Posts about Nationals Ballpark

Inside, the boats have a double row of seats and a crew of 2 or 3. There are no bathrooms, and no vending.

Shortly after casting off from Washington Harbor there are great views of Georgetown and Foggy Bottom.

Thanks to calm water and shoreline trails, the river and its banks are multi-modal.

The Roosevelt Bridge is the first of many that the ferry passes under.

Between Roosevelt and Memorial bridges, the monuments of the National Mall are visible.

Memorial Bridge is the most ornate of Washington's Potomac bridges.

Monuments continue to be visible as the ferry passes West Potomac Park.

The 14th Street Bridge looks very plain.

Metrorail's Yellow Line bridge is even plainer.

Last and oldest of the 14th Street Bridge cluster, the Long Bridge looks ancient compared to any other on the river.

After crossing below Long Bridge, East Potomac Park becomes visible on the east bank, while Crystal City and National Airport dominate the west bank.

Looking back upstream, Rosslyn, the National Cathedral, and the Washington Monument are prominent.

At Hains Point the ferry turns to go up the Anacostia River.

Looking up the Anacostia, the Frederick Douglass Bridge rises, and the baseball stadium comes into view.

Yards Park becomes visible beneath Douglass Bridge.

The stadium looms large above the river.

Finally, the ferry docks at Diamond Teague Park, just downstream from Navy Yard.

For even more photos of the ride, view the complete Flickr set.

What did the commission want to accomplish? Linton said in the news release,

We expect multiple riders to be using taxi services. The additional fare provides a fair compensation to drivers. It will also offer an incentive to deal with the increased congestion around the ballpark that could otherwise depress service, as well as assure service in other parts of the city.

At first blush, these reasons seem nonsensical and contradictory. The commission wants to encourage drivers to operate around the ballpark, so they have a surcharge to create an incentive for drivers to head to the ballpark. But then, they want drivers to not all cluster around the ballpark, so they have a surcharge for drivers to go elsewhere. Don't these just cancel each other out?

Commenters online seem to feel the same way. On the City Paper post, commenter "One City!" wrote, "I love this city so much. Whenever you think we've reached the height of absurdity, the DCTC is there to show you we still have room to grow." RedLineHero said on the Washington Post site, "What the H-E-double-hockey-stick kind of harebrained idea is that? a surcharge during the playoffs? You have GOT to be kidding me. Good on Mayor Gray for shooting that down."

Uber "surge pricing" gets more drivers on the road

This surcharge is actually a lot like popular car service Uber's "surge pricing." If demand gets high, Uber increases its fares, first to 1¼ normal, then 1½, and so on. Anyone who books a car gets a notification about the higher pricing before the car is dispatched. All of the extra money goes to the drivers.

At the recent hearing, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick defended the practice. He said that the primary reason is to increase supply. They don't want riders unable to book their cars. At busy times, by raising the price and giving drivers the money, he said, it encourages more of their drivers to get out on the road and serve customers.

By that logic, the surcharge makes some sense. Many drivers work at different times of day. A bonus for working at this likely busy time could actually encourage drivers to switch their schedules around if they can, and be available during games. Some could go to Nats Park and serve fares there, but since the surge price applies all around the city, it will also encourage drivers to serve other neighborhoods.

DCTC's explanations don't hold water

If this was the DCTC's thinking, they certainly didn't make it clear. Will Sommer at the City Paper wrote, "Taxi Cab Commission spokesman Neville Waters says the extra charge has two functions: ensuring that the city's cab drivers don't just swarm Nationals Park, and making trips more profitable for drivers who are stuck in stadium traffic." He quoted Waters saying that without the surcharge, drivers would only drive to the ballpark and nowhere else.

These reasons don't match the policy. If DCTC is worried drivers will only drive to the ballpark, why would a surcharge that applies in all neighborhoods have any effect? It doesn't make trips around the ballpark more or less appealing compared to others.

