Posts about Purple Line

Supporters of separated tunnels and bridges over busy streets say it makes pedestrians (and occasionally bicyclists) safer by keeping them away from heavy car traffic. But they can also isolate users from their surroundings, encouraging criminal activity. Both the Forest Glen pedestrian bridge and the Metropolitan Branch Trail, which sit above the street level, have had problems with attacks and muggings.

At the same time, taking pedestrians and bicyclists from the street only reinforces the thinking that they don't belong there. "I think [Montgomery] County doesn't seriously take biking as a form of transportation," said Peter Wolf of the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail when I interviewed himin 2007. "For me to be seen biking to work or biking in my neighborhood, it's seen as a little... odd."

Putting more pedestrians and bicyclists on the street in Bethesda shows that they have a right to use that space and makes those activities seem "normal." Building wider sidewalks or a parallel path like the Silver Spring Green Trail provides ample room for pedestrians walking for transportation or recreation.

Cycle tracks, like the one that currently exists along 15th Street in the District, give bicyclists a protected route away from car traffic similar to what they'd have on the Capital Crescent Trail. This would give users the protection the Capital Crescent Trail currently provides while allowing them to see their surroundings and be seen, making them feel safer.

Not only that, but an on-street trail would provide direct access to homes, shops, and places of work in downtown Bethesda. The existing tunnel only has entrances at Woodmont Avenue and Elm Street, meaning that anyone going to places in between already has to use surface streets.

These changes may require taking out car lanes or removing on-street parking, as county planners recommend, which might increase congestion. But it will also help to slow car traffic in Bethesda, an area where drivers shouldn't be allowed to speed through anyway, while providing safe, attractive alternatives to driving for short-distance trips. That could help reduce car traffic, in turn making it even safer for people to walk and bike around downtown Bethesda.

Placing the Capital Crescent Trail on local streets in downtown Bethesda to accommodate the Purple Line doesn't have to be an inconvenience for trail users. In fact, it could make Bethesda a better and safer place to live and visit. It also helps conserve money for other portions of the trail, which currently dead-ends 1.5 miles short of its intended terminus in downtown Silver Spring. As trail advocate and contributor Wayne Phyillaier points out, eliminating the Bethesda tunnel may be the only way to finish the trail.

Developing a network of off-street trails is a great way to tie our region together, and finishing the Capital Crescent Trail is an important part of it. But it's also important to provide links to neighborhood and activity centers, and the best way to do that is on surface streets. Running the trail through downtown Bethesda instead of under it lets us build that regional network while also giving local communities the option to bike or walk.

Planning staff is calling for the installation of lighting along the new trail from Bethesda to Silver Spring. The trail would be lit during the hours the Purple Line is open, and would allow the trail to be used safely during commuting hours. The recommendation is to design lighting so that it does not disturb neighboring properties.

Staff is also calling for emergency call boxes to be placed at intervals along the trail. This will help to promote security and reduce crime. New landscaping will help to create a pleasing trail experience and will screen trail users and neighbors from the Purple Line.

The most costly decision that will have to be made is whether to put the trail above the train in the tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue. Right now, estimates place the cost of keeping the trail in the tunnel at $40.5 million, which is 43% of the cost of the entire trail. Planning staff have recommended against putting the trail in the tunnel if the price remains so high. For a fraction of that cost, the surface alignment could be significantly improved. The Planning Department is calling for more study before making a final decision.

Not having the trail in the tunnel would mean that trail users would need to cross Wisconsin Avenue at grade. If a surface alignment is chosen, the staff recommends prioritizing pedestrians and cyclists crossing Wisconsin Avenue. They recommend a working group be convened to hammer out the design details.

A surface alignment is clearly not as nice for pedestrians and cyclists because of the Wisconsin Avenue crossing. But there are plenty of ways to make the crossing of Wisconsin safe and efficient for trail users.

The Planning Department recommends that if the surface alignment is used through Bethesda, that the trail will be made as user-friendly and safe as possible. While the exact design solutions have not been determined, many solutions will be considered, including creating a bicycle/pedestrian only signal phase for crossing Wisconsin Avenue, a separated "cycle track", raised crosswalks, and more.

