

It's all relative.

Those aren't relative at all. There are key differences.

Transportation shapes development, there's no doubt about that. The auto-influence results in sprawl, the transit and pedestrian infulence favors denser, walkable development. Those forms are very different. If you're concerned about the form that growth takes, then it's a completely valid issue. The differences are quite stark.

As for induced demand, that phenomena is also true, regardless of mode. Again, that's not relative - as discussed earlier, rail transit has a higher capacity and can better handle induced demand.

People don't oppose new roads because of induced demand. They oppose new highways because the reasoning behind them is often faulty (it will reduce congestion!), or the true costs of that induced demand (sprawl, pollution, congestion) are not being accounted for. Induced demand isn't what people object to - it is merely the mechanism.

The actual end product is very different. That's not relative at all.

by Alex B. on Feb 15, 2012 12:44 pm • link • report

@ceefer

I read the original post as presenting a cost of building an urban expressway - not saying the benefits can never be worth the cost. The land usage/community break up issue is a cost of an urban expressway (not necessarily so much for a non-urban expressway, or or non expressway road). Just as the cost of paying motormen is a transit cost. Sometimes the cost benefit works, sometimes it doesnt.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 12:49 pm • link • report

@Hogwash

cabals are, by their nature, secretive. Thats what a cabal means.

Razing houses is not. its a very public act. If a house has been razed to build a bike stand, that would be very visible and known.

There are constant things like this. In this case slipped into a serious point (metro DID involve some razing) which is a clever way of getting an over the top point into serious discourse.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 12:52 pm • link • report

@AWalker, ok, you're right..I'm wrong.

It's nothing subjective about it because there's more "merit" to what Oboe said because...well just because his "over the topness" has a point.

Again, Nothing subjective about it all. It just is.

Whew! Glad that's over.

by HogWash on Feb 15, 2012 12:59 pm • link • report

Did it really take ten years to build that thing?

by Jack Love on Feb 15, 2012 1:14 pm • link • report

I'm partially with Ceefer on this. Growth is growth. It's a response to demand, even if that demand is tweaked. Too many hold the view that the development of the autocentric suburbs represents some government-created blot on the landscape.

To postwar America, this is exactly what they wanted. The notion that at time what they really wanted (but didn't know it) were apartments clustered along streetcar lines, is almost exactly backwards. People wanted freestanding houses and they didn't want the constraints of having to locate it within walking distance of a subway or streecar line. It's a little presumptuous of us today proclaiming they got it wrong.

Where I part ways with Ceefer is the issue of subsidy. The continued, unconscious subsidy of autos was a major causal factor in this type of development exceeding what should have been its supply-demand equilibrium. Demand was goosed, and the result was a new equilibrium being created with congestion facored into the "cost" side. We subsidize transit as a matter of conscious policy because it has effects that we want today.

by Crickey7 on Feb 15, 2012 1:46 pm • link • report

Not just subsidies of roads, but of new housing. VA Loans following WWII were restricted to new construction, thus adding another incentive to abandon inner city housing which had suffered from deferred maintenance during the Depression and the War.

by Frank IBC on Feb 15, 2012 1:56 pm • link • report

This is why I suggested that it was subjective. You defend oboe's use of "hyperbole" as just that..hyperbole...he really doesn't believe that. Yet, I believe that suggesting that houses were razed for "bike stands" is simply another example of hyperbole because I don't really think that the poster "really" believed that homes were razed to install bike stands.

My original comment was aimed at @Tommy's "death of freedom" argument (http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/13716/freeway-construction-brought-neighborhood-destruction/#comment-130519)

Was it a dumb argument. Of course.

As far as Mr Pelhamnnnn's comment that "it's okay to tear down buildings, relocate people, and destroy neighborhoods for METRO, noisy bus routes, bike rental stands and now streetcars"...it's entirely possible that his contributions are an elaborate, intentionally hilarious send-up of the kinds of arguments you hear from anti-urbanists around here. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

It wouldn't be the first time. In fact, I have it on good authority that the poster we know as "Lance" is actually a radical pro-urbanist performance art collective comprised of a half-dozen anarchists living in a group house in Cleveland.

