Posts about NoMa

WMATA has also started replacing signs at the station, formerly known as New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University with its new name: NoMa-Gallaudet U. This is one of several station name changes the WMATA board recently approved.

Metro recently posted a sign on the existing racks, saying that it will be moving them farther from the wall on May 10, and installed 27 new racks. There used to be 8 racks at the N Street entrance to the station, and 5 racks at the M Street entrance. Now, there are 30 at the N Street entrance, and 10 at the M Street entrance.

While these improvements are excellent, Metro should still consider installing racks inside the station for even more safety. Theft has declined, but I've noticed a recent uptick in missing front wheels.

It's fantastic to see Metro responding to the demand for more and better bicycle parking. There are probably more racks now than absolutely necessary to accommodate the people who bike there on an average day, but now that nearby residents have this bike parking, hopefully more will start cycling to the NoMa-Gallaudet U Station.

The highlight of the project is the Metropolitan Branch Trail Atrium (circled in red above).

This three story space will create a bike-friendly entrance to the project unlike anything in the DC area. It will include a paved and signed entrance to the atrium which includes LED lighting and automatic doors that will allow cyclist to ride into the atrium. There will be an automatic bike pump for maintenance; a water fountain; a refreshment area with vending machines, tables and chairs; indoor bike parking and a natural ventilation system to supplement the HVAC system in appropriate seasons.

WABA has been invited to provide programming for the space and will be allowed to use the site for staging rides. It will not be open 24 hours a day, but it will be open at most times of the day.

In addition, the project will improve the trail along the building line. The developers will replace the trail surface, landscape the area along it, and replace the solar trail lighting with lights on the side of the building. A portion of the trail will be enhanced for pedestrian use with different paving patterns and treatment to encourage trail use for commuters walking from the Metro station and to separate users.

The atrium will be at the elevation of the trail, so users will have to go down stairs or an elevator to access the plaza in the center of the site and from there access the surrounding streets. The stairs will have a bike trough as will stairs from the plaza to the sidewalk along the New York Avenue Bridge.

The first building to go up will likely be the western building, which will be residential. The developers will build a temporary 6- to 8-foot-wide paved connection from the trail to this building while they wait to build the two office buildings on the east that will include the atrium. The residential building will have indoor bike storage as well as outdoor visitor bike parking. One of the office buildings will have a fitness facility that will give commuters access to a shower.

DDOT worked with the developers on the PUD to make sure that the project would be permeable for cyclists and pedestrians, and from all appearances this has the potential to be a flagship example of how development should work with adjacent trails. I predict future Bicycle Summit tours of DC to include this as a must-see stop.

Cross-posted at the WashCycle.

From there, users continuing south toward Union Station can go west to 1st Street NE, which leads to the Metro station, the Bikestation, Columbus Circle and more. DDOT is reconstructing the segment from K Street north, and has designed this cycle track for the portion up to M.

According to Mike Goodno of DDOT, they aren't looking at extending the cycle track north of M because because of parking and hotel drop-off issues north of M Street. That means that someone riding southbound on 1st Street from NoMa will have to cross over somehow to get to the cycle track, either by queueing up in front of the traffic on M Street and then turning right into the track, or turning left onto M, or crossing as a pedestrian at the crosswalk.

A few streets cross the segment in question. Drivers can turn right from the northbound lanes or left from the southbound lanes across the track. Therefore, turning conflicts might be an issue. Goodno says they haven't yet decided how to handle these turns.

There are also a few curb cuts accessing the adjacent properties, like the Greyhound bus terminal. The diagrams show some of these potentially being closed. The project wouldn't immediately close them, but DDOT would want to work with property owners to locate any curb cuts on side streets instead as those properties are redeveloped.

The project is currently slated for 2013 or 2014. DDOT also hopes to continue the cycle track south of K eventually, though that is not part of this current project.

They're interested in hearing feedback. What do you think of the plan?

At the corner of M and North Capitol, we caught up to him. The officer driving the car chirped the siren, and pulled to the curb when the boy started biking faster. Both officers (from the 1st District) got out of the car and started questioning the boy about the wheel we had seen him carrying minutes earlier.