And let's not forget that even if the tunnel under Wisconsin is lost to the Purple Line, the trail will still be vastly improved. It will be paved, bridge several major arterials where people have to cross at grade now, and extend 1.5 miles farther to downtown Silver Spring.

Cross-posted at The Straight Line.

The public will have a chance to weigh in at the the Planning Board's Nov. 17 work session. Trail and cycling advocates need to sort through the cost issues and be ready to present thoughtful and convincing arguments by Nov. 17.

"Save the Trail" advocates' immediate reaction to the report is that the CCT will be destroyed if trail users are forced to use the alternative alignment that crosses Wisconsin Avenue at-grade:

This at-grade crossing of a busy highway takes away the safety and convenience that make the trail so attractive. I made the case for keeping the trail in the tunnel when the estimated cost of doing so was $60 million (December 2010). With the cost now approaching $100 million, the case becomes harder to make and the tunnel route is at risk.

Maintaining the trail parallel to the light-rail tracks through Bethesda Tunnel must be our paramount issue. The trail is an important element of the Purple Line plan. But making the Bethesda tunnel the paramount issue misses the point. Opposing the Purple Line in order to save the trail would be counterproductive: the definition of "tunnel vision". It is worth referring to this map:

If our goal is to have a regional trail, then we must remember that there is an approximately 1.5-mile section at Silver Spring that is incomplete, and remains on-road. There are seven at-grade crossings of streets at traffic lights on the existing Georgetown Branch Trail east of the Bethesda Tunnel, including three crossings of multi-lane state highways (Connecticut Avenue, 16th Street, and Colesville Road).

The rebuilt trail alongside the Purple Line would replace all 1.5 miles of on-road route with a completely off-road trail into downtown Silver Spring. All seven at-grade crossings at lights would be replaced by the rail line and trail tunneling under, or bridging over, these busy roadways. Prospects for ever completing the trail and removing these seven at-grade crossings east of Bethesda are very poor unless the Purple Line is built as planned.

Losing the Bethesda Tunnel would be a significant loss for the Capital Crescent Trail. We need to fight to save it. But the trail will be more continuous and safer when rebuilt alongside the Purple Line than it is today, even if we lose the Bethesda Tunnel. Killing the Purple Line would do more harm than good to the CCT's future viability.

Editor's note: One paragraph in this post was inadvertently changed during the editing process. The offending sentence has been struck through, and a new sentence added to clarify the meaning. We regret the error.

The open houses will run from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM at these locations:

• Tuesday, November 1, 2011
  University of Maryland
  Adele H. Stamp Student Union, Prince George's Room
  College Park, MD 20742
• Wednesday, November 2, 2011
  National 4-H Youth Conference Center
  7100 Connecticut Avenue
  Chevy Chase, MD 20815
• Monday, November 7, 2011
  Silver Spring Civic Building
  One Veterans Place
  Silver Spring, MD 20910
• Thursday, November 10, 2011
  Beacon Heights Elementary School
  6929 Furman Parkway
  Riverdale, MD 20737

Between Silver Spring and Bethesda, the proposed Purple Line will run on an abandoned railroad line. This line has been a bicycle/pedestrian trail for some time, and an improved trail will be included as part of the Purple Line project.

Lyttonsville is an industrial and residential neighborhood near Silver Spring. The area is located north of East-West Highway, between the CSX tracks (MARC Brunswick Line) and Rock Creek. Here, the Purple Line diverges from the active CSX right-of-way to run on the abandoned Georgetown Branch.

The MTA briefed local residents on the new plans at a neighborhood work group meeting last week. Some significant changes have been made to plans in the area. The primary difference is that the future CCT and the Purple Line work yard are flipped in their positions. Now, the CCT is proposed to run along the north side of the Purple Line transit/trail corridor from Rock Creek to the CSX corridor.

One of the major benefits of the Purple Line to trail users will be the inclusion of grade separation at all intersections. Currently, cyclists have to cross traffic 3 intersections and one driveway between Bethesda and the eastern end of the trail in Lyttonsville. Plans had already included adding grade separations at Connecticut Avenue and Jones Mill Road.

With the proposed bridge over the tracks for Stewart Avenue and the closure of the driveway, cyclists and pedestrians will be able to cycle from the Silver Spring Transit Center to Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda without crossing a street.

