I’m all for the renaming, and the 15-character limit, but I think they should avoid naming any stop for a street (arguably with the exception of U Street, because it’s iconic, and because the entire length of it is best accessed from that station). Georgia Ave, Florida Ave, and Rhode Island Ave are every bit as silly as 7th St… there are multiple stations along each of those long thoroughfares. I also think when a station is on the border of two major neighborhoods, it ought to have both of their names, along with a hyphen. Basically, they should ban street names and local attractions, and every station should be named for either one or at most two neighborhoods.
So here’s what I would do (at least within the District):
Red Line:
Friendship Heights
Tenleytown
Forest Hills
Cleveland Park
Woodley Park-Adams Morgan
Dupont Circle
Farragut Square (ideally, this links via pedestrian underpass to a station with the same name on a different line)
Metro Center
Chinatown
Judiciary Square
Union Station
NoMa
Brentwood
Brookland
Fort Totten
Takoma
Orange/Blue Lines:
Foggy Bottom
Farragut Square
McPherson Square
Metro Center
Federal Triangle
Smithsonian
L’Enfant Plaza
Federal Center SW
Capitol South
Eastern Market
Potomac Ave
Barney Circle
Minnesota Ave (Orange)
Deanwood (Orange)
Benning Road (Blue)
Yellow/Green Lines:
Fort Totten
Petworth-Park View
Columbia Heights-Mount Pleasant
Midcity
Shaw
Mt. Vernon Square
Chinatown
Penn Quarter
L’Enfant Plaza
Waterfront
Navy Yard
Anacostia
Congress Heights
@ Jamie You said “DC government consistently exhibits ineptitude in every other area”. That is not my experience, and hasn’t been since before the Tony Williams era. In fact, my dealings with the DC government have been generally very good. That’s not to say they’re perfect, or there’s no room for improvement, but in general, I’ve been pleased.
@Bossi: As a PSU alum and a UMD alum - I’m with you! @MPC: Isn’t State College great? I do hope, though, that you take the bus to the grocery store every once in a while - McLanahan’s can get a little heavy on the wallet….
On the Purple Line, well, UMD doesn’t seem to have any idea what they’re doing with respect to transit or how real students and faculty want to use the campus.
The Diamondback article reads as though this (presumably) student journalist will have a fine career with FOX or the Washington Post OpEd pages in the future.
FWIW, it might be that the UM administrators drive through their campus every day. If UM is anything like UT, a large portion of the student body is oblivious to anything smaller than a 747 and have not the least concept of roadway, walkway, or roadbed. Within the past two semesters I have twice had students, walking parallel to the roadway on my right (and of course utterly infatuated with their conversation on an iPhone)turn and abruptly step into my car at about the point of the front door. They may be right that their students would fail to recognize or respond to a train.
It really is amazing how one person can look at that and see untold beauty and handsome cohesion, and someone else (like me) says it looks like something straight out of the 1960 vintage Soviet Union transportation handbook they used to build public transport in “East” Berlin. Frankly, it is hideous and makes the whole area look like a rail yard out back of an industrial steel plant.
And anyone who honestly says it would be a good idea to forgo the historic cast “acorn” street lamps in DC, or to substitute/replace them with highway cobraheads as displayed in this street view, has no taste or asthetic quality whatsoever.
Georgia ave is 22 miles long. The station name should be Petworth. While not in the heart of Petworth, it is the station as you are leaving Columbia Heights and entering Petworth. The name makes sense.
Ooh, those Bordeaux street cars have their OWN LANES, which means unlike DC’s streetcars, they dont get stuck in craptastic traffic. Our trams (why cant we just call them trams) will be as useful as buses, made of gold.
I’ve never really been bothered by the universities having their names on stations, as long as they are on/near the campus (GW, CUA) or have a shuttle running to it (AU, UMD). These places often attract people unfamiliar with the system (perspective students, those going to sporting events, etc.) and they don’t really add that much to the length of the station name (really, a dash with two or three characters).
And I’m probably making this up, but was the 7th St/Convention center named that way to avoid confusion while the old convention center was still up?
rg…what an awesome street view. you can see pedestrian, bike, car, parking, and rail infrastructure (with catenary wires) all happily coexisting. AMAZING!
I go to Penn State. I’m on Beaver Ave. right now. I actually love riding CATA to the mall. Would you believe that I live, shop and go out mostly in the downtown part of town, and don’t have a car?
It looks like they intend to run the rail line on the surface across one of the prettier green spaces on campus—right across the front lawn, as it were—and then tunnel under their own chapel. The point seems to be to make it as inconvenient as possible to get from the train to the Student Union and/or Health Center.
Ugh, every passing day I’m more and more ashamed to have a UMD diploma. It’s one thing for the University to believe in an alternative; it’s another thing entirely to promulgate lies.
I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt no matter how much I may disagree, but I’m quickly running out of such courtesies with the University, and my knowledge of the English language can only go so far with trying to keep a semi-civil tone when writing comments.
Just to pick on one of many of the University’s aggravations, as Tim notes: cut-and-cover is vastly more intrusive than a surface line, and quoting the impacts of construction of the line in Minnesota only reinforces the paradox of this logic.
And then there’s the vibration impacts of an underground line as compared to a surface line… and that it’s an alignment already shunned by many & now they’re making it more expensive… and they don’t seem to have the most basic grasp of federal funding formulae… and the students seem to be irrelevant… and the summer everything closure proves no point… and… and… I’m done for now.
Anyone want to help buy a pro-Purple Line brick for the campus? Or any other Penn Staters out there who want to help buy a brick at UMD which says something like “We are Penn State!” ? I’m just in a spiteful mood now.
Wanted to add, most of the things that are offered up as evidence of incompetence by DC government are actually examples of a bureaucracy swamped with fallout from poverty.
