Posts about 1333 M SE

The freeway here is actually four separate roadways, two in each direction. The middle two lead to ramps to the 11th Street Bridges, which are being removed; the outer two connect to the Southeast Freeway. On the eastern end, the ramps connect to Pennsylvania Avenue at Barney Circle and also pass underneath as a roadway that runs along the waterfront to RFK Stadium.

Without the freeway, DDOT could reconstruct this roadway as a new local road between L and M. Let's call it Lamp Street. It no longer needs to cary Pennsylvania Avenue traffic to the freeway, as those cars should take 295 to the 11th Street Bridge. Therefore, it only would carry cars going to and from the stadium and local traffic.

1-2 lanes each way, plus parallel parking, sidewalks, and a two-way cycle track along the railroad side would suffice. With the remaining land, DC could allow some new development fronting onto Lamp Street and onto L. I don't know what neighbors would like to see, but if I lived there, I'd like to see some townhouses facing L, connected in the back to taller buildings along Lamp.

The townhouses could be 2½-3½ stories above ground. The larger portions could be set back enough to keep L feeling low-rise while also providing more opportunities for adding housing and some nice views of the water on the Lamp Street side.

Best of all, bridges could then connect over the railroad tracks. If the existing grade of the freeway (and what will become Lamp Street) is high enough above the tracks to allow the CSX double-height trains to pass completely below, then 13th, 14th, and 15th could continue to new intersections with Lamp (with a downward slope), and pedestrian bridges could then cross the tracks.

If that's not high enough, the grade could be raised to make Lamp the same height as L, or else the extensions of 13th, 14th, and 15th could simply be pedestrian plazas atop the ground floor of the Lamp apartment buildings connecting to bridges over both Lamp and the tracks. That would avoid direct connections from Lamp to the other streets, which some residents might like to avoid drivers using those streets, but would also diminish connectivity.

The next question becomes how the bridges can let pedestrians and cyclists down from the high altitude over the tracks. Extending the bridges down to the waterfront should be part of the Cohen project. Pedestrians and cyclists shouldn't have to travel long distances to the east or west to get down; they should be able to descend directly toward the waterfront.

These could be standalone bridges extending along the streets' right-of-way, and they could also connect directly to parts of the new buildings. Cohen should plan to build these bridges and ensure any overpasses between the buildings aren't in the way. DC could also require CSX to go along with these bridges as one of the conditions of their Virginia Avenue tunnel project.

The bridge at 14th, in particular, would make this new waterfront plaza and the riverfront boathouses easily accessible from the Potomac Avenue Metro. The L'Enfant Plan was about connections: avenues and roadways connected major circles and squares to each other and to the edges of the city. Ensuring an easy connection from the major intersection at Potomac Avenue to the waterfront, and reconnecting the grid across the tracks even for non-vehicular traffic, best fulfills the true spirit of the plan.

Rather than worrying about the width of the right-of-way for paper streets that don't actually go anywhere, NCPC should focus on guaranteeing these connections and upholding the intent of the L'Enfant Plan.

Whether DC goes with this plan or some other arrangement for the current Southeast Freeway segment east of the 11th Street Bridges, it would help to make a decision soon. The most recent designs for the 11th Street Bridges include a ramp from the current northernmost freeway road up to 8th Street.

If Lamp (or whatever it's ultimately called) ends up using the south side of the freeway right-of-way, DDOT should make sure Skanska lines up the new ramp with the final road.

Instead of directly flowing into the freeway on the western end, DDOT could reconnect 9th Street between I and Virginia Avenue, where current ramps lead to the defunct freeway. The reclaimed land on each side, between the 11th Street Bridge ramps, could provide space for the Marine Barracks expansion instead of taking the nearby community garden.

According to the NCPC report, DC worked out this deal with Cohen Companies (which owns the project) as part of a settlement over another lawsuit concerning the Southwest Waterfront. If the project doesn't win necessary approvals, that settlement becomes void and Cohen can continue to pursue damages in the Southwest case.

The DC Historic Preservation Review Board approved the project and the formal closing of Virginia Avenue, 14th Street, and a small strip of M Street, provided that development doesn't encroach on protected viewsheds. The question is how wide to keep the streets' viewsheds: the original L'Enfant width or something narrower?

The L'Enfant Plan set aside very wide spaces for streets. Those "streets" are much wider than the actual roadways we have today; for many neighborhoods, they span the distance from the buildings on one side to the other, including the front yards, sidewalks, and tree box areas.

The "streets" are narrower in certain spots, however. Two triangular federal "reservations" make up the western and eastern ends of the planned buildings, and another one is part of the plaza. These reservations are areas set aside from the L'Enfant plan and have variously become triangular parks or buildings. Just like Farragut and McPherson Squares cut into the K Street right-of-way, making the street narrower in those areas, these reservations partly occupy the right-of-way for M and Virginia.

As a result, the remaining Virginia Avenue and M Street right-of-way are narrower next to the reservations than elsewhere. Cohen appears to have the right to develop on the reservations, meaning that at most, any viewshed would only be the width of the narrower part of the "streets."

However, the NCPC staff report argues that there should be no development on any of the right-of-way for the streets, even where the right-of-way is wider than adjacent to the reservations. This would prohibit building even along the stretches which don't actually maintain any viewsheds due to the developed reservations.

Complicating this is a legal dispute between DC and the federal government about an existing law that says DC may sell off these reservations. The law says,

Where title to the street or alley, of which all or part is to be closed, can reasonably be determined to be held by the United States or the District, the Council may dispose of the property to the best advantage of the District and may assess the fair market value of the land and the value of the District's improvements on the land to the person(s) to whom the title to the land is to vest. Any money received for land where the title was held by the United States shall be deposited in the Treasury of the United States to the credit of the United States.

In a 1986 case, Techworld v. D.C. Preservation League over the closing of 8th Street, NW where it now passes between the Techworld buildings south of Mount Vernon Square, a court ruled for DC but the case was then settled. NCPC staff still feel that DC does not have the right to sell these portions of streets. The staff report also objects to the bridge over 14th Street.

If DC's right to sell the reservations is valid, as it appears so far to be, then banning development on adjacent parts of the Virginia Avenue and M Street right-of-way doesn't actually protect any viewsheds. More importantly, there isn't much of a view to protect here. Virginia Avenue just turns into railroad tracks and a freeway, and 14th runs into the huge retaining walls between the tracks and the freeway.

The L'Enfant Plan's vistas are important where those vistas actually exist. They don't here, and even if the infrastructure one day went away somehow, they still wouldn't. Nevertheless, this plan still preserves the vistas by maintaining a clear right-of-way for all of the original L'Enfant streets. The only question is how wide that right-of-way needs to be.