As for the second argument, compensating drivers for traffic is why the rates include both time and distance. The playoff games probably won't cause traffic jams any worse than other events in DC, and the commission doesn't authorize surcharges every time there's a motorcade. If the DCTC believes that large traffic jams cause drivers to unfairly lose money, then they should raise the per-minute idling rate instead of using surcharges.

However, if the DCTC actually just wants to get more cabs on the road, this surcharge isn't a bad way to do that. It would just help a lot for them to actually articulate the economic reasons.

Wakehead commented at the Post, "How about they have more taxis work for the Nats games? Or is the target service model 'lines and surcharges'?" A rational answer to this could be, "Actually, the surcharge does get more taxis to work the games; it's lines OR surcharges, not lines AND surcharges, and we chose surcharges over lines."

We don't know what was going on inside the Taxi Commission's heads, but they are behaving as though they have some vague and general sense of the economic levers they have at their disposal, but aren't able to actually discuss it in clear terms.

The same dynamic played out at the recent taxi hearing, when people like Kalanick seemed to be speaking one economics-based language, and Linton and members of the DC Council a different law-based language. Ultimately, they agreed with one another, but it took hours (and some taxi drivers who didn't speak in economics) to break through the language barrier.

DCTC might actually want to consider trying a surcharge at a future event, like the Inauguration, but explaining it better. Trying a surcharge could also help them gauge how much supply it adds; Uber is able to monitor their supply and demand in real time and adjust prices accordingly, but the Taxicab Commission can't do that.

If the commission does come to recognize that it's using demand-based pricing, perhaps that will also make it less hostile to practices like Uber's "surge pricing" and other innovative pricing arrangements from mobile apps and sedan services.

Update: Uber DC manager Rachel Holt wrote in with some helpful information from their surge experience:

From what Uber has seen, during big games demand during the game is usually extremely low. Most people in DC are watching the games—whether at the stadium, or in bars, or at home, etc. By mandating the additional charges during the game, itself they are just further depressing demand (probably more than the amount of the increase), thus making drivers worse off during this period.

The data set includes 10 evening games spread from April to August. Half of the games were during the week, and the other half were on Fridays or Saturdays. I looked at the number of boardings at Navy Yard starting in the same hour as the last pitch and going through system closing.

The 10 busiest destinations are a mix of urban and suburban stations:

Top 10 destination stations

Where fans go after Nats games

Rank Station Average trips 1 Gallery Place 587.20 2 Vienna 518.56 3 Pentagon City 404.70 4 Shady Grove 320.33 5 Greenbelt 306.10

Rank Station Average trips 6 Franconia-Springfield 297.89 7 U Street 292.20 8 Dupont Circle 290.20 9 Columbia Heights 277.90 10 Crystal City 268.00

The presence of 4 end-of-line stations suggests that many riders are headed home to the farther-out suburbs directly after their games. The high ranking of Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, and Crystal City could signify the neighborhoods where more urban fans tend to live, or perhaps where they go for entertainment after the game.

Gallery Place's top ranking is a little surprising. It's probably up there because many fans are headed for a drink after game's end. Looking at the individual games, Gallery Place ranks in 1st place in half of the games in the data set. It also ranks 2nd twice, and 3rd, 4th, and 8th once each.

Is there an east-west divide?

The region often talks about an east-west divide between jobs and housing. The eastern side of the region doesn't have many jobs, resulting in many long commutes toward Montgomery County or Northern Virginia.

It appears there might also be an east-west baseball enthusiasm gap.

Other than Greenbelt (#5) and Branch Avenue (#11), few stations on the east side of the region have much ridership following Nats games. Anacostia (#19), New Carrollton (#26), College Park (#32), and Suitland (#36) are the only other east-side stations that fall in the top half of destinations.

On the other hand, 6 east-side stations are in the bottom 10. And the other 4 in the bottom 10 are stations in downtown DC.