Fairfax county doesn’t have a “poorly implemented jobs program for 30,000 unemployable impoverished youth” because Fairfax country doesn’t have 30,000 unemployable youth. Most of the interactions with DC government I’ve had in the last decade have actually been a model of pleasant efficiency (at least compared to any large city, or my distant memories of Montgomery County, for the matter), from the DMV, to DOH, to MPD, to DPW. Given the dissonance between the reputation and the reality, it’s quite creepy, really.
Any electrical system requires susbstations. One that serves the whole city requires substations throughout the whole city. The streetcar system in Bordeaux requires them. As do the streetcar systems in the 300+ cities throughout the world that have streetcars. And the general electricity system of most cities, including DC. The electricity nookie use at home does. Indeed, there are already hundreds of electricity substations throughout DC. The H Street-Benning Road streetcar line will require three small substations. Electricity substations are not a serious argument against streetcars.
Speaking of Bordeaux, the vast majority of its streetcar system uses overhead wires. Indeed, they recently converted several stretched from APS to overhead wires and all new extensions use overhead wires. Here is Avenue Thiers, just off of Place Stalingrad in Bordeaux:
They want to talk about disruptions during construction, do they now?
Well, I assume any underground portion would be cut-and-cover, since boring would be massively expensive and it looks like the proposed route doesn’t go under any buildings.
I’m sure many in the administration were around the DC area while the cut-and-cover portion of the Metro was built. And I doubt the state or the university would be willing to shell out the money necessary for the speed at which those sections of the Metro were built.
Point is, building a tunnel would rip the campus apart for a few years.
“Strange to assume they didn’t study the issue - it is their job, of course.”
As I said yesterday - I think it’s really odd that when it comes to things like streetcars and experimental pedestrian crossings, everyone suddenly thinks that the DC Government is not only competent, but good at doing its job.
On what basis would you think that even though DC government consistently exhibits ineptitude in every other area, when it comes to a pet project that you happen to approve of, suddenly they’re good at something?
In the absence of any information about if, when, and how the issue was studied, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that it has not been done thoroughly or even at all.
There’s no mention of this in the “Pedestrian Master Plan” from 2008, and I’ve never heard anything about it until today.
If any substantial analysis or research has been done, then I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, won’t we?
The ban on overhead wires only extends to the L’Enfant City: the area between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and Florida Ave.
DC is currently constructing a streetcar line in Anacostia, which is why DC bought those 3 streetcars. They will be running in 2012 - in the City of Washington.
Wires aren’t ugly. The City can always ask that the law be changed by putting an amendment of the DC Voting Rights Act. I doubt I’ll ever see those orphan 3-year old streetcars running around this city. They will be out-dated and rusting by the time this A-team figures out how to get electric to those tracks they have been working on for 3 years. LMAO!!!
Isn’t the university part of the state government? Why can’t the Maryland legislature just order UMD to follow the most logical and cost-efficient alignment?
Also worth noting that there are already overhead wires along H St (presumably illegally).
I’d also disagree with the assessment that the conduit system has “no issues” with regards to proprietary technology or “proven reliability.” I thought it was established that the system was proven to be unreliable, and that the cars would have to be custom-built, unlike the current cars which were essentially bought “off the rack.”
The flywheel storage is one of the more interesting ideas, and warrants further exploration, given that flywheels are relatively mature from a technological standpoint. The flywheels could also be used as a gyroscope, which would let you do interesting things like riding on a single rail
Woudn’t an underground route create even more of those evil “vibrations” that UM seems to be so concerned about?
I’m also interested in the revolutionary procedure that’s going to allow them to dig a tunnel under the campus for $23 million.
There’s a discussion here about the per-mile cost of tunneling (particularly for light rail projects), and costs generally tend to be much, much, much higher than what the university officials have hinted at.
I’m sorry, but this is NIMBYism at its worst. If buses have traveled this route without incident, there’s no reason why light rail would be any worse (and many reasons why it’d be better)
I seem to recall that the western (Bethesda-Silver Spring) and eastern (SS - New Carrollton) portions of the line were once separate projects. How practical might it be, at this point, to re-split them so that UM admin intransigence doesn’t kill the whole thing?
One of the keys to infilling Tysons with more development will be what types of uses are built and how they are phased. As a number of responders above accurately point out, upping the density just because we will soon have 4 metro stations will not in itself make Tysons a better place (let alone anything resembling a walkable city)due to the limitations of the street network (which really isn’t a network) and limited reach of metro relative to where employees & customers live. Adding residential (dense residential) would not significantly worsen traffic since residents would be driving against the flow if they don’t work there, though ideally they’re riding metro to Arlington or DC. Tysons needs housing to balance it’s lopsided mix of residents to worker-bees. Housing (in general) is over-built at the moment and financing will no doubt remain a challenge until we’re clear of the subprime mess, but it is the one use that will help Tysons to begin moving toward something resembling a real downtown.
The Baltimore entry only counts the subway stations, not the light rail. The 14 Metro stations range in length from 9 (Mondawmin, Old Court) to 28 (State Center/Cultural Center) characters.
One curious bit I picked up in discussion after the presentation (with Timothy Borchers) was that Bordeaux still has tremendous difficulties with the APS system: apparently, it’s been quite difficult to maintain physical contact between the pickup shoe on the streetcar and the center electrified rail. One of the principle ways that Bordeaux got their reliability up was to retrofit the streetcars with (more?) batteries, to let them keep moving when the APS pickup failed.
For Dubai, they’ve completely re-designed the pickup shoe, so there’s a sense in which Bordeaux and Dubai aren’t really using the same systems. How well Dubai’s APS equipment performs, of course, remains to be seen.
If batteries and supercapacitors continue to get better, as many think they will, and considering that most APS installations being considered are only for small portions of the overall route structure, I wouldn’t be surprised if APS fades away in a decade or so. Some combination of on-board storage might, in a few years’ time, be obviously better performing and cheaper for short-distance wireless sections, and you’d be able to get competitive bids for any expansions, from several different companies each with its own way of doing on-board storage, instead of being locked in to the one manufacturer of APS or whatever other external wireless technology is bought.