Other changes are described below:

At Rock Creek, the CCT remains on the north side of the light rail tracks. The prior plans called for the CCT to switch from the north to the south side of the tracks at the Rock Creek trail bridge. The new plan holds the trail on the north side. The trail bridge is simpler since it does not have to twist under the Purple Line bridge.

The access ramp from the CCT down to the Rock Creek Trail would be like before, except that it would be built on the north side of the berm. This access ramp is still under discussion between MTA and M-NCPPC. There are concerns about cost and the impact on the trees on the side of the berm, and a decision could be taken to just continue to use the existing connection on Susanna Lane.

At Grubb Road, a new bridge will carry the access path across the Purple Line tracks to the CCT on the north side. The drawings show a long switchback ramp to provide the elevation needed for the new access bridge. But the access path is roughly along the same alignment as the old Brookville Road bridge that crossed over the B&O tracks here long ago.

The railbed elevation is already well below the elevation the access path has now, and I believe the extent of the switchback ramp shown in the drawing is grossly overstated. When I asked Purple Line project manager Mike Madden about this, he indicated the ramp in the drawing was only conceptual and was not based on any elevation measurements, so it is likely overstated in the drawing.

Along Brookville Road, MTA is proposing an access trail paralleling the main trail. The drawing shows two trails alongside each other along the south side of Brookville Road. The main CCT is the wider trail (to be 12 feet wide) that is next to the Purple Line tracks. It goes under the Lyttonsville Place bridge and under the relocated Stewart Avenue bridge.

The access trail is the narrower trail (to be 8′ wide) that is adjacent to Brookville Road and between Brookville Road and the main CCT. It serves as a Brookville Road sidewalk and also gives access to the main CCT between the Lyttonsville Place and Stewart Ave. bridges. The access trail crosses Lyttonsville Place and Stewart Avenue at-grade at the north end of the bridges.

At the Lyttonsville station, the CCT is on the north side. Under the old plan, the Purple Line tracks and station were on the south side of the rail yard, and the trail was on the south side adjacent to the industrial lots. Under the revised proposal, the trail and Purple Line have been moved to the north side, closer to Brookville road.

Additionally, MTA is considering moving the transit station location further east, closer to Stewart Ave. This would place the station closer to the entrance to the Walter Reed Annex, the area's largest employer.

A bridge at Stewart Avenue, will be constructed. Part of Stewart Avenue will be shifted to line up with the main entrance to the Walter Reed Annex and to have Stewart Avenue cross over the CCT and the Purple Line on a new bridge. The old plan had both the trail and transit crossing Stewart Avenue at-grade. This change would remove the only at-grade roadway crossing on the CCT and Purple Line between Bethesda and Silver Spring, making the rebuilt trail 100% grade separated.

A relocated trail bridge over the CSX tracks. The CCT would cross over the CSX tracks on a new bridge similar to the old plan, but the bridge would be shifted to the north closer to Kansas Avenue. This would not be a significant change for the trail, but does reduce the impact of the Purple Line on Talbot Avenue. Talbot Avenue could remain as a two way street as it is now, and much less r.o.w. would need to be taken from the several homes on Talbot Avenue.

Overall I consider flipping the CCT from the south to the north side to be roughly an even trade for trail users. Access will be slightly more inconvenient from neighborhoods to the south, but easier from the neighborhoods and businesses on the north. The trail will be closer to Brookville Road—with more traffic noise. But it will also have a new grade-separated crossing at Stewart Avenue.

Much like the lengthy discussion of north versus south in Bethesda/Chevy Chase, your preference will be determined largely by whether you live or work on the north vs. the south side of the corridor. As always, much will depend on the details to be developed during the next design phases.

The MTA comparison of the impacts shows that the overall footprint of the project is little changed through this area. A few feet of r.o.w. would be taken on the north side, but a comparible area is spared on the south side. The notable exceptions are the parking structure for the Purple Line maintenance yard employees that would be built where the car storage lots are now, and the realigned section of Stewart Avenue that would be built where the landscaping stone storage yard is now.

Some residents from neighborhoods on the south side of the project are making claims that the new plan will impact them much more than the older plan. But I don't buy it. The most active part of the project, the Purple Line main track and station, are moved farther from the south side neighborhoods. The storage tracks and maintenance building are only a few feet closer to the south side residences than in the older plan, and still have good separation from the residences.

