Category Archives: Streetcars

Streetcar smackdown watch

Over the last few days, the Washington Post featured a number of streetcar pieces.  First, Lisa Rein laid out the basis for the debate on overhead wires.  The Post’s editorial board then chastised all the players to find a realistic and reasonable solution.

Today’s print edition features two pieces delving deeper into how streetcars fit into the mold of historic preservation, urbanism, and urban untidiness.  The first comes from Adam Irish, a member of the DC Preservation League and a volunteer at the DC Historic Preservation Office.  Irish starts by marking the difference between those who seek to preserve urbanism and those that seek to preserve DC’s monumentality above all else:

This kerfuffle is about more than just ugly wires, however. It gets to the heart of an old and familiar conflict over how Washingtonians and Americans at large envision the city. In its coverage, The Post has referred to opponents of wires as “preservationists,” but I think “D.C. monumentalists” better describes their stance. For the monumentalist, Washington, D.C., the city comes second to Washington, D.C., the sanitized and photogenic capital.

The monumentalist vision of Washington has choked nearly all urban life from the Mall and its environs. It has fashioned large sections of our city into pleasing vistas for tourists but has given the rest of us lifeless wastelands (if you’ve ever stepped foot outside at L’Enfant Plaza, you know what I’m talking about).

Urban life and urban form isn’t always pretty.  In fact, the sometimes-messy complexity is part of what makes cities such interesting places to live in.  Spiro Kostof described it as “energized crowding,” a kind of messiness that’s inherent to creativity and day to day life.  This isn’t to discredit the formalism of Washington’s City Beautiful aesthetic – merely asserting that such monumentalism shouldn’t trump all other facets of urbanism.

Philip Kennicott expands on those themes in his piece, also running in Sunday’s print edition:

If you listen to preservationists, the most ardent of whom oppose any overhead wires in the city, you might think Washington was loaded with great vistas. And it is, but not the awe-inspiring views they’re thinking about, which turn out to be fairly few and often not that impressive. Even down our wide avenues, sightlines tend to terminate in small monuments that are best seen up close.

The great views down the streets of Washington are just coming into their full glory as the leaves of spring return. These aren’t wide-open vistas with monumental buildings in the far distance; they are tunnel-like views of shaded streets, overarched by majestic elms, oaks and maples. These shady tubes of green, which are rare in newer and suburban neighborhoods, are the truly distinctive beauty of Washington. The only reasonable concern about running overhead wires should be the protection of trees that create these glorious canopies.

Nobody in this debate would argue that overhead wires look good, but too often the debate is framed in either/or terms – either the wires are ugly or they are not.  Kennicott addresses this false