While I appreciate the above post from the AAA sharing the “proper” views of the main organization as well as the AAA Mid-Atlantic, the voice of Lon Anderson, particularly in an Op-Ed he authored on the Cleveland Park Listserv, does nothing to alleviate my concerns or the concerns of many residents in the District of Columbia.
As a result of the releases and correspondences, I have personally canceled my membership to the AAA (of 15 years) in favor of an alternative that makes its pro-transportation (including bicycles) views the cornerstone of its organization.
I would suggest that the AAA very closely examine its views, lobbying stance and practices very carefully and derive an alternative plan, if it wants to maintain any sense of standing with those who share an apparently different worldview than Mr. Anderson.
The Baltimore subway has the longest names..interesting. Would never have guessed that, since none of them are as verbose as something like “U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo.”
A name like “Reisterstown Road Plaza” has lots of characters to it but it’s not an unreasonably long name.
I assume this doesn’t include the Light Rail system, with which I’m far more familiar. That system does include the “University of Baltimore - Mount Royal” station but other than have succinct nomenclature.
IÂ’m the Social Media Manager at AAA Mid-Atlantic. IÂ’d like to respond to the press weÂ’ve been receiving painting us as anti-bike or anti-cyclist as a result of a press release we sent out on the new bike lanes in Washington, DC. Though I donÂ’t personally bike to work, I value the rights of others to bike for leisure or as a commuting option. Concerned that AAA Mid-Atlantic was not acting in the best interest of its Members, I emailed Ron Kosh, our VP of Public and Government Affairs, alerting him to the issue and asking “Was AAA Mid-Atlantic really anti-bike”? I wanted to share RonÂ’s response with all of you.
“AAA Mid-Atlantic does not oppose bike lanes in the nation’s capital. We are fully supportive of the fact that the District of Columbia has 44.7 miles of bike lanes and 56 miles of bike trails.
AAA also supports additional bike lanes including lanes on major city thoroughfares where practical. However, a meaningful and thoughtful planning process should follow when doing so. That process should include: 1) a published mobility analysis and full traffic impact study, 2) an environmental impact study, and 3) completion of a public comment period.
AAA Mid-Atlantic believes that “Share the Road†situations can safely and effectively be created between motorists, cyclists and pedestrians as is already evident on many streets in the city.
DDOT must, however, have the best interests in mind of all citizens: including motorists, cyclists and pedestrians when implementing any change that has such significant impact on mobility in the city.Ââ€
From my perspective, what AAA Mid-Atlantic did wrong was write a press release that caused our position to be misunderstood. Additionally, we allowed a few days to pass before we responded to clarify that we are definitely not anti-cyclist. In fact, we are sponsors of Ride Your Bike to Work Day and offer community programs on Bike Safety.
I hope this will allay any concerns some of you have had on this issue. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please comment back or email me at ksnedaker@aaamidatlantic.com. Thanks so much to all of you for taking the time to tell us how you feel on this issue. ItÂ’s incredibly important to us receive this kind of feedback and we truly appreciate it!
Someone mentioning that this city spends lots of money to make the mall look good is laughable.
The wire rules were put in place in a time of telegraph lines going everywhere, when power companies were just introducing electricity and had lines of varying non standard voltages (thus each had their own) going everywhere. That looked like garbage. I am glad NYC and DC put in rule getting that under control.
Next you will see Lance argue that it is in our planning ‘Constitution’ that we can never ever ever allow wires in DC, as if it is something that can never be changed. Our real Constitution once allowed slavery and denied women the right to vote. Overhead wires for a fixed line streetcar are so unobtrusive these days that this debate is silly and gives NIMBY’s and easy canard to hide behind. Save the money, buy commercial off the shelf standard streetcars, string up that single wire and lets get this party started!
Not pointing the finger at anyone on this thread, many (most?) of whom seem to have legitimate concerns about wires (and de gustibus non disputandum est and all that….)
But
The pretzel logic of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society on this is laughable.
On the one hand, a single wire would destroy forever the “viewshed” [sic—their word and a made-up word at that].
On the other hand, Capitol Hill Restoration Society is the main proponent of a plan to rip up Pennsylvania Avenue SE between 7th St and 9th St SE, and put kids’ water parks, statuary and/or shiny, skinny one-to-two-story spikes in the middle of the road…actually, really destroying the view of the Capitol approaching from the southeast.
Those with serious concerns about wires on this board, talk among yourselves. But the disingenuous Pennsylvania Avenue re-routers from Capitol Hill Restoration Society, keep it to yourselves until you decide which side you are on.
You’re right, the cost for rolling stock is minimal. 3% isn’t much.
What did concern me was the 300% increase in costs for laying track.
But I guess that’s an improvement - they also mentioned that the old conduit system had 5-7x the capital costs and 3x the operating costs of a standard overhead contact system.
Oh, and I had to laugh at the $100,000 extra cost per rail car for the wireless tech. Considering the cars we bought 5 years ago cost us 3 million per, I hardly think a 3% price addition in the cost of the actual street cars is a real deal killer.
I was there, too - and the impression I got was there are two reasons that Bordeaux was the only system with price numbers presented. First, the standard technology and the associated prices are fairly standard and uniform - lots of manufacturers, lots of standard parts, lots of competition. Second, the reason that none of the other alternative power supply systems had prices attached to them is because none of them are actually commercialized yet. Bombardier’s Primove induction system is more of an idea than a marketable product.
Regarding the in-ground power options, proponents have still not managed to address the weather and climate. Each of those places that have or are planning to have such a system are in more arid locations with much milder winters.
Furthermore, the operational considerations from the gentleman from Houston were illuminating. You must have an operational plan B.
@ andrew - can’t include the current purchaser of the arena naming rights - what happens when Verizon backs out, and Ted is trying to get another sponsor?
“also if we’re going to allow wires, they why not make the buses run on over-head wires too? and just wire up the whole damn city.”
Because when you have trolleybuses, it requires a substantial increase in wire infrastructure over a streetcar. Since the streetcar runs on metal rails, the wheels and track act as the ground for the electricity. Since the trolleybus is on rubber tires, there needs to be a second wire to act as ground.