He denied knowing anything about it. The officers talked to him for a few minutes until a gentleman showed up. It turned out this was the boy's father. More questioning eventually led the boy to admit that the wheel was in his room in their house. His father sent him home to bring it back to the police.

It turns out the boy was 13. The police didn't arrest him, and I don't know what his father did or said after we drove away. I hope that he realizes what he's been doing is wrong, and I hope (at least) he really knows he's being watched now.

Remember, keep using a cable lock and a u-lock when you park at the New York Avenue Metro station. Don't leave a wheel unlocked where this boy, or anyone else for that matter, could walk away with it and take it home.

Cross-posted at The District Curmudgeon.

Weiner noted that the WMATA Board would be discussing station name changes on Thursday. The public will not be able to speak, but a public hearing will follow on October 27th.

In the meantime, the school will be setting up a petition online advocating for the name "NoMa/Gallaudet U." Weiner noted that "members of the DC Council," which likely means at least Ward 5 council member Harry Thomas, Jr., favor this name over DDOT's proposal, "New York Ave-NoMa" with a subtitle of "Gallaudet U."

The Gallaudet University community believes that theirs should not be the only university in the region to have its name used as merely a subtitle for a station, rather than a part of the primary heading. Actually, 2 other stations with universities on their names, West Falls Church-VT/UVA and Vienna/Fairfax-GMU, also are slated to receive subtitles. However, 8 other stations with universities will not.

David suggested using subtitles for all stations with points of interest, including universities. Interestingly, Weiner mentioned that the university was promised from the beginning that their name would always be part of the station name. While making it part of a subtitle would technically keep that promise, I believe it would not be in the spirit of such an agreement to relegate the school's name to a secondary role.

What do you think?

Update: The Program Development office at Gallaudet University sent this comment:

When the station was in the planning stages, I. King Jordan, president of Gallaudet at the time, was on the advisory board that supported establishing the station. He participated in the groundbreaking and was in attendance at the opening. Some of the WMATA meetings regarding the station were held at Gallaudet. At one such meeting, the chair of the board, Gladys Mack, committed that Gallaudet would be in the name of the station. Furthermore, advertisers have used the station to target the deaf community, knowing that it is heavily trafficked by Gallaudet students, staff and faculty.

Under the process laid out by WMATA for station name changes, the jurisdiction containing that station needs to first request a name change and identify someone willing itself be willing to pay for the cost of changing signs, pylons and more. The WMATA Board then approves or disapproves each proposal.

Various organizations including Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and nonprofits have asked DDOT for station renames. The NoMA BID wanted its name on the station in its area, for example. The National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall requested the name change for Smithsonian.

The Golden Triangle BID also asked to add its name to one of the Farragut stations, and Capitol Riverfront wanted to be on Navy Yard, though DDOT didn't advance those requests. ANC Commissioner Kent Boese has been pushing to change Georgia Ave-Petworth to Georgia Ave-Petworth/Park View or Petworth-Park View.

Of the proposals DDOT accepted, only "Navy Yard-Ballpark" conforms to WMATA's naming policy, which calls for a maximum of 19 characters including subtitles. As Matt Johnson wrote, subtitles should not be an excuse to add more to names.

DDOT has withdrawn adding Kennedy Center to the Foggy Bottom stop since there was no organization willing to front the $100,000 or greater cost of changing a name. That must mean the Kennedy Center couldn't or didn't want to pay for the change. If that's not getting added, is it appropriate to add Arena Stage? Was it appropriate to add Strathmore, currently the only private non-educational organization on a station name?

The important principle is not to let station names become "the Yellow Pages," as one WMATA Board member put it, advertising nearby organizations and attractions. The purpose of a station is to help people find their way around the system, not to promote things to do.

But if Kennedy Center is not going on and Arena Stage might be inappropriate, is it right to add Ballpark? To me, it does seem appropriate somehow, but should we be promoting organized sports (owned by a for-profit entity that's acted fairly rapaciously toward the District) and not a nonprofit and donor-funded arts organization that's contributed a great deal to its neighborhood?

(Disclosure: I am a member of the board of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, which isn't part of a station name, and may in some ways compete with other theaters or with other entertainment such as baseball.)

