Posts about Woodley Park
Politics
For ANC in Ward 3
Along Ward 3's major commercial corridors, especially Wisconsin Avenue, are numerous low strip malls and ugly parking lots, in transit-rich neighborhoods where any developer would be happy to build. But the neighborhoods also have residents most vociferously opposed to nearly any development with the means to delay and even sue to stop projects.
Recently, however, groups of residents who favor smart growth in their commercial corridors have banded together to promote a positive vision for their neighborhood, to encourage growth specifically in those areas with the richest transit infrastructure.
They helped elect Mary Cheh as the ward councilmember, who deserves unhesitating reelection. They have also won many ANC seats in neighborhoods across the ward, and we hope their numbers grow this year.
We support Tom Quinn, one of the leaders of the Ward 3 Vision smart growth organization, who is running in an open seat in 3E04. That district covers the eastern side of Wisconsin Avenue from Brandywine Street to the Maryland line. His opponent, Sally Greenberg, was the chosen successor to previous anti-smart growth commissioner Lucy Eldridge.
Jonathan McHugh is challenging the problematic incumbent Beverly Sklover in AU Park's 3E01. Sklover has opposed many smart-growth projects on the grounds of insufficient transit and then opposed transit to those same areas.
Also for their smart growth support, we prefer Mike Siegel in the open seat for 3F01 around UDC, and Fenty Ward 3 coordinator Petar Dimtchev against incumbent Ann Haas in Foxhall Village's 3D09. Update: Adam Tope, the other candidate in 3F01, has responded with more details of his views. We encourage voters to read that and make up their own minds.
Staunch smart growthers Jonathan Bender in 3E03 on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue in Tenleytown and Friendship Heights, and Sam Serebin in 3E05 northeast of AU, are both running unopposed.
At American University, two students are trying to gain representation on ANC 3D, which often takes positions on the school's plans without representation from its students. Current 3D chair Tom Smith successfully challenged both students off the ballot (huge PDF) in his own district of 3D02 and the adjacent 3D07.
Smith originally ran on a smart growth platform but quickly flipped his support to align with antis on most issues. We encourage residents to write in AU student Tyler Sadonis for 3D02, which includes the northern half of AU and the blocks to the northwest, and to write in Deon Jones in 3D07, the southern half of AU and blocks just to the south up to Nebraska Avenue.
Anne-Marie Bairstow is a terrific chair of Woodley and Cleveland Park's ANC 3C. She is a member of the DC Pedestrian Advisory Council, a strong ally of pedestrian safety, healthy business, and smart growth, and a regular reader of GGW. She is a terrific example of what a good ANC commissioner should be and we heartily endorse her reelection in her Woodley Park 3C03 district.
She faces an opponent, Matthew Kozik, who quotes Greater Greater Washington on all points of his transportation platform. Were Kozik running against almost any other commissioner we would eagerly cheer his candidacy, and hope he will continue to get involved in the neighborhood. Perhaps he will get redistricted into a different SMD for 2012, at which point we could get both Kozik and Bairstow on the ANC.
Jackie Blumenthal, the incumbent in Glover Park's 3B02, has supported streetcar and bike lane resolutions in a neighborhood that needs better transportation, and deserves reelection. We are also excited about having occasional contributor Ben Thielen serve on that ANC; he is running unopposed in an open seat on the adjacent 3B01, centered around Tunlaw Road.
Pedestrians
What's your experience walking on Connecticut Avenue?
Residents along Connecticut Avenue from Woodley Park to Chevy Chase DC have created the Connecticut Avenue Pedestrian Action project to improve pedestrian safety along this important street.
Portion of CAPA's map.
Connecticut Avenue is the main street for many neighborhoods along its length, and a major commuter route from Maryland. Its wide cross-section and reversible lanes accommodate heavy traffic during rush periods, but also lead drivers to speed off-peak.
Local officials and residents have long grappled with pedestrian safety. Many pedestrian crashes happen there, especially in problem spots like the intersection with Nebraska Avenue which has more than its share of pedestrians killed and injured.