The parking structure will be closer to the Claridge House high-rise, but will a parking structure used by the approx. 200 employees really be that much worse than the car storage lots and landscaping business lots that are there now? Detailed noise studies have been promised by MTA.

Forum on TOD and housing in Prince George's, organized by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Envision Prince George's featuring David Bowers of Enterprise Community Partners, Rodney Harrell of AARP, and developer Jair Lynch. Monday, July 11, 6:30-8:30 at the CSC Building, across from New Carrollton Metro station, 7900 Harkins Road, Lanham.

Circulator east of the river public meeting to present alternatives and get resident feedback on the route. Tuesday, July 12, 7-8:30 pm at the Southeast Neighborhood Library, 403 7th Street SE, DC.

Action Committee for Transit discussion about how White Flint advocates built support for Smart Growth, featuring Dan Hoffman and Barnaby Zall from Friends of White Flint. Tuesday, July 12, 7:30 pm at Silver Spring Center, 8818 Georgia Ave, Silver Spring, in the Woodside Conference Room.

Lunchtime workshop on Eco-City Alexandria with Bill Skrabak of the City of Alexandria and Joe Schilling of Virginia Tech discussing Alexandria's sustainability initiatives and community indicators developed based on best practices from around the country. Thursday, July 14, noon-1 pm at the Charles Houston Recreation Center, 901 Wythe Street, Alexandria.

Maryland Avenue SW plan public meeting to present draft recommendations for the CSX railway corridor between 4th and 12th Streets, SW, and adjacent property. Thursday, July 14, 6:30-8:30 at 1100 4th Street SW, DC in the 2nd floor meeting room.

St. Elizabeth's East public meeting to give feedback on land use and transportation concepts for the redevelopment of the east campus. Thursday, July 14, 7-9 pm at Imagine Southeast Public Charter School (Old Congress Heights School), 3100 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE, DC.

Takoma Langley Crossroads urban design guidelines discussion between the Planning Board and the community. The guidelines will govern development around the future Purple Line stop. Thursday, July 14, 7:00 pm at the Takoma Rec Center, 7315 New Hampshire Avenue, Takoma Park.

You can find these and many more events on the Greater Greater Washington calendar. If you know an event we should include, send it to events@ggwash.org.

The concept phase is early planning, including alternatives analysis and environmental clearance. Design is the engineering phase, including Preliminary Engineering (PE). For projects in this phase, conceptual details have been finalized and detailed construction plans are being prepared.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

I included in my presentation a video I took at a major intersection in Toronto on a cold spring day around 4 p.m. More than a dozen street cars go through this intersection in about 30 seconds. The buildings are all four floors or less.

This intersection is about 2.0 km from downtown. Count the streetcars going through the intersection in about 35 seconds. Even a guy on a bike. How tall are the buildings? Were we not maximizing the transit investment? Or is this a great example of how transit serves its purpose—moving people from one place to another, providing options for people to move to where they want and need to go.

The same is true for the Toronto subway stations. The one I used for commuting if I did not take a streetcar passed through neighborhoods of three to five-story buildings all along the corridor. The subway line ran under Danforth Ave, including Greektown, an incredibly vibrant 24-hour neighborhood, then continued for miles, with a stop every four blocks or so. (Cue the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding). In sum, a pedestrian-oriented, active, mixed use, diverse corridor with three-story buildings on top of a subway line with about a dozen stops. Any Toronto resident would say we capitalized on our transit infrastructure.

This is the 502 street car line in Toronto I used to ride to work every day. There were two other lines that shared some of the route. It traveled for over 20 km across the width of the city. Check out the buildings that line the street. Ends was a terrific clothing store with some apartments up top. For the most part, the buildings are two and three floors along the route except at major street intersections. During rush hour, you never wait for more than four minutes for a ride.

The point is simple. Not every transit station has to be downtown Silver Spring or Bethesda. In reality, the best transit systems have a very diverse network of transit stops.

A month ago, I spoke to residents in Park Hills, located around the Wayne-Dale intersection west of downtown Silver Spring. Great people, willing to listen about change, transition, transit and stable residential neighborhoods. They asked about the changes the Purple Line might bring to the Wayne- Dale intersection in terms of land use. Well, not much, for a number of reasons.