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 1:58 pm • link • report

I am a little confused at how the question of the impacts of an urban expressway has become confused with the issue of people wanting to live on and drive from small lots in 1950s suburbia.

Here in metro DC much of that kind of development took place in Montgomery County. AFAICT most of the people commuting by car from MoCo, at that time, and since, have managed it without driving on an urban expressway. Its quite possible to not have urban expressways in the heart of the city, and still have suburbanites commute downtown by auto. They are really seperate questions.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 2:03 pm • link • report

"It's nothing subjective about it because there's more "merit" to what Oboe said because...well just because his "over the topness" has a point."

No, its not because of that.

Its because judgements about who runs america, a fortiori about "cabals" are by their nature difficult to objectively ascertain.

Finding an example of a house that was razed for a bike stand, while it may take some digging (pardon the expression) is intrinsically objective. Either houses have been torn down for bike stands or they have not.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 2:06 pm • link • report

We got caught in an induced-demand argument loop. But for the evil freeways, people would have settled down in one of Uncle Joe Stalin's buildings along streetcar lines.

I may have mixed up some of the details.

by Crickey7 on Feb 15, 2012 2:09 pm • link • report

@Cricky7- People wanted freestanding houses and they didn't want the constraints of having to locate it within walking distance of a subway or streecar line.

This is an argument/notion I see a lot: A dichotomy thats either car-dependent suburban sprawl or DuPont Circle-esque.

This is a false dichotomy. There is no reason why suburbs need be designed as completely car dependent and/or unaccessible to transit.

Most older suburbs -pre WWII- are not car-dependent. In fact they were built because streetcars made it possible to live in a suburb or 'not-in-the-city-center' and still be able to work there.

by Tina on Feb 15, 2012 2:16 pm • link • report

I guess it began with Phil at 3:33 PM, who contrasted the allegedly then fashionable urban renewal with allegedly now fashionable smart growth, with the implicaton that because one once fashionable approach to growth is wrong, ergo the other one is wrong. (striking how parallel in logic that is to George Will's (now abandoned) argument that global warming is wrong because scientists once believed in global cooling - the meme machine is sometimes not terribly original)

It might be well if we could ignore that trolling, and return to the question of URBAN expressways.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 15, 2012 2:17 pm • link • report

oh I see the false dichotomy is either Stalinesque highrises on a streetcar line or car-dependent suburbia.

yet we are surrounded by 100 year old suburbs that are niether of those things and do not relegate their inhabitants to dependency on expressways or even car-dependency and are not transit deprived and are walkable/bikable.

by Tina on Feb 15, 2012 2:37 pm • link • report

Regardless of the net benefit of urban freeway construction, it seems one could make the argument that the benefits are mostly conferred mostly to folks who live outside the city, and the costs are borne mostly by folks who live inside the city. Obviously that changes the cost-benefit equation a bit.

Also what @Tina said. And those 100 year old neighborhoods are the most desirable in the region (as measured per sq ft).

by oboe on Feb 15, 2012 3:13 pm • link • report

"Sooooo, it's okay to tear down buildings, relocate people, and destroy neighborhoods for METRO, noisy bus routes, bike rental stands and now streetcars..." - Pelham1861

Yes. Let us not forget all the historic homes lost to Capital Bikeshare. The H Street Corridor has been absolutely demolished to make way for the noisy, intrusive, and disruptive street care, and buses are tearing this city apart. People across the breath of the land are cry out 'NO MORE METRO STATION! MORE HIGHWAYS!"

This hyperbolic thinking is literally the worst thing that has ever occurred.

by Michael on Feb 15, 2012 3:47 pm • link • report

What some people are forgetting is that before there was a SE/SW freeway cutting off SW from the rest of the city, there was the railroad tracks, which while elevated, offer only limited access points from areas north to areas south, not to mention a giant stone wall literally dividing the city in 2.