CAPA has raised funding for an audit of pedestrian safety by Toole Design. To help collect data, they would like people who walk in the area to take a brief survey and identify trouble spots on the interactive map.
What has your experience been along Connecticut Avenue? How do you suggest DC improve this key road?
History
Then and Now: Anteater statue at the National Zoo
The giant anteater statue in front of the Small Mammal House at the National Zoo has been at that location since it was unveiled on March 25, 1938. The historic image captures the moment shortly after that unveiling. The bronze statue is six feet long and three feet high. The participants at the unveiling are identified (from left to right) as sculptor Edwin Springweiler, Dr. Alexander Wetmore of the Smithsonian Institution (who unveiled the sculpture), Head Keeper William Blackburn, and Dr. William M. Mann, Director of the National Zoological Park.
Historic image from the Library of Congress, Harris & Ewing Collection.
Public Spaces
DDOT presents Klingle trail progress
Planning for the Klingle Valley Trail is moving along, but there are still few details about some of the issues that most affect potential users.
DDOT and Greenhorne & O'Mara are conducting this study to build a trail along Klingle Valley from the intersection with Porter Street and Rock Creek Parkway over to the western Woodley Road. In 2007, at the urging of many residents, the DC Council voted (1, 2) to build a trail instead of a road through the valley.
Sample trail alignment for the Klingle trail. Click to enlarge.
WABA would like the trail lit, but presenters at the meeting said that this is a "design decision" outside the EIS. That doesn't stop potential riders from wanting to talk about the subject. Lighting along the trail would make it much more accessible for walkers and cyclists at night, such as using the trail to commute.
It also would add to the environmental footprint, unless DDOT could put solar panels somewhere not blocked by too many trees to power the lights. If the valley had become a a road instead, the project certainly would include streetlights in the project, and those lights would have been far brighter than anything that might go on a trail.
Attendees also asked about the possibility of stairs between Connecticut Avenue and the trail below. DDOT representatives said that this wasn't part of the project, but they'd love for the local businesses or a residential building to create an elevator large enough for bicycles, which would also accommodate persons with disabilities.
Other considerations in the trail design include whether to make it 10 or 12 feet wide, and whether to use a permeable pavement for better stormwater management. The old road washed away because of rainfall in the valley, making the hydrology especially important here.
History
Then and Now: Entrance of the National Zoo
Between 1926 and today, the entrance to the National Zoo has changed considerably.
When the plan to revamp the National Zoo was unveiled in 1963, it aroused controversy (see below), causing the Smithsonian to reevaluate the plan prior to seeking approval from the Fine Arts Commission. Nonetheless, the major change of eliminating the roadways from the main entrance and moving the vehicle entrance to the northwest was retained and implemented, resulting in the plan that is familiar to visitors today.
Historic image from the National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress.
Source: The Washington Post, September 20, 1963
Photography
Weekend photography: Connecticut Avenue at night
 Looking north from K St
|  The Big Hunt, south of Dupont
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Education
Better Know a Single-Member District: 3C03
SMD 3C03. From Google Maps.
"The fightin' 3C03"
3C03 is one of three SMDs in the neighborhood of Woodley Park. Woodley combines some large residential buildings along Connecticut with single-family homes farther away, a small but lively retail strip, and perhaps the greatest concentration of large institutional land uses in any neighborhood its size. There are two very large hotels, the Omni Shoreham and the Marriott Wardman Park; the Marriott is the largest hotel in DC and host to many large conventions. Woodley has several schools, including the Oyster Bilingual charter school, the Maret private school, and the Aidan Montessori School. It has a Metro station. And then there's the elephant, or should I say panda, in the room: the National Zoo.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Woodley is a desirable neighborhood, especially for young parents such as Anne-Marie Bairstow, one of two candidates running for the open 3C03 seat. Bairstow's oldest child attends Oyster, and before that was enrolled at Aidan. That brought Bairstow into some of the neighborhood's recent development battles, as Aidan sought to increase its enrollment amidst neighborhood concerns over traffic and other imapacts. Bairstow said that "things were done wrong on both sides" in that fight, and knowing what she knows now, would have "had everyone sit down ... and talk through the process early on." She feels that Oyster doesn't know how to be effectively involved in the Woodley community, and hopes to repair and strengthen that relationship if elected to the ANC. Building bridges in the neighborhood is a refrain all ANC candidates bring up frequently, regardless of their positions on specific issues; Jenelle Dennis, Bairstow's opponent in the race, also talked extensively about working together to solve problems like these.