Bottom 10 destination stations

Where fewer fans go after Nats games

Rank Station Average trips 75 Capitol Heights 13.10 76 Federal Triangle 12.80 77 Landover 12.10 78 Morgan Blvd 11.80 79 Cheverly 10.40

Rank Station Average trips 80 Stadium/Armory 10.30 81 Federal Ctr SW 8.50 82 Smithsonian 8.40 83 Judiciary Square 6.30 84 Deanwood 6.00

It's also possible that this effect comes from the data set only looking at riders who enter at Navy Yard, not at Capitol South and Eastern Market. A fan going to New Carrollton will save a lot of time by walking to Capitol South for the Orange Line, but that trip is not counted; it only is if that fan rode from Navy Yard to L'Enfant Plaza and transferred.

Notes on methodology

The data capture everyone who enters the system after a Nats game, not simply Nats fans. It also includes stadium employees and anyone else who happened to board the Metro at Navy Yard after the game ended.

Because Metro often closes parts of lines on weekends, some stations received odd rankings on certain dates. To help adjust for this, the numbers in this post reflect adjusted averages. I excluded any station that was downstream from a closure on the date of a game, or any station that was closed for work. I also excluded the last station before the closure because that station generally saw much higher-than-normal ridership.

For example, on Friday, July 20, the Red Line was closed between Friendship Heights and Grosvenor starting at 10 pm. On that date, Friendship Heights (which ranks 30th overall) came in first. Shady Grove, which is almost always in the top 10, came in 52nd. These numbers clearly are an artifact of temporary service patterns instead of a trend.

The adjusted average has the same top 10 stations as the unadjusted average, though the order is different. The stations in 4th, 5th, and 6th place are affected because of closures.

This analysis also only looked at traffic from Navy Yard, even though we know that many Nats fans walk or take other transit to meet the Orange Line at Capitol South or Eastern Market. At Navy Yard, we can safely assume the vast majority of people entering right after the game are Nats fans. In contrast, that assumption probably won't hold as strongly for the Orange Line stations.

Here's the full list, shown ranked by the (adjusted) average number of passengers riding there from Navy Yard over all 10 games:

Destination stations

Where fans go after Nats games

Rank Station 1 Gallery Place 2 Vienna 3 Pentagon City 4 Shady Grove 5 Greenbelt 6 Franconia-Springfield 7 U Street 8 Dupont Circle 9 Columbia Heights 10 Crystal City 11 Branch Avenue 12 Rosslyn 13 Foggy Bottom 14 Huntington 15 Ballston 16 L'Enfant Plaza 17 West Falls Church 18 Bethesda 19 Anacostia 20 King Street 21 East Falls Church 22 Mount Vernon Square 23 Court House 24 Grosvenor 25 Woodley Park 26 New Carrollton 27 Silver Spring 28 Fort Totten 29 Clarendon 30 Friendship Heights 31 Dunn Loring 32 College Park 33 Eisenhower Avenue 34 Glenmont 35 Archives 36 Suitland 37 Braddock Road 38 McPherson Square 39 Tenleytown 40 Union Station 41 Farragut North 42 Georgia Avenue

Rank Station 43 Van Ness 44 Metro Center 45 Cleveland Park 46 Virginia Square 47 Pentagon 48 Shaw 49 Rockville 50 Southern Avenue 51 Forest Glen 52 Farragut West 53 Van Dorn Street 54 Prince George's Plaza 55 NoMa 56 Naylor Road 57 Twinbrook 58 Takoma 59 White Flint 60 Wheaton 61 West Hyattsville 62 Rhode Island Avenue 63 Brookland 64 Largo 65 Congress Heights 66 Waterfront 67 Medical Center 68 Benning Road 69 National Airport 70 Eastern Market 71 Potomac Avenue 72 Addison Road 73 Minnesota Avenue 74 Capitol South 75 Capitol Heights 76 Federal Triangle 77 Landover 78 Morgan Boulevard 79 Cheverly 80 Stadium/Armory 81 Federal Center SW 82 Smithsonian 83 Judiciary Square 84 Deanwood

Update: The original post showed circles with the diameter proportional to the number of trips, rather than the area. The map has now been updated.