Also, while there were certainly losers in the massive SW urban renewal, there were also winners, many of which were working class African American families who bought the new townhouses (not every block is a giant apartment building). Many of these people still live in these houses today, I know, they are my neighbors.

As for why SW turned into a giant slum, there are many reasons, not the least of which is that DC never had a truly successful waterfront due to its location. It simply takes too long for boats to get from DC to anywhere else. Baltimore is on the Chesapeake, DC is a long river ride away from even getting to the Chesapeake. Thus, aside from some ferry boats, which were basically phased out everywhere, the DC waterfront was always struggling. Despite some false nostalgia, DC was never a major port and never even had many fishing boats or a major local fish market. So you had a crumbling abandoned waterfront as an anchor to a neighborhood that, not surprisingly, began to crumble itself.

by SWDCman on Feb 15, 2012 4:49 pm • link • report

Regardless of the net benefit of urban freeway construction, it seems one could make the argument that the benefits are mostly conferred mostly to folks who live outside the city, and the costs are borne mostly by folks who live inside the city.

This is wrong -- city people derive plenty benefits from the road system; it is apparent that you don't appreciate them. Thought experiment: say the big highways leading into the cities were returned to their natural state, dirt roads and deer trails. Obviously this would be a great hardship for everybody. If that is too extreme, compare Vancouver (which does not have freeways) to Seattle (which does). Cost of living in Vancouver is comparable to New York, despite the fact that is in the wilderness and does not have the natural barriers that NYC has. Cost of living in Seattle is much lower.

by goldfish on Feb 16, 2012 11:05 am • link • report

Thought experiment: say the big highways leading into the cities were returned to their natural state, dirt roads and deer trails.

True, returning the city to its "natural state" of dirt roads and deer trails would have a major impact. (Let's take it a step further: What if fire had never been invented?) Of course, as an alternative, we could experiment with the thought that our eight-lane freeways would be replaced by arterials like Connecticut Ave with little impact at all.

Also, the cost of living in Vancouver has little to do with lack of freeways, and much to do with international real estate investment as a hedge against the inherent instability of capitalism under China's authoritarian regime (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576357373661248928.html).

I don't doubt that a few dozen elevated freeways over Vancouver's neighborhoods would lower the cost of housing, though.

by oboe on Feb 16, 2012 11:28 am • link • report

city people derive plenty benefits from the road system

Sorry, I think I see where you missed the point: my critique wasn't aimed at a "road system", but rather a set of elevated limited-access freeways whose major purpose is to facilitate suburban access to/from the urban core.

by oboe on Feb 16, 2012 11:31 am • link • report

Oboe: Then you should move to Vancouver, which has the arterials and lacks the freeways you pine for. Let me know how you like the traffic.

by goldfish on Feb 16, 2012 11:36 am • link • report

@goldfish,

If I were an existing resident of Vancouver, and lived in the urban core, I doubt seriously whether traffic would bother me much. DC's traffic is some of the worst in America. When I travel to other areas of the country and people ask where I live, I often run into people who used to live in the area, and moved specifically because of "traffic". I have yet to meet anyone who lived *in* the city who moved because of traffic. It's almost purely a suburban concern.

That doesn't mean I'm unsympathetic to the plight of suburban folks who've chosen to live in far-flung areas with insufficient infrastructure--I'm just unwilling to substantially lower the quality of my life, my child's, and my neighbors' so that we can mitigate that slightly.

DC has a high level of child poverty which impacts DCPS students. Assuming you live in the suburbs, would you be so kind as to pass legislation that taxes suburban folks $2000 per year to fund childhood poverty measures in DC? It would be ever so helpful, thanks..

by oboe on Feb 16, 2012 11:55 am • link • report

thread has about run its course, but @SWDCman on Feb 15, 2012 4:49 pm really raises a good point. Urban renewal was a tragedy in so many ways, and people will argue endlessly about the architecture and design in SW, but without a doubt it became a pleasant place in DC boundaries that was affordable to the middle-class, and once it was built was relatively stable during some tumultuous times in the city.