Left: Jenelle Dennis.
Right: Anne-Marie Bairstow.
Dennis, who does not have children, lives on Connecticut Avenue near the neighborhood's northern edge. She grew up in various neighborhoods of upper Northwest Washington before her family moved to Newton, Massachusetts, but she always wanted to come back here. She attended the School of Foreign Service in Georgetown, returned to Boston for law school, and then finally settled in DC. Dennis now works as a real estate attorney in Bethesda. (And she takes Metro almost every day.)
Bairstow was drawn to DC during college, when she came during her summers to work on national politics but gradually found herself gravitating to local issues instead, first to social work, where she worked with the homeless, and then to urban planning, in which she has a masters from UVA. She worked for the Downtown BID and then most recently was Director of the Adams Morgan Partnership (their BID).
Bairstow also ran Mary Cheh's primary campaign for DC Council. In 2004, a group of Ward 3 residents including Bairstow met with each candidate running for the open Council seat. They were so impressed with Cheh that they decided to throw their full support behind her, and even ran the campaign. As we all know, they succeeded, giving Cheh a huge victory in the primary despite a very crowded field.
As an urban planner and a past board member of WABA, Bairstow believes in urban livability as we do on GGW. She feels that "the suburban way of living is wrong and urban way of living is right," adding that "I feel somewhat self-congratulatory that I made the decision to live in the city" and stay to raise her children. She believes that density is appropriate around Metro stations, including Woodley's.
ANC 3C is the epicenter of development debates today: not so much in Woodley Park, though it's had its share of big fights such as when the Marriott wanted to add a residential tower on their property (the project is now stalled due to the economy), but because of the Giant, which sits at the western edge of 3C. To put it simply, Bairstow favors the Giant, and Dennis, while more cautionary in her statements, does not support the project right now.
In Bairstow's opinion, ANC 3C has been too "anti-development". She emphasizes that she doesn't favor just any development regardless of the merits, but would "definitely like to see a new Giant on Wisconsin". Dennis, on the other hand, agrees that "the area has lost a little bit of its vibrancy" and would like to see something there, but wants to be more cautious given neighborhood concerns about traffic and parking. She'd like to wait for a DDOT study about the transportation impacts, perhaps see some improved public transportation or a shuttle provided by the Giant, and isn't sure the neighborhood can support 150 residences with their associated car trips.
Both candidates also spoke extensively about the Zoo, which draws huge crowds and lots of cars trying to park. Dennis suggests a combination of increased Zoo parking, better awareness of public transportation options, or stricter enforcement of residential parking permits. She's skeptical of performance parking as a tool to deal with this issue.
Bairstow has one specific idea for parking, which GGW strongly endorses: smaller residential parking permit (RPP) zones. Between the Zoo and the Metro station, Woodley sees large numbers of drivers from more remote parts of Ward 3 park on its streets, benefiting from the RPP system even though they don't live in the neighborhood. Bairstow would reform this system to make Woodley RPP street restrictions apply to Woodley or ANC 3C residents, rather than to the entire Ward. Dennis agreed that some neighbors favor that idea, though she declined to take a clear position.
Pedestrian safety on Connecticut Avenue is a big issue in every neighborhood along the street, including Woodley. Dennis would "like better signs, better traffic signals, and better police enforcement" to improve the avenue. Bairstow largely agrees, specifically suggesting retiming the lights near the Metro station to make crossing easier for pedestrians, and repainting crosswalks.