Near SE planning started long before Nats

As neighborhood blog JDLand has meticulously documented, the neighborhood's transformation began in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The District cleared blighted property and the Federal government decided to make the vacant land it owned available for development. In 1996, the District demolished the Ellen Wilson housing project under a Hope VI grant.

Two years later, the last of the Capper high-rises and the old Washington Star building were both closed, and parts of Capper demolished in 2000. In that same year, Congress passed the Southeast Federal Center Public-Private Development Act of 2000, allowing the GSA to begin negotiations with private developers to develop 55 acres of the Southeast Federal Center.

Over the same time period, the national and local government were making deals. In the late '90s, the Navy awarded a contract to build five new buildings in the Navy Yard as part of the NAVSEA Headquarters Project, the Marines inked a deal to build the Marine Bachelor Enlisted Quarters on the Capper footprint, and Federal and District agencies that controlled land along the Anacostia signed an agreement to develop the ambitious Anacostia Waterfront Initiative.

After a long delay, the GSA finalized deals to bring a new Department of Transportation Headquarters and the massive Yards mixed-use development to the Southeast Federal Center. Around that time, HUD awarded DC a $35 million grant to build more than 1500 new housing units at the Arthur Capper and Carrollsburg project sites, filling most of the area between M Street and the Southeast Freeway from 2nd to 7th Street.

In 2003, the District released the South Capitol Gateway and Corridor Improvement Study, which called for fundamentally redesigning South Capitol Street as a neighborhood boulevard and replacing the Douglass Bridge; and the Council approved funding for Capitol Hill Tower—a combined Courtyard by Marriott hotel and 344-unit apartment that would open in 2006. Finally, in early 2004, planning began on Canal Park.

Cranes were up when the Nats came to town

Prior to the announcement of the baseball stadium, construction was well under way. In 2002, two large office buildings on M Street opened and 4,100 NAVSEA employees started work at the Navy Yard. In 2003 the Federal Gateway building opened and the next year the Marine Barracks.

Maritime Plaza opened its two office buildings in 2001 and 2003. And developers and officials were negotiating or planning other projects, like the WASA site, Half Street, 20M, Florida Rock and Diamond Teague Park, during this time as well.

It was only after all of this had occurred, that District selected the area for the baseball stadium and even later, in a very close vote, that they financed the stadium. It would be another 14 months before the Council passed the lease agreement that would make construction of the baseball stadium possible. In fact, the vast majority of projects—by value, acre or number—in the area had their start before the stadium site was finalized.

More than just real estate deals

Political leadership played a important part in revitalization as well. The election of Anthony Williams as Mayor in 1998 ended the Barry era, and instilled confidence in the business community that investment in DC was safe. The Williams administration spearheaded the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative and worked hard to create an development-friendly environment.

The Federal Government assisted in 1997 with the DC First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit and again in 2001 when Congress dissolved the Financial Control Board. As Garance Franke-Ruta wrote in a recent piece in the Atlantic, "[t]he tax credit had a dramatic impact in encouraging moderate and middle-income people to put down roots in DC, especially younger, college-educated white people, and invest their sweat equity in fixing up rundown housing stock."

So strong was the change, that in 2002 the Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate (AFIRE) named Washington, DC the top city in the US and the world for real estate investment, only a decade after being known as the "Murder Capital of the World."

Better transit brought more people, more investment

Another major catalyst was the completion of WMATA's Green Line. Until 1999, Navy Yard was the end penultimate station on a stub line that only served a handful of stations, all in central DC. That year, it was extended south of the river and into Prince George's County in 2001 making the area more easily accessible, particularly to suburban workers.

A study of neighborhoods along the Green Line from Navy Yard to Petworth showed that during the 2000s, the area added more young people, more multi-family units, and more jobs than either the Rosslyn-Balston corridor or the Northwest DC Red Line Corridor. The baseball stadium can't be viewed as the catalyst for the whole corridor, but the Metro line can be.