I mention this only because a lot of the images that people post complaining of overhead wires are more indicative of trolleybus wiring than a single streetcar wire.
One of the primary problems with the Metrorail station names is not the length but the logic. Some station names are a collection of geographic indications thrown together (Georgia Ave./Petworth; others are a mix of geographic and attraction-based names (Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, U-St./African American Civil War Memorial/Cardoza), others still have only an attraction name (Smithsonian). If there were a logic to the naming conventions, they might be more pleasing (and useful).
One policy (not far from what we have) would be to give each station a single, primary, geography-based name (Georgia Ave.; Union Station; College Park; Penn Quarter). In addition stations serving a major attraction (a university, a sports facility, etc.) could be given a suffix, indicating that the station serves that attraction: Mt. Vernon Sq. (Convention Center); Woodley Park (National Zoo), College Park (UMd), Navy Yard (Ballpark) (and perhaps even National Mall (Smithsonian), to shake things up).
Well done Kenf. Could you come up with a more obvious strawman if you tried?
I love metro and ride it to work a few times a week. I am also a fan of Circulator and otherwise a staunch public transit supporter, but “I” think catenary masts and wires are ugly as sin.
No one realistically thinks that if DC builds a catenary masts and wire system, than in 5, 10 or 20 years the city would ever dare rip it out and replace it with wireless. Not a chance.
It isn’t as simple as “hanging wires”. There is substantial infrastructure involved in catenary masts and wires. On top of the wires and masts, there are the dozens of electrical feeder and substations that would need to be built around the city. There is also the construction of the maintenance and repair infrastructure that can’t be retasked later. Dubious? WMATA had to fund a new 100 million dollar bus garage last year because the facilities they had couldn’t handle the repairs/maintenance on our new and growing nat gas/hybrid buses.
The SWIMO system has a few hundred thousand kilometers under its belt since its debut 4 years ago and works by the book. Kawasaki has rated it for 10 KM between 5 minute charges but that has turned out to be the minimal capabilites as its record is 37km between charges.
Despite all the gaff Bordeaux’s system gets on this blog, Bordeaux celebrated 6 million km of APS operation in 2009. Three other French cities, Angers, Reims and Orleans decided in 2006 to install APS sections on their new light rail networks, and as we know, it was selected for Dubai’s Al Safooh Tramway.
The technology is here, today and it is proven. If we are going to crazily spend billions of dollars on an uneeded trendy toy that we will forever be stuck with, there is no reason to do it half assed.
Go ahead and build your wired system in H Street and Anacostia. The money for those projects was wasted 5 years ago and it is outside the L’Enfant city anyway, but I there really isn’t a debate about viability for wireless systems for anything that isn’t.
“You know, this city spends so much time and effort to keep the mall-part of the city looking beautiful”
Excuse me… but BWAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. First off, the city doesn’t maintain the Mall, the NPS does. Second, many people (include myself) don’t think they’re doing such a great job. See also: http://www.nationalmall.org/
also, could the DC trains at least look as cool as the Bordeaux trains, sleek, curvy and modern…. instead of the boxy equivalent of a 1980s circulator bus?
Ooh, I love me some Friday transit PR0N. (Take that, work filters!)
@MPC at 1:05: Oh, I get it. I get jokes.
@Jasper at 1:06 (#3): I’m with you there. )Funny how the street address for Van Dorn Street is on Eisenhower Avenue.) I’ve always thought they could make Van Dorn Street “West Alexandria” (whoops! a “west”!) and make Eisenhower Avenue “Hoffman.”
Did anyone else notice a clear bias at the meeting against the Bordeaux in-ground power system? It was the ONLY system that they presented numbers for (to support their argument that it was more expensive). They said Bordeaux’s system was about $100k more expensive per train and 3x more expensive to install. It was not given fair consideration.
They also gave lipservice to the fact that the Bordeaux system is beautiful. You know, this city spends so much time and effort to keep the mall-part of the city looking beautiful, it should really spend some on keeping the rest of the city nice too.
Face it—- wires are ugly. There’s no two ways about it. The Bordeaux—trains, tracks, and power—are beautiful, and you cannot put a price on that.
DC should choose the Bordeaux system. It will inspire the country to invest in the place we treasure as our nation’s capital, and might encourage other cities to do the same.
(also if we’re going to allow wires, they why not make the buses run on over-head wires too? and just wire up the whole damn city.)
I’m confused. There is already a plan to boulevardize the stub of the SW/SE Freeway from the 11th Street Bridge connector to Barney Circle. This is different from the more grandiose—and far less likely—concept of boulevardizing the whole SW/SE freeway.
In the late 90s, DC scrapped a proposed new highway through Barney Circle to cross the Anacostia upstream of Pennsylvania Ave. bridge. This later led to the 11th Street option for connecting the freeways—now under construction. When the freeways become linked there, the stub mentioned in this post will become unnecessary for commuting and it can be returned to surface streets for neighborhood use.
While the 11th Street project is on the front-burner, the boulevardization is still on the planning books. Apparently it was discussed in the EIS on the 11th Street Bridges. See http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm?id=2641 for a reference.
I’m all for the renaming, and the 15-character limit, but I think they should avoid naming any stop for a street (arguably with the exception of U Street, because it’s iconic, and because the entire length of it is best accessed from that station). Georgia Ave, Florida Ave, and Rhode Island Ave are every bit as silly as 7th St… there are multiple stations along each of those long thoroughfares. I also think when a station is on the border of two major neighborhoods, it ought to have both of their names, along with a hyphen. Basically, they should ban street names and local attractions, and every station should be named for either one or at most two neighborhoods.