1. This is a stable residential community. The purpose of public transit is to move people to where they want to go, not to tear down neighborhoods to do it. These goals are not at odds, they can work together.
2. Wayne & Dale will not be downtown Silver Spring. There is a lot of property to develop in downtown Silver Spring for decades to come, and we hope the Purple Line will help. And maybe the residents of Park Hills will ride the Purple Line to get to Fenton Village and its restaurants in the future. Imagine, public transit getting people to entertainment rather than just being used to up-zone every neighborhood a rapid transit line runs through.
3. Nobody would invest the money, even if it were permitted, to buy up small lots at high prices, just to build a low-scale building where the number of units would not be a whole lot different than the original houses on the site.
4. There should never be tall buildings at Wayne & Dale. It does not make sense. With so much infill to do elsewhere, new rapid transit will help maximize the potential for redevelopment where it makes sense. And it does not make sense everywhere.

For those of us who have run streetcars into new emerging neighborhoods, who rode them each day through vibrant, ethnic, low-scale neighborhoods to reach the 50-story buildings downtown, we understand how transit connects people and neighborhoods. Rockville Pike has a subway under it, and, we hope, terrific bus service in the future.

This building height/use relationship is terrific; after a few months, everyone seems happy, except for a few people quoted in the paper saying they are not used to parking in a parking structure to go grocery shopping. (Welcome to the 90s—this is how the rest of the urban world shops.) This is a place where we decided maximizing transit investment makes sense.

There is road capacity on the Pike. There is an existing transit line with lots of capacity. The location is a major regional shopping node, and it can be designed so that within a block, there are townhouses.

Chevy Chase Lake meets none of those characteristics. In Chevy Chase Lake:

• There are considerable issues with traffic
• If this was such a desirable location, something would have happened here in 2004, during the biggest real estate boom ever, when there was 250,000 square feet of approved building capacity that was never taken advantage of.
• This is not downtown Bethesda, so would 18- and 19-story buildings really be appropriate at this location?
• Would 4.5 million square feet make sense at this location, as some have suggested?
• Should there be a near- and long-term strategy of phasing zoning and infrastructure to provide for sound, orderly development with higher levels of capacity once the Purple Line arrives?

We believe there should be orderly development structured around reasonable expectations of what might and should happen within this small node along a busy street. We have floated the idea that the near-term strategy should reflect the current approvals for development that has existed for many years—an extra 250,000 square feet, with the added flexibility to convert some of that space to residential uses.

We also suggest that once the Purple Line is under construction, additional floor area capacity be raised another 750,000 square feet, for a total of just over one million additional square feet. Those recommendations fall right within the Brookings fellow's criteria for upzoning around transit. With the exception of a transit corridor running out of Dallas, I believe he will be hard pressed to say the early ideas for this plan are not building on transit investment.

I stated to the Bethesda Chamber that the role of the planning department in master planning was not to increase land values, but to manage expectations. This means creating plans that have both short- and long- term scenarios. It also means setting the stage to maximize real estate where it makes sense, and at a scale appropriate to the immediate environment.

I have asked the staff working on several master plans to look at implementing "phased" zoning, where changes are made now in expectation of local potential, and then, when certain conditions and infrastructure change occur, maybe additional capacity is freed up. In this way, the community understands how the future landscape can evolve over time, and builders and landowners realize how their land holdings may develop over the next five, 10 and 20 years.

The County has had many master plans built on grand visions that had little basis in reality. Not every commercial area has the potential of White Flint, not even the area north of Montrose, as I wrote about a few weeks ago. And this is a good thing. MoCo is very fortunate to have such a diverse set of neighborhoods. Our planning efforts should capitalize on the individuality of each of those communities to help them grow and thrive and, more importantly, help the diverse people living in our communities realize the potential of their neighborhoods.

The Purple Line

The safety and convenience of crossing Connecticut Avenue on the CCT will improve greatly when the Purple Line is built. The plans call for the CCT to cross Connecticut Avenue on a trail bridge alongside the Purple Line light rail bridge.

The trail will have a direct connection to the elevated station platform on the east side of Connecticut Avenue. The MTA aerial photograph below shows the route of the Purple Line and CCT through Chevy Chase Lake, and the location of the station platform. More aerial maps are available at MTA's Purple Line website that show better detail.