While development deals and transit improvements played large parts, Near Southeast also benefited from more general forces at work. As the new millennium began, Washington was experiencing a regional boom. Several areas went through a massive redevelopment from 1997-2007 including Gallery Place, Near SE, U Street, Barracks Row, Columbia Heights, and Rosslyn-Ballston. The pattern of development in those areas, over that time period, looks very similar.

At the same time, DC and its neighborhoods benefited from a general return to cities. Not only has DC's population been growing since the 2000 census, but "28 of the nation's biggest metropolitan counties grew faster from April 2010 to July 2011 than the rest of the nation as a whole."

Sites adjacent to the stadium still empty

If Councilmember Graham's assertion that "we wouldn't have all this development" were true, we'd expect to see development start closer to the stadium after it was built and radiate away from there over time. But mapping out the development, what we see is that almost every lot next to the stadium remains undeveloped.

The area east of the Metro station seems to be the core of the transformation, with later work building off of that. Only one property that abuts the stadium, the Camden South Capitol condos, has been developed in the 8 years since the stadium site was announced. You have to look across M Street to find any other post-stadium development, and those 5 properties are as linked to the pre-stadium development as they are to the stadium itself.

No stadium can be just as good

Thanks to New York's failed bid for this summer's Olympics, we also have a recent answer to the question of what happens when a stadium isn't built. The answer is development.

When New York City lost the 2012 Olympics to London, the city revamped its proposed stadium site to create Hudson Yards. This development has so much potential, the New York Times wrote "the Olympic bid's defeat may have been one of the best things to happen for the city's growth in recent memory."

There is no doubt that Nats stadium, by pumping $1 billion into the neighborhood and using eminent domain to consolidate property, may have sped up the Near Southeast revitalization. In time, it may even prove to bring additional development of the area.

But the evidence so far is that, at best, it hasn't been a drag on the process that was already in place. Near Southeast was a neighborhood on its way when the Nationals were still playing in Montreal.

From green roofs to efficient lighting to water filtration to the bicycle valet, the Nationals' efforts are all valuable—but they're no longer cutting edge. In the years since Nats Park opened, the Minnesota Twins have opened Target Field, also LEED Silver certified. Then the Pittsburgh Penguins raised the bar further, opening a LEED Gold certified arena.

And all of those stadiums have been outdone by a college facility. The University of Florida's Heavener Football Complex is LEED platinum-certified, the highest possible rating.

So how can the Nats get back to a leadership position?

Renewable energy. If the Boston Red Sox can put solar panels on Fenway Park, there's no reason why the Nats can't have some as well. Even the Washington Redskins, whose owner is no friend of the environment and who manage to screw up almost everything else, have installed a sizable solar array at FedEx Field.

Put the players out front. Nationals pitcher Collin Balester is part of Players for the Planet, speaking out on the need for recycling & climate action. Why not include him in these clips along with the front office staff?

Tear down the awful parking garages. Not only are they eyesores that block views of the Capitol, not only do they sit empty most of the time, but they encourage driving to a park that's next to one Metro stop and a 15 minute walk from several others. Imagine how much revenue the Nats could recapture from The Bullpen across the street by turning the garage space into an inviting area to eat, drink, shop and socialize. Yes, DC paid tens of millions of dollars to build the garages—but letting the mistake stand won't get that money back.

Get serious about reducing fans' trash. Nats Park only recycles plastic bottles and aluminum cans, while the District's municipal recycling service takes all kinds of plastics, as well as glass, aluminum and paper. The red-helmeted recycle bins aren't marked well enough as such, and trash is often discarded in them. The Nats should also require their vendors to use only biodegradable food packaging.

Stop selling ads on everything to polluters. It's not quite in the same league as Pittsburgh's "green" arena selling its naming rights to a polluting coal company. But the Exxon Mobil-sponsored left field wall billboard, Exxon Mobil-sponsored 7th inning stretch, Exxon Mobil-sponsored organic cotton hat, and Exxon Mobil-sponsored stadium replica really distract from the Nats' efforts to show they care about the environment & public health.