So here’s what I would do (at least within the District):
Red Line:
Friendship Heights
Tenleytown
Forest Hills
Cleveland Park
Woodley Park-Adams Morgan
Dupont Circle
Farragut Square (ideally, this links via pedestrian underpass to a station with the same name on a different line)
Metro Center
Chinatown
Judiciary Square
Union Station
NoMa
Brentwood
Brookland
Fort Totten
Takoma
Orange/Blue Lines:
Foggy Bottom
Farragut Square
McPherson Square
Metro Center
Federal Triangle
Smithsonian
L’Enfant Plaza
Federal Center SW
Capitol South
Eastern Market
Potomac Ave
Barney Circle
Minnesota Ave (Orange)
Deanwood (Orange)
Benning Road (Blue)
Yellow/Green Lines:
Fort Totten
Petworth-Park View
Columbia Heights-Mount Pleasant
Midcity
Shaw
Mt. Vernon Square
Chinatown
Penn Quarter
L’Enfant Plaza
Waterfront
Navy Yard
Anacostia
Congress Heights
@ Jamie You said “DC government consistently exhibits ineptitude in every other area”. That is not my experience, and hasn’t been since before the Tony Williams era. In fact, my dealings with the DC government have been generally very good. That’s not to say they’re perfect, or there’s no room for improvement, but in general, I’ve been pleased.
Your handwaving doesn’t make it so.
@Bossi: As a PSU alum and a UMD alum - I’m with you! @MPC: Isn’t State College great? I do hope, though, that you take the bus to the grocery store every once in a while - McLanahan’s can get a little heavy on the wallet….
On the Purple Line, well, UMD doesn’t seem to have any idea what they’re doing with respect to transit or how real students and faculty want to use the campus.
The Diamondback article reads as though this (presumably) student journalist will have a fine career with FOX or the Washington Post OpEd pages in the future.
FWIW, it might be that the UM administrators drive through their campus every day. If UM is anything like UT, a large portion of the student body is oblivious to anything smaller than a 747 and have not the least concept of roadway, walkway, or roadbed. Within the past two semesters I have twice had students, walking parallel to the roadway on my right (and of course utterly infatuated with their conversation on an iPhone)turn and abruptly step into my car at about the point of the front door. They may be right that their students would fail to recognize or respond to a train.
It really is amazing how one person can look at that and see untold beauty and handsome cohesion, and someone else (like me) says it looks like something straight out of the 1960 vintage Soviet Union transportation handbook they used to build public transport in “East” Berlin. Frankly, it is hideous and makes the whole area look like a rail yard out back of an industrial steel plant.
And anyone who honestly says it would be a good idea to forgo the historic cast “acorn” street lamps in DC, or to substitute/replace them with highway cobraheads as displayed in this street view, has no taste or asthetic quality whatsoever.
Georgia ave is 22 miles long. The station name should be Petworth. While not in the heart of Petworth, it is the station as you are leaving Columbia Heights and entering Petworth. The name makes sense.
anyone who thinks K Street will ever look like Avenue Thiers is smoking something very very strong. (maybe from the new DC dispensary?)
Ooh, those Bordeaux street cars have their OWN LANES, which means unlike DC’s streetcars, they dont get stuck in craptastic traffic. Our trams (why cant we just call them trams) will be as useful as buses, made of gold.
I’ve never really been bothered by the universities having their names on stations, as long as they are on/near the campus (GW, CUA) or have a shuttle running to it (AU, UMD). These places often attract people unfamiliar with the system (perspective students, those going to sporting events, etc.) and they don’t really add that much to the length of the station name (really, a dash with two or three characters).
And I’m probably making this up, but was the 7th St/Convention center named that way to avoid confusion while the old convention center was still up?
I also admire how they doubled the catenary support columns as street lamps. that is certainly something that can be applicable to DC with ease.
rg…what an awesome street view. you can see pedestrian, bike, car, parking, and rail infrastructure (with catenary wires) all happily coexisting. AMAZING!
I go to Penn State. I’m on Beaver Ave. right now. I actually love riding CATA to the mall. Would you believe that I live, shop and go out mostly in the downtown part of town, and don’t have a car?
@oboe, seriously? So now DC does everything right? uhh…. I guess I know who’s voting for Adrian “Hire All My Buddies” Fenty.
I wouldn’t know where to begin, but it’s irrelevant.
The burden is not on me to prove that DC actually did something that there’s no evidence of. I can’t imagine how one might do that.
I would think if any kind of study had been done, it should be easily found on DC’s web site.
I can’t even verify the existence of the Fort Totten Transfer Station on DC’s web site any more.
It looks like they intend to run the rail line on the surface across one of the prettier green spaces on campus—right across the front lawn, as it were—and then tunnel under their own chapel. The point seems to be to make it as inconvenient as possible to get from the train to the Student Union and/or Health Center.
Ugh, every passing day I’m more and more ashamed to have a UMD diploma. It’s one thing for the University to believe in an alternative; it’s another thing entirely to promulgate lies.
I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt no matter how much I may disagree, but I’m quickly running out of such courtesies with the University, and my knowledge of the English language can only go so far with trying to keep a semi-civil tone when writing comments.
Just to pick on one of many of the University’s aggravations, as Tim notes: cut-and-cover is vastly more intrusive than a surface line, and quoting the impacts of construction of the line in Minnesota only reinforces the paradox of this logic.
And then there’s the vibration impacts of an underground line as compared to a surface line… and that it’s an alignment already shunned by many & now they’re making it more expensive… and they don’t seem to have the most basic grasp of federal funding formulae… and the students seem to be irrelevant… and the summer everything closure proves no point… and… and… I’m done for now.
Anyone want to help buy a pro-Purple Line brick for the campus? Or any other Penn Staters out there who want to help buy a brick at UMD which says something like “We are Penn State!” ? I’m just in a spiteful mood now.
Wanted to add, most of the things that are offered up as evidence of incompetence by DC government are actually examples of a bureaucracy swamped with fallout from poverty.
Fairfax county doesn’t have a “poorly implemented jobs program for 30,000 unemployable impoverished youth” because Fairfax country doesn’t have 30,000 unemployable youth. Most of the interactions with DC government I’ve had in the last decade have actually been a model of pleasant efficiency (at least compared to any large city, or my distant memories of Montgomery County, for the matter), from the DMV, to DOH, to MPD, to DPW. Given the dissonance between the reputation and the reality, it’s quite creepy, really.