I like SW a lot. If I could buy a house or condo now in DC, that's where I'd buy. I liked it before the redevelopment plans, and for some reason I'm attracted to ridiculed, unusual places (i.e. other location I'd buy if I had money is Crystal City). I still have an internal struggle about SW though, liking it, but knowing its history and feeling like I shouldn't.

by spookiness on Feb 16, 2012 12:00 pm • link • report

Oboe clearly doesn't meet many DC residents who have to drive out to Gaithersburg or Ft. Belvoir for work.

by charlie on Feb 16, 2012 12:04 pm • link • report

Oboe clearly doesn't meet many DC residents who have to drive out to Gaithersburg or Ft. Belvoir for work.

You're right, I don't. But that's because the percentage of DC residents who drive out to Gaithersburg every day is miniscule (maybe, what .05%) Neither one of those commutes would be appreciably worse if DC got rid of its freeways, especially given that it's a reverse commute .

by oboe on Feb 16, 2012 12:14 pm • link • report

the benefits to a central city of easing access for suburban commuters (lets not for now get into highways vs transit vs whatever) is in the form of a widened labor market for employers who locate in the city. That benefit is capture for residents via property (and similar) taxes, and via the employment benefits to the city residents of the employment concentration. DC is a case apart, as so much of the employment is federal, much of which pays a highly controversial in lieu of payment rather than a locally set property tax, and much of which cannot easily leave. OTOH the District was built as it is (let leave aside the alt history where the capital is not here and Georgetown becomes a port city on its own) BECAUSE of the Federal govt. It hardly seems reasonable to think that the Fed Govt should have ignored its own workforce needs and only built transportation improvements in the District that benefited District residents. It probably would have been better had A. The federal govt conceded a right of local govts to tax federal property, within reason and B. Not created a seperate federal district, but kept the capital city part of Maryland - so that a State DOT funded by suburbanites was building transport improvements in the district. There would still be conflicts with Virginia (as NY has with NJ) but I suspect they would be less heated.

Looking forward, I dont think we intend to tear down any more city nabes for freeways. Even were it politically possible, it would be way too expensive. I am pleased to see that the 11th street project will eliminate one of the gaps in the highway system that is particularly annoying to suburbanites, and will do so, apparently, without destroying any DC nabe.

I am also pleased that we can look forward to the undergrounding of part of I395 in the district - I hope more of that is possible in the future.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 16, 2012 12:19 pm • link • report

@Oboe; no, the point is 40% of DC residents drive to work -- and a lot of them complain about traffic as well.

by charlie on Feb 16, 2012 12:19 pm • link • report

@oboe, the traffic in Vancouver is just as bad as DC. Since it is Canada, it is not included in the typical "worst cities for traffic" kind of report.

My point has nothing to do with those that live in the suburbs; it is the benefits conferred on city people by the downtown freeways. Living in W6 it costs me far less time into and out of DC because I am close to the SE/SW freeway, far quicker than (say) Woodley. It is the same for you, except that you do not acknowledge this advantage. For people that live in the core -- regardless of city -- the traffic issue has basically been solved for them personally because they are close to where they need to go or they are reverse commuters. But that does not mean that they do not rely on the transportation in to and out of the city; those costs have been pushed on onto others.

Blaming DC child poverty on the existing downtown highway is does not help the discussion. I think this has been well covered above -- disinvestment in city housing due to the depression, WW2, the GI bill, and other bad policies, the effects of which have been reversed but still persist. And believe me, there are plenty of poor people in Vancouver, but they live far from downtown, out of sight and out of mind -- and is an example of a cost that has been pushed onto others.

by goldfish on Feb 16, 2012 12:27 pm • link • report

Whats strange is that the SW/SE Freeway was built with little to no political resistance but as soon as the planning was to continue up to NW/NE into Montgomery/PG County it was like WWIII wth the so-Called NIMBY's fighting to get the Freeways scrapped.....

