Comments on Rhode Island Station will activate Metro entrance - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Erik

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:28:20 EDT

Wow, that's wonderful, thank you! The MBT is a great bikeway and deserves good access.

Comment by Jack

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:14:42 EDT

@Erik: Perhaps this answers your concern?

Comment by Erik

Thu, 20 May 2010 01:02:50 EDT

How about connecting the metro station with the Metropolitan Branch Trail? As of now one needs to go out of the station, down to busy Rhode Island Ave, cross under the tracks, take a right, climb a steep hill into a parking lot with drains that will eat tires, and go to the back corner of the parking lot to enter the trail. It's well hidden.

Comment by kk

Tue, 18 May 2010 23:28:55 EDT

The main problems with the area is not Rhode Island ave or the Giant/Home Depot parking lot its the train tracks that run straight through it.

Those train tracks are a stratification point along the whole stretch; you can look at one side and things are completely different on the other.

What should be done but will probably never happen is to;

1 Raise Rhode Island Ave/Lower the train tracks; so that the land between 4th street and Bank of America are at the same level.

2 Need more than just Rhode Island Ave crossing the tracks; there should be a street about where the Metro Parking Garage will be.

The reason why there is so much traffic on Rhode Island Ave, Brentwood Rd, New York Ave, Montana Ave etc is because the train tracks are a physical which limits the way you can get across it and it is also a physiological barrier

3 Geography; I doubt the land is natural how it is between 4th street and Bank of America. Land usually doesn't have a hill, then completely flat land then another hill while if you go north or south of the immediate area its just hills.

I bet the natural elevation of the land is closer to which the Forman Mills is on and gradually lowers south of Rhode Island Ave.

4 Find away to connect the side west of the train tracks to this area; this can be done by

* Redoing the station and the CSX/Amtrak rails and connect W & V street over the rails.

* Building something over the tracks that can connect pedestrians to areas west; the steep ass steps and long ass ramp that goes out of the way don't work

* Build a ramp where the hole in the fence is that every body uses. It beats going down a hill and then up another.

* Just make it easier to get to the station from the west of the tracks; its only one way which is taking Rhode Island Ave.

Comment by Turnip

Tue, 18 May 2010 19:44:57 EDT

The picture carries the label "Baltimore & Washington Railroad".

Shouldn't it be "Baltimore & Ohio"?

Comment by Peter Smith

Tue, 18 May 2010 18:59:36 EDT

if anything is done to the sidewalks/roadway, then we need to do something to allow bikes on this road, too.

Comment by tom veil

Tue, 18 May 2010 17:34:57 EDT

I think this is the single remaining part of the city where the city should to just blow everything up and start over again. Seriously. I've mapped it out, and you can draw a contiguous area around the rail yards that's 500 acres in size with zero homes in it. That's over 1% of the land area of the entire city! Zero homes means (more or less) zero entities that would resist Eminent Domain. If the existing land uses were organized into an efficient city grid like the rest of DC, every single business on those 500 acres could return after reconstruction. But we'd still have enough room (vertically and laterally) to add quality homes for between 8,000 people (at DC-average density of 10,000/sq mile) and 30,000 people (if we built at Brookyln density). This is not a place for half-measures. This is a chance to really get it right.

Comment by Douglas A. Willinger

Tue, 18 May 2010 16:21:22 EDT

"The area desperately needs a master plan. It's a mess right now, and the new development around the Metro station is only a small piece of the puzzle."

True, though it is a bit too close to the RR corridor, particularly the northern building:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/02/extending-legacy-with-grand-arc.html

So will this development project get pushed to be expedited even though there is a glut of housing from th e'bubble'?

WHY this push to chock the corridor? It smells pretty bad IMHO.

Comment by andrew

Tue, 18 May 2010 14:33:44 EDT

The road network here also provides a serious impediment to any future development. There are no clearly defined north/south routes (Brentwood Rd is the nearest, and is far from ideal for many reasons), and the entire area has no semblance of a defined street grid.

Ideally, the entire area should be bounded (or plan to be bounded) by a road connecting RI Ave to the 9th St Bridge, along the railroad tracks. This would establish a nicely-defined perimeter for eventual development on the current site of the Post Office facility, its many parking lots, and possibly the railyards. None of these facilities need to be located within a stone's throw of downtown DC.

The placement of this "main street" area will undoubtedly be unsuccessful, as it simply isn't connected to anything.

It would also be wise to plan for the eventual burial/decking of portions of the parking lot at the Giant/Home Depot site, as the lot is seriously overbuilt, and will be on prime real estate once the rest of the new development goes up.

Basically, what I'm saying is: The area desperately needs a master plan. It's a mess right now, and the new development around the Metro station is only a small piece of the puzzle.

Good article, David!

Comment by Alex

Tue, 18 May 2010 14:13:04 EDT

It's an improvement, but not that great. It's inward focus is very suburban and reminds me of the failed TOD projects in Dallas-- Victory Park and Park Lane Station.

Comment by D

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:58:32 EDT

I feel kinda bad for David. He did a great job on his post but all the commenters are over on the soda tax story.

As it is, I'm supportive of anything that makes that part of the city look less like an abandoned warehouse district. The proposed development is a huge improvement.

Comment by Redline SOS

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:55:32 EDT

The project also fails to incorporate housing for purchase, rather then for rent.

Comment by Steve S

Tue, 18 May 2010 13:38:45 EDT

And south and East of the post office facility, there are even larger tracts available if they decked over the rail yards(leaving the yards operational, obviously). Someday, a new neighborhood could stretch all the way to Union Station.