Any electrical system requires susbstations. One that serves the whole city requires substations throughout the whole city. The streetcar system in Bordeaux requires them. As do the streetcar systems in the 300+ cities throughout the world that have streetcars. And the general electricity system of most cities, including DC. The electricity nookie use at home does. Indeed, there are already hundreds of electricity substations throughout DC. The H Street-Benning Road streetcar line will require three small substations. Electricity substations are not a serious argument against streetcars.
Speaking of Bordeaux, the vast majority of its streetcar system uses overhead wires. Indeed, they recently converted several stretched from APS to overhead wires and all new extensions use overhead wires. Here is Avenue Thiers, just off of Place Stalingrad in Bordeaux:
View Larger Map
Such an ugly street. It so stifles stirring thoughts of democracy and open government….........
even though DC government consistently exhibits ineptitude in every other area
Examples please? DMV? Snow plowing? What are we talking about?
They want to talk about disruptions during construction, do they now?
Well, I assume any underground portion would be cut-and-cover, since boring would be massively expensive and it looks like the proposed route doesn’t go under any buildings.
I’m sure many in the administration were around the DC area while the cut-and-cover portion of the Metro was built. And I doubt the state or the university would be willing to shell out the money necessary for the speed at which those sections of the Metro were built.
Point is, building a tunnel would rip the campus apart for a few years.
“Strange to assume they didn’t study the issue - it is their job, of course.”
As I said yesterday - I think it’s really odd that when it comes to things like streetcars and experimental pedestrian crossings, everyone suddenly thinks that the DC Government is not only competent, but good at doing its job.
On what basis would you think that even though DC government consistently exhibits ineptitude in every other area, when it comes to a pet project that you happen to approve of, suddenly they’re good at something?
In the absence of any information about if, when, and how the issue was studied, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that it has not been done thoroughly or even at all.
There’s no mention of this in the “Pedestrian Master Plan” from 2008, and I’ve never heard anything about it until today.
If any substantial analysis or research has been done, then I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, won’t we?
@Transit User:
The ban on overhead wires only extends to the L’Enfant City: the area between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and Florida Ave.
DC is currently constructing a streetcar line in Anacostia, which is why DC bought those 3 streetcars. They will be running in 2012 - in the City of Washington.
Wires aren’t ugly. The City can always ask that the law be changed by putting an amendment of the DC Voting Rights Act. I doubt I’ll ever see those orphan 3-year old streetcars running around this city. They will be out-dated and rusting by the time this A-team figures out how to get electric to those tracks they have been working on for 3 years. LMAO!!!
@Jamie: Strange to assume they didn’t study the issue - it is their job, of course.
FWIW: Denver is (as this study shows) by no means exceptional in terms of pedestrian fatality rates. It’s just that lots of people walk to work there.
Isn’t the university part of the state government? Why can’t the Maryland legislature just order UMD to follow the most logical and cost-efficient alignment?
Also worth noting that there are already overhead wires along H St (presumably illegally).
I’d also disagree with the assessment that the conduit system has “no issues” with regards to proprietary technology or “proven reliability.” I thought it was established that the system was proven to be unreliable, and that the cars would have to be custom-built, unlike the current cars which were essentially bought “off the rack.”
The flywheel storage is one of the more interesting ideas, and warrants further exploration, given that flywheels are relatively mature from a technological standpoint. The flywheels could also be used as a gyroscope, which would let you do interesting things like riding on a single rail
Woudn’t an underground route create even more of those evil “vibrations” that UM seems to be so concerned about?
I’m also interested in the revolutionary procedure that’s going to allow them to dig a tunnel under the campus for $23 million.
There’s a discussion here about the per-mile cost of tunneling (particularly for light rail projects), and costs generally tend to be much, much, much higher than what the university officials have hinted at.
I’m sorry, but this is NIMBYism at its worst. If buses have traveled this route without incident, there’s no reason why light rail would be any worse (and many reasons why it’d be better)
I seem to recall that the western (Bethesda-Silver Spring) and eastern (SS - New Carrollton) portions of the line were once separate projects. How practical might it be, at this point, to re-split them so that UM admin intransigence doesn’t kill the whole thing?
One of the keys to infilling Tysons with more development will be what types of uses are built and how they are phased. As a number of responders above accurately point out, upping the density just because we will soon have 4 metro stations will not in itself make Tysons a better place (let alone anything resembling a walkable city)due to the limitations of the street network (which really isn’t a network) and limited reach of metro relative to where employees & customers live. Adding residential (dense residential) would not significantly worsen traffic since residents would be driving against the flow if they don’t work there, though ideally they’re riding metro to Arlington or DC. Tysons needs housing to balance it’s lopsided mix of residents to worker-bees. Housing (in general) is over-built at the moment and financing will no doubt remain a challenge until we’re clear of the subprime mess, but it is the one use that will help Tysons to begin moving toward something resembling a real downtown.
@Answer Guy:
The Baltimore entry only counts the subway stations, not the light rail. The 14 Metro stations range in length from 9 (Mondawmin, Old Court) to 28 (State Center/Cultural Center) characters.
The breakdown is such:
Similarly, I’d say that if Dubai is doing… well, pretty much anything, that in itself is an argument not to do it.
@oboe, sort of—
One curious bit I picked up in discussion after the presentation (with Timothy Borchers) was that Bordeaux still has tremendous difficulties with the APS system: apparently, it’s been quite difficult to maintain physical contact between the pickup shoe on the streetcar and the center electrified rail. One of the principle ways that Bordeaux got their reliability up was to retrofit the streetcars with (more?) batteries, to let them keep moving when the APS pickup failed.
For Dubai, they’ve completely re-designed the pickup shoe, so there’s a sense in which Bordeaux and Dubai aren’t really using the same systems. How well Dubai’s APS equipment performs, of course, remains to be seen.
