In our inbox: Kids on errands, sports in transit, a Green Line extension, and road pricing reflections

GGWash wants to hear from you! Our periodic Emails to the Editor column is your chance to sound off about stories you’ve seen in GGWash. Learn more about how to submit an Email to the Editor for possible publication.

In response to: With the FBI moving, it’s time to plan a Green Line extension

I’m very much in favor of expanding Washington’s Metrorail network. But expanding to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, particularly in a time of very constrained resources, is both wildly unrealistic and just plain wrong.

Wildly unrealistic given the cost and length that such an extension would entail.

Wrong for several reasons: First, it would duplicate commuter rail (MARC) and Amtrak services to the station. MARC service could be expanded — consistent with mainline Amtrak Northeast Corridor service needs — at much less cost than extending the Green line. Second, there are much greater pressing needs for Metrorail expansion: namely, the need for a second Potomac River crossing at or near Rosslyn, as WMATA has already proposed, to deal with a real capacity constraint. Fixing that problem is going to be VERY expensive. If resources can be identified to support Metrorail expansion, better to direct it at solving that problem, and/or constructing infill stations on the existing network to serve new transit-oriented development that did not exist when the initial network was laid out in the 1960s (NoMa and Potomac Yards, for example).

Finally, the absolute priority at this moment in time should not be Metro expansion, but fixing the deep hole in Metro’s operating budget. Nevertheless, as part of a fix of the operating budget, any financing model for the future should incorporate finding funding for critical capital investments, including to address capacity constraints and new infrastructure. On the funding issues, food for thought might be taken from Reece Martin’s recent Substack on how Toronto addressed funding challenges: Toronto’s Transportation Trade is Very Good. Of course, the situation here in the Washington region – given multiple jurisdictions and players – is much more complicated.

Again, Patrick deserves our thanks for his thoughtful proposal. It’s just not the right one for now.

P.A. Brown

**

In response to: 11 sports venues you can get to on transit

I enjoyed reading the recent article “11 sports venues you can get to on transit.” I wanted to humbly submit, for future consideration if this topic is explored more, Catholic University’s Carlini Field. In the spring and summer, it’s the home field for the ultimate frisbee teams DC Shadow and DC Breeze. Both of those teams made deep playoff runs last year, and best of all, the field is easily accessible via the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the Fort Totten or Brookland Metro stops.

Again, thank you for a fun and informative article!

James Musial, Park View, Washington, DC

**

In response to: Old Enough! DC edition: what a kids’ independent errand says about our built environment

I also enjoy the Netflix program in which young children do errands alone. When my children were about 11 to 12 months old, I began asking them to tell me which way to turn when we were driving or even when I was carrying them on a walk. And to tell me when the stop light changed and it was our turn. As a result they could direct me over long distances in the car to their nursery schools, for example. It was a game that was fun as well as teaching them to be aware of their environment. That was in the 1970s.

In 2015, I agreed to drive a 14-year-old who needed a ride to her weekend camp drop-off spot. Her mother had given me the address but when we got to the area, I discovered that the girl had no idea where we were going, what kind of building it was, or who would be waiting. Was I looking for a brick building, a shopping center, or what? Would there be a group of children or one camp counselor in a car or with a bus. She had no idea. About the same time, I discovered that my two grandchildren also had no idea how to get anywhere or where they were. They were driven everywhere in the city and paid no attention. They didn’t know the way to their lessons or to their favorite restaurants. Or which way was home. They were 6 and 9. I realized that even though they had both memorized emergency telephone numbers and how to ask adults for help, they were not learning independence, self-reliance, how cities are designed, or which way was north.

Sharon Villines, Washington, DC

**

In response to The ride was never free: It’s time to price our roads for health and climate

I truly appreciate the advocacy of this opinion piece. The drive towards reducing the harms free roads bring to DC residents, particularly those east of the Anacostia River.

I’d like to advocate for GGWash to pick a particular corridor to first implement new road pricing initiatives. And I’d like to advocate for that corridor to be DC-295. It is nonsensical that DC residents subsidize Maryland to Maryland pass throughs of DC, particularly given the adjacent communities that suffer as a result of it.

A modest toll on vehicles traversing DC-295 with trips originating and terminating in Maryland is the obvious first choice for road pricing in the District.

Cameron A. Sanders, Anacostia/Fairlawn, Washington, DC