So looking at the entire picture from the outside makes one believe that te real reason behind the progression of SW/SE Freeway was to benefit Virginia Commuters and the Cancellation of Freeways from NW/NE was to keep Maryland from gaining the same commuting Benefits as Virginia. Plus Virginia was trying to shed away from its segregationist old southern good ol' boy network by promoting more northeast like Urban Density which is attractive by both Freeways and Rapid Transit.......

Had the NE/NW Freeways been built out to the Montgomery/PG County Beltways it would have leveled out the playing field of Businesses being more attractive to the Maryland side of the DC area instead of the Current Economic Engine of the DC area of Northern Virginia.........

by Ken on Feb 16, 2012 11:45 pm • link • report

So far, a search of the term "Swampooddle Washington, D.C. Greater Great Washington" produces only this:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/tag/Swampoodle/

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 17, 2012 2:37 am • link • report

I am not an expert on the freeway fights of the era, but I think there was little resistance to the SE/SW freeway because 1) the government had cleared most of the residents out and 2) those residents were generally the poor and unconnected who had little to no representation or clout to fight it.

Compare that with the 270 extension through Cleveland Park to the Three Sisters Bridge where many of the attorneys lived, most particularly, as noted by Zachary Schrag, Peter Craig. On the east side of town, as word spread about the Freeway proposals, concerned residents from Takoma Park through Brookland and Shaw joined together to fight the proposal. The critical mass of opponents, combined with the politically connected were enough to change the course of the proposal and ultimately provide funding for Metro.

by Andrew on Feb 17, 2012 6:51 am • link • report

the following are Leon Kreir's words concerning SW:

"The post-war redevelopment of the Southwest D.C. neighborhood, beyond the human tragedy of wholesale clearing an entire urban community, replaced L’Enfant’s urban armature and network of streets and squares with a soulless nowhere. The gruesome operation was a crucible for imposing on Washington, D.C. the modernist vision so detested by Eisenhower, abhorred by the users and occasional visitors and avoided and ignored by those who have no obligatory business there."

by Thayer-D on Feb 17, 2012 7:53 am • link • report

Andrew-

Ironically it was the Cleveland Park area where the freeway had the LEAST impacts (but of course a disproportionate amount of political influence, raising the question of a lack of equal protection under the law).

However by 1962 the consensus was to build I-70S along the B&O Metropolitan Branch RR in a "Y" alignment with the I-95 Northeast Freeway from Maryland (alas by the Northwest Branch Park route to PG Plaza rather than the PEPCO power line and ultimately through the Masonic Star Eastern Star Home Field).

That idea only became greatly opposed with the release of the botched version in October 1964 with the suspiciously delayed initial North Central Freeway engineering study report:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/01/crafted-controversy-scuttling-of-jfks-b.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/02/1964-north-central-freeway-study.html

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 17, 2012 2:28 pm • link • report

I think to talk about the Southern Freeways without talking about the neighborhoods today, and without talking about race at all, is to miss the point entirely.
Yes, parts of the neighborhoods were demolished. But you did not mention how the continued existence of these freeways effectively walls off a portion of the city (a poor, black portion). The people that remained south of the freeway are cut off from the city. Yes, there are underpasses. But to compare the indirect route necessitated by an underpass to the grid that it replaced is a joke. The road also cuts off sight lines, adds noise, air, and light pollution to the neighborhood.
So what is it? It is a wall. We built a wall between the rest of the city and poor black people. Out of sight, out of mind.

by Patrick on Feb 21, 2012 11:54 am • link • report

Patrick-

Saying nothing about the freeway design while pushing he burden disproportionately into SE was and remains a hallmark of Washington DC's anti-freeway movement.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/01/crafted-controversy-scuttling-of-jfks-b.html

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 21, 2012 12:34 pm • link • report