Concerning the station near Gallaudet, I find it baffling that anyone wants to keep New York Avenue on the name. The station is not on New York Avenue. No entrance to the station is on New York Avenue. The platform stretches from Florida Avenue, well south of New York Avenue, to M Street NE, even farther south.

New York Avenue also runs very close to McPherson Square and Metro Center, and tourists in downtown hotels do get confused and take Metro to this station by mistake. "NoMA-Gallaudet U" would be short and appropriate.

As for Smithsonian, does anyone not know how to get to the Mall? This proposal seems unnecessary. Additionally, several stations, not just the Smithsonian stop, serve the Mall. Naming one stop ignores the usability of other nearby stations, like L'Enfant Plaza.

Already, many tourists use Smithsonian to get to Smithsonian museums when other stations would work better, such as L'Enfant for Air and Space. When major events come to the Mall, Smithsonian can face severe overcrowding, and Metro tries to encourage visitors to use other nearby stations. Adding National Mall could exacerbate these problems, leading visitors to use Smithsonian to get to rallies at the Capitol end of the Mall when they really should be getting off at Federal Center SW or Judiciary Square.

Finally, each name is something of a hodgepodge that contains 2 elements both in the primary name, or has a subtitle. I continue to believe WMATA missed a big opportunity by not moving into the subtitles all pieces of names after dashes or slashes. Why should "West Falls Church-VT/UVA" become "West Falls Church" with a subtitle, but "Brookland-CUA" not become "Brookland" with a subtitle of "CUA"?

If the new policy is to use subtitles, then all stations with multiple pieces in their names should use the subtitles for all but the first piece. In this case, Navy Yard-Ballpark could be an acceptable name, but Navy Yard with a subtitle of Ballpark is even more appropriate; if Arena Stage is indeed added to the nearby station, it should likewise be in the subtitle to avoid making the name on pylons and signs, and spoken by conductors, even longer and more confusing to riders.

If you want to convey opinions to the WMATA Board about these changes, you can email boardofdirectors@wmata.com.

In 2009, years of effort to remove three billboards at the corner of New Jersey Avenue and P Street NW came to an end when the billboards were cut down with a welding torch. The event marked the conclusion of a long campaign by the residents of Shaw to remove what they saw as blight from a neighborhood street corner.

One of the lasting results of that fight was that it made DC residents aware of the list of "special signs" permitted by the District. The "Special Signs Inventory," maintained by DCRA, lists 32 authorized large-scale advertisements that aren't technically billboards, according to DC regulations, located on the sides of buildings.

The Uline Arena signs are not on that list. There has been a Douglas Development sign on the side of the building for as long as I can remember, surely to entice interested parties to inquire about available space in the building. Last year, when Carmine's opened in the Penn Quarter neighborhood, a large advertisement for the Italian restaurant appeared on the side of the arena, as well. A sign advertising FroZenYo turned up within the last couple weeks.

That's 3 large "special signs" located on the building. Is this legal? I contacted Douglas Development to ask them about the regulatory process required to place these signs, but did not receive a call back. If they reply, I'll be sure to post an update.

The signs aren't on the city's official list, so they certainly appear to flout the rules. However, as Michael Neibauer noted two weeks ago, Douglas Development carries a sizable property tax debt to the city. Perhaps DC doesn't mind looking the other way if this helps bring Douglas Development income that can be used to settle the tab.

Cross-posted at The District Curmudgeon.

Red indicates typical parking lots that could presumably be used for other purposes, purple indicates parking lots that appear to be owned by the government or other institutions and are unlikely to be developed, and orange indicates the locations for CityCenter DC and the future downtown Walmart.

A few points jump out.

1. Downtown is almost completely devoid of surface parking lots, an accolade that very few other American cities claim.
   
2. Government and institutional uses are major offenders.
   
3. NoMA and the Mount Vernon Triangle (outlined in yellow on the map) still have a lot of development potential left.
   
4. 7th Street near the new convention center is begging for attention.

All I did to create this map was to simply color on top of aerial imagery, so it's possible some of the details are wrong, or that I missed a few lots. If you see something that should be corrected, let me know in the comments. Regardless, it's an interesting study.

Does anything else jump out to you?

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.