Finally, how's this for a headline: "Nationals Sign Local Environmental Blogger as Left-Handed Reliever"! Think about it, Mike Rizzo.

A strange symbol in a station name would cause untold confusion. How will people talk about the station in text messages? There isn't a key for "Curly W logo" on any smartphones. Many apps contain lists of stations. What would they do? Does the GTFS data feed specification include a mode for a name to contain an image? Should it be vector graphics or raster?

In reality, what would really happen is that the station will be called "Navy Yard-W" in many places. And inevitably, some will assume that it was named for our 43rd President. This comes just 10 years after this region fought against Congressional meddling that forced the name of a locally unpopular President on a station.

A lot of organizations and jurisdictions are jumping on this opportunity to ask for name changes. Alexandria just voted to recommend changing King Street to King Street-Old Town. Holy Cross Hospital has officially asked Montgomery County to support adding it to the Forest Glen station.

The Golden Triangle BID wants one or both of the Farragut stations to bear the name Golden Triangle. The Capitol Riverfront BID also wanted some recognition, but it's pretty clear its name is way too long to be a part of a station, even if such a change were desirable.

ANC 6D also unanimously supported changing Waterfront to "Waterfront-Arena Stage," or alternatively "SW Waterfront." A proposal to add "Banneker Park" to L'Enfant Plaza didn't even come to a vote, though.

Most riders have consistently argued that shorter names are better. As Kurt Raschke pointed out, in most cities the station names don't name the neighborhoods but rather the station locations. That's why New York has five 23rd Street stations and doesn't call them Chelsea, Murray Hill, and so on. They do, however, have their major stadiums in station names, and a few major centers like Times Square.

In the Washington region, though, station names have generally come to reflect neighborhoods. In fact, some areas like North Cleveland Park have actually taken on the names of surrounding Metro stations to identify the area in common parlance. Therefore, as long as names stay short, adding a commonly-used neighborhood name to a station might have some merit.

"Navy Yard" doesn't represent the way people talk about the neighborhood today. They do call it the ballpark area, so "Navy Yard-Ballpark" seems acceptable, as does "King Street-Old Town." "SW Waterfront" would only add 2 characters (and the "SEU" has to come off anyway), though I wonder if that's necessary. Have people been confused about whether Waterfront station was the one in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood?

The one change that makes the most sense is changing New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet U to NoMA-Gallaudet U. That's the only one which will shorten a name, and one of the more unwieldy at that. Plus, the station actually has no entrance on New York Avenue.

This change actually polled poorly with the WMATA focus group, perhaps because NoMA is also something of a contrived name, but there really isn't an alternative. The neighborhood has no other commonly-used name. It's just not going to be "Swampoodle-Gallaudet U."

I understand the BIDs' desires, but just having a BID isn't a good enough reason to add to or change the name. Heck, the Downtown BID doesn't even have its name on any of the 6 Metro stations in its area, and that name is unequivocally the name of the neighborhood. People don't really call the areas north west of the White House "Golden Triangle" in everyday conversation. Changing the station name would likely lead to them starting to do that, but why is this a public policy goal? If it's so important, why not just rename the BID to the "Farragut North BID"? Then—presto—it has a station named for it.

Jurisdictions should avoid adding the names of adjacent arts and hospital venues. They shouldn't have done it for Strathmore, either. We don't have Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter-Woolly Mammoth, or Foggy Bottom-Kennedy Center. Previous WMATA boards made a mistake in allowing so many things to be tacked on to station names years ago, and with subtitles we've finally found a way to move in the opposite direction.

Local jurisdictions and the WMATA Board will need to stand up against bad ideas. They should reject the repetitive and confusing Silver Line names where 8 stations all start with only 3 words. They should reject adding hospitals, theaters, and BID names to stations. And certainly they should speedily reject any logos.