As a sad addendum to my interviews, the evening after I interviewed Jenelle Dennis, she was hit by a car on Wisconsin Avenue. Dennis wrote to me, "The driver said she 'didn't see me' despite the fact that I was wearing a red dress and have blond hair. Nothing serious, just minor scrapes and bruises. But, this just underscored and reemphasized the importance of pedestrian safety issues on Connecticut and Wisconsin." Dennis suggested "better crosswalk lighting or red/green arrows for left-hand turns" off major streets like Wisconsin and Connecticut. I hope I speak for the entire GGW community in hoping Jenelle really isn't hurt and that we can indeed improve pedestrian safety in the area.
Parking
Zoo tram an opportunity to not need parking
The National Zoo will propose an aerial tram and 1,428 new parking spaces, according to the Examiner (via DCist). The tram will connect all of the Zoo's entrances, of which only one is near Metro and half a mile away. Meanwhile, they will construct a new entrance near the Small Mammal House for a huge new parking lot.
Take Metro to the Zoo instead of driving.
Photo by blandm on Flickr.
Why not connect the tram to a new entrance near Calvert Street or Woodley Road? Zachary Schrag writes that the Zoo considered a Calvert entrance when Metro was constructed, but dropped the idea. That area is a stone's throw from the Woodley Metro station.
The Examiner article quotes Adams Morgan and Woodley Park community activists as being concerned about parking. What better way to reduce the need to drive to the Zoo than to connect the new tram to Metro? Right now, there's insufficient parking around the Zoo and desire to park on neighborhood streets. Sounds just like the ballpark. Rather than build seas of parking, they upgraded Metro accessibility and set up residential parking restrictions to stop fans from parking in the neighborhoods. And it worked. We should do the same here.
Public Spaces
The un-urban Marriott Wardman Park
Woodley Park sits right atop a fault line between walkable urbanism and the dense sprawl-style architecture you get when architects and developers simply transplant suburban forms onto smaller city lots, like the Hilton in Dupont. Despite having a Metro station, most of the larger apartment towers follow the Le Corbusier-style form of large islands in a sea of parking set far back from the street. And the neighborhood contains several large hotels, all built mid-century and all creating a pedestrian-unfriendly experience with huge driveways and parking lots between them and the neighborhood.
Congrats to capitolcub who correctly guessed the two photos I posted last week.
On the left is a somewhat urban street, with some nice houses whose front porches make it pleasant to walk along. It's the north side of Woodley Road in Woodley Park. But across the street, it looks entirely different. Enormous driveways traverse a giant expanse of empty lawn which contains an underground parking garage. The Marriott Wardman Park is set far back from the street, with a classic car-circle entrance that's not inviting to pedestrians, like at the Hilton.
The other end of the Marriott, closer to the Metro, is no better. A driveway runs right from the Metro to the hotel, but it's very narrow (to accommodate a lot of parking next to it) and is the hotel's main loading access. As a result, it has only a very small sidewalk onto which crowds of people, well, crowd, while only the occasional truck uses the rest of the space. And the driveway leads to, you got it, another car circle.
It doesn't face the street but instead looks sideways. The side closest to the Metro has a big circular oval driveway and a small surface parking lot. When future residents want to walk from their building to the stores on Connecticut or the Metro, they'll have to cross the parking lot as well as the hotel's two driveways. And whatever goes in the front lawn is isolated from the street. Since the hotel just built a big underground garage, why not just add the condo's parking (of which they're probably building too much) to that same garage with the same entrances as the neighborhood association wanted? Or use the existing driveway to Calvert Street?
@ggwash
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- Amid scandal, don't lose sight of Gray's policy achievements
- Montgomery plans 160-mile, "gold standard" BRT system
- VDOT ignores own data, pushes widening I-66
- DC's parks are 5th best in the nation, says "Park Score"
- Bethesda gets new but terrible bike racks
- DC's divide need not be black and white
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