The CCT will be elevated through much of the Chevy Chase Lake sector, on the bridge over Connecticut Avenue and at the transit station platform, and on the trail ramps that approach from both sides. This may become important, because future development may bring much local pedestrian activity to the sector. The trail elevation will allow us to keep trail/local pedestrian conflict areas limited to the designated trail access points.

Two competing visions for the Chevy Chase Lake redevelopment

On April 27, the Chevy Chase Land Company (CCLC) presented its vision for Chevy Chase Lake to the public at the National 4-H Youth Conference Center. That presentation is available as a YouTube video. Several illustrative drawings from that presentation were also shown in the Purple Line Progress Report that PLN President Ralph Bennett presented to the Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County on May 9.

The CCLC vision is for transit oriented development of up to 4,000,000 square feet of mixed commercial/residential uses, with about 3/4 of the development being residential (up to 3000 residential units). Building heights transition from 6 stories high at the edges to up to 19 stories high near the center. The plan features a local street grid with extensive public spaces, a public plaza at the Purple Line station, and neighborhood oriented ground level retail.

Montgomery County planning staff released a narrated video to present their very different recommendations for the new Chevy Chase Lake sector plan on June 8, 2011. That video is available on their Chevy Chase Lake webpage.

The planning staff is recommending to the Planning Board that a smaller portion of the Chevy Chase Lake Sector be rezoned to allow slightly over 1,000,000 square feet of mixed use (commercial/residential) development, 250,000 square feet now and another 800,000 square feet to be allowed when Purple Line construction begins.

This is only slightly greater than that approved now under the current zoning. Building heights would be limited to 65 feet, only about six stories. (The CCLC building already on the site is 13 stories high, and a residential building now stands immediately south of the site alongside the Columbia Country Club that is 18 stories high.)

The CCLC and the Montgomery County planning staff visions differ greatly on the density to ultimately be allowed at Chevy Chase Lake. The planning staff recommends only a marginal increase in the number of residential units over that already approved. The Montgomery County planning staff will hold a public meeting to present its recommendations at 10 am to noon Saturday, June 18 at the Chevy Chase Village Hall, 5906 Connecticut Avenue.

Does the density at Chevy Chase Lake matter to trail users?

The major features of the CCT itself will not be impacted much by the different levels of density being proposed for Chevy Chase Lake. The trail ramps and bridge will not change, and most of the trail will be separated from the local pedestrian activity by being on elevated structure.

Both the CCLC and the planning staff visions call for a public plaza at the Purple Line station, and the CCT would pass through that plaza area. A higher density would make this a more pedestrian active area. But careful design of the pedestrian crossing paths in this plaza will be mandated by the need to keep pedestrians clear of the light rail activity that parallels the CCT. Pedestrian crossings will likely be focused to only one or two points and this will minimize the trail/pedestrian conflict areas.

A higher density at Chevy Chase Lake will have a bigger impact on trail users when they leave the primary trail in this area. Higher density with taller buildings makes it more likely we will have a good local street grid with public spaces, like that envisioned by CCLC.

If the building height is limited to 65 feet as called for by planning staff, then a developer must cover more available land with low buildings to get up to the floor-area ratio allowed by the zoning. A smaller project will also give less economic justification to set aside space for wide streets and public spaces, and the County will have less leverage to require these amenities as a condition for the project.

There may be less local pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic in a smaller project, but the local street grid may be more limited, streets may be narrower, and space set aside for public use may be smaller so biking conditions could feel congested even with less traffic. Smaller may not be better for bicycle friendly conditions overall.

Trail users don't have a strong reason to enter the discussion of density at Chevy Chase Lake to protect or advance the CCT. We have other reasons to join the discussion about how our region will grow, however, as members of the community. Trail users are likely to have diverse views about "smart growth" and "transit oriented development".

I'm joining the discussion as an individual in support of a higher density at Chevy Chase Lake. Opportunities for transit oriented development are very limited. We have a strong need for more residential housing to balance with jobs in the Bethesda area—especially for housing close to the National Naval Medical Center, where up to 2500 new staff positions are coming with BRAC. If we won't allow more residential housing units here, then where else should it go that is better?

And besides, I want one of those residential units. I'd love to live in a place like this.