If batteries and supercapacitors continue to get better, as many think they will, and considering that most APS installations being considered are only for small portions of the overall route structure, I wouldn’t be surprised if APS fades away in a decade or so. Some combination of on-board storage might, in a few years’ time, be obviously better performing and cheaper for short-distance wireless sections, and you’d be able to get competitive bids for any expansions, from several different companies each with its own way of doing on-board storage, instead of being locked in to the one manufacturer of APS or whatever other external wireless technology is bought.
While I appreciate the above post from the AAA sharing the “proper” views of the main organization as well as the AAA Mid-Atlantic, the voice of Lon Anderson, particularly in an Op-Ed he authored on the Cleveland Park Listserv, does nothing to alleviate my concerns or the concerns of many residents in the District of Columbia.
As a result of the releases and correspondences, I have personally canceled my membership to the AAA (of 15 years) in favor of an alternative that makes its pro-transportation (including bicycles) views the cornerstone of its organization.
I would suggest that the AAA very closely examine its views, lobbying stance and practices very carefully and derive an alternative plan, if it wants to maintain any sense of standing with those who share an apparently different worldview than Mr. Anderson.
The Baltimore subway has the longest names..interesting. Would never have guessed that, since none of them are as verbose as something like “U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo.”
A name like “Reisterstown Road Plaza” has lots of characters to it but it’s not an unreasonably long name.
I assume this doesn’t include the Light Rail system, with which I’m far more familiar. That system does include the “University of Baltimore - Mount Royal” station but other than have succinct nomenclature.
Hey Everyone:
IÂ’m the Social Media Manager at AAA Mid-Atlantic. IÂ’d like to respond to the press weÂ’ve been receiving painting us as anti-bike or anti-cyclist as a result of a press release we sent out on the new bike lanes in Washington, DC. Though I donÂ’t personally bike to work, I value the rights of others to bike for leisure or as a commuting option. Concerned that AAA Mid-Atlantic was not acting in the best interest of its Members, I emailed Ron Kosh, our VP of Public and Government Affairs, alerting him to the issue and asking “Was AAA Mid-Atlantic really anti-bike”? I wanted to share RonÂ’s response with all of you.
“AAA Mid-Atlantic does not oppose bike lanes in the nation’s capital. We are fully supportive of the fact that the District of Columbia has 44.7 miles of bike lanes and 56 miles of bike trails.
AAA also supports additional bike lanes including lanes on major city thoroughfares where practical. However, a meaningful and thoughtful planning process should follow when doing so. That process should include: 1) a published mobility analysis and full traffic impact study, 2) an environmental impact study, and 3) completion of a public comment period.
AAA Mid-Atlantic believes that “Share the Road†situations can safely and effectively be created between motorists, cyclists and pedestrians as is already evident on many streets in the city.
DDOT must, however, have the best interests in mind of all citizens: including motorists, cyclists and pedestrians when implementing any change that has such significant impact on mobility in the city.Ââ€
From my perspective, what AAA Mid-Atlantic did wrong was write a press release that caused our position to be misunderstood. Additionally, we allowed a few days to pass before we responded to clarify that we are definitely not anti-cyclist. In fact, we are sponsors of Ride Your Bike to Work Day and offer community programs on Bike Safety.
I hope this will allay any concerns some of you have had on this issue. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please comment back or email me at ksnedaker@aaamidatlantic.com. Thanks so much to all of you for taking the time to tell us how you feel on this issue. ItÂ’s incredibly important to us receive this kind of feedback and we truly appreciate it!
Someone mentioning that this city spends lots of money to make the mall look good is laughable.
The wire rules were put in place in a time of telegraph lines going everywhere, when power companies were just introducing electricity and had lines of varying non standard voltages (thus each had their own) going everywhere. That looked like garbage. I am glad NYC and DC put in rule getting that under control.
Next you will see Lance argue that it is in our planning ‘Constitution’ that we can never ever ever allow wires in DC, as if it is something that can never be changed. Our real Constitution once allowed slavery and denied women the right to vote. Overhead wires for a fixed line streetcar are so unobtrusive these days that this debate is silly and gives NIMBY’s and easy canard to hide behind. Save the money, buy commercial off the shelf standard streetcars, string up that single wire and lets get this party started!
as we know, it was selected for Dubai’s Al Safooh Tramway.
Anyone know offhand how much snow Dubai gets per annum?
Just curious.
Not pointing the finger at anyone on this thread, many (most?) of whom seem to have legitimate concerns about wires (and de gustibus non disputandum est and all that….)
But
The pretzel logic of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society on this is laughable.
On the one hand, a single wire would destroy forever the “viewshed” [sic—their word and a made-up word at that].
On the other hand, Capitol Hill Restoration Society is the main proponent of a plan to rip up Pennsylvania Avenue SE between 7th St and 9th St SE, and put kids’ water parks, statuary and/or shiny, skinny one-to-two-story spikes in the middle of the road…actually, really destroying the view of the Capitol approaching from the southeast.
Those with serious concerns about wires on this board, talk among yourselves. But the disingenuous Pennsylvania Avenue re-routers from Capitol Hill Restoration Society, keep it to yourselves until you decide which side you are on.
@nookie
You’re right, the cost for rolling stock is minimal. 3% isn’t much.
What did concern me was the 300% increase in costs for laying track.
But I guess that’s an improvement - they also mentioned that the old conduit system had 5-7x the capital costs and 3x the operating costs of a standard overhead contact system.
Oh, and I had to laugh at the $100,000 extra cost per rail car for the wireless tech. Considering the cars we bought 5 years ago cost us 3 million per, I hardly think a 3% price addition in the cost of the actual street cars is a real deal killer.
@I was there
I was there, too - and the impression I got was there are two reasons that Bordeaux was the only system with price numbers presented. First, the standard technology and the associated prices are fairly standard and uniform - lots of manufacturers, lots of standard parts, lots of competition. Second, the reason that none of the other alternative power supply systems had prices attached to them is because none of them are actually commercialized yet. Bombardier’s Primove induction system is more of an idea than a marketable product.
Regarding the in-ground power options, proponents have still not managed to address the weather and climate. Each of those places that have or are planning to have such a system are in more arid locations with much milder winters.
Furthermore, the operational considerations from the gentleman from Houston were illuminating. You must have an operational plan B.
@ andrew - can’t include the current purchaser of the arena naming rights - what happens when Verizon backs out, and Ted is trying to get another sponsor?
@i was there:
“also if we’re going to allow wires, they why not make the buses run on over-head wires too? and just wire up the whole damn city.”
Because when you have trolleybuses, it requires a substantial increase in wire infrastructure over a streetcar. Since the streetcar runs on metal rails, the wheels and track act as the ground for the electricity. Since the trolleybus is on rubber tires, there needs to be a second wire to act as ground.
I mention this only because a lot of the images that people post complaining of overhead wires are more indicative of trolleybus wiring than a single streetcar wire.
One of the primary problems with the Metrorail station names is not the length but the logic. Some station names are a collection of geographic indications thrown together (Georgia Ave./Petworth; others are a mix of geographic and attraction-based names (Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, U-St./African American Civil War Memorial/Cardoza), others still have only an attraction name (Smithsonian). If there were a logic to the naming conventions, they might be more pleasing (and useful).
One policy (not far from what we have) would be to give each station a single, primary, geography-based name (Georgia Ave.; Union Station; College Park; Penn Quarter). In addition stations serving a major attraction (a university, a sports facility, etc.) could be given a suffix, indicating that the station serves that attraction: Mt. Vernon Sq. (Convention Center); Woodley Park (National Zoo), College Park (UMd), Navy Yard (Ballpark) (and perhaps even National Mall (Smithsonian), to shake things up).
Well done Kenf. Could you come up with a more obvious strawman if you tried?
I love metro and ride it to work a few times a week. I am also a fan of Circulator and otherwise a staunch public transit supporter, but “I” think catenary masts and wires are ugly as sin.
No one realistically thinks that if DC builds a catenary masts and wire system, than in 5, 10 or 20 years the city would ever dare rip it out and replace it with wireless. Not a chance.
It isn’t as simple as “hanging wires”. There is substantial infrastructure involved in catenary masts and wires. On top of the wires and masts, there are the dozens of electrical feeder and substations that would need to be built around the city. There is also the construction of the maintenance and repair infrastructure that can’t be retasked later. Dubious? WMATA had to fund a new 100 million dollar bus garage last year because the facilities they had couldn’t handle the repairs/maintenance on our new and growing nat gas/hybrid buses.
The SWIMO system has a few hundred thousand kilometers under its belt since its debut 4 years ago and works by the book. Kawasaki has rated it for 10 KM between 5 minute charges but that has turned out to be the minimal capabilites as its record is 37km between charges.
Despite all the gaff Bordeaux’s system gets on this blog, Bordeaux celebrated 6 million km of APS operation in 2009. Three other French cities, Angers, Reims and Orleans decided in 2006 to install APS sections on their new light rail networks, and as we know, it was selected for Dubai’s Al Safooh Tramway.
The technology is here, today and it is proven. If we are going to crazily spend billions of dollars on an uneeded trendy toy that we will forever be stuck with, there is no reason to do it half assed.
Go ahead and build your wired system in H Street and Anacostia. The money for those projects was wasted 5 years ago and it is outside the L’Enfant city anyway, but I there really isn’t a debate about viability for wireless systems for anything that isn’t.
“You know, this city spends so much time and effort to keep the mall-part of the city looking beautiful”
Excuse me… but BWAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. First off, the city doesn’t maintain the Mall, the NPS does. Second, many people (include myself) don’t think they’re doing such a great job. See also: http://www.nationalmall.org/
also, could the DC trains at least look as cool as the Bordeaux trains, sleek, curvy and modern…. instead of the boxy equivalent of a 1980s circulator bus?
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frankreich_2007.10.25_112329_.jpg
B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l!
Ooh, I love me some Friday transit PR0N. (Take that, work filters!)
@MPC at 1:05: Oh, I get it. I get jokes.
@Jasper at 1:06 (#3): I’m with you there. )Funny how the street address for Van Dorn Street is on Eisenhower Avenue.) I’ve always thought they could make Van Dorn Street “West Alexandria” (whoops! a “west”!) and make Eisenhower Avenue “Hoffman.”
Hi,
Did anyone else notice a clear bias at the meeting against the Bordeaux in-ground power system? It was the ONLY system that they presented numbers for (to support their argument that it was more expensive). They said Bordeaux’s system was about $100k more expensive per train and 3x more expensive to install. It was not given fair consideration.
They also gave lipservice to the fact that the Bordeaux system is beautiful. You know, this city spends so much time and effort to keep the mall-part of the city looking beautiful, it should really spend some on keeping the rest of the city nice too.
Face it—- wires are ugly. There’s no two ways about it. The Bordeaux—trains, tracks, and power—are beautiful, and you cannot put a price on that.
DC should choose the Bordeaux system. It will inspire the country to invest in the place we treasure as our nation’s capital, and might encourage other cities to do the same.
(also if we’re going to allow wires, they why not make the buses run on over-head wires too? and just wire up the whole damn city.)
What about using invisible nimby wires?
I’m confused. There is already a plan to boulevardize the stub of the SW/SE Freeway from the 11th Street Bridge connector to Barney Circle. This is different from the more grandiose—and far less likely—concept of boulevardizing the whole SW/SE freeway.
In the late 90s, DC scrapped a proposed new highway through Barney Circle to cross the Anacostia upstream of Pennsylvania Ave. bridge. This later led to the 11th Street option for connecting the freeways—now under construction. When the freeways become linked there, the stub mentioned in this post will become unnecessary for commuting and it can be returned to surface streets for neighborhood use.
While the 11th Street project is on the front-burner, the boulevardization is still on the planning books. Apparently it was discussed in the EIS on the 11th Street Bridges. See http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm?id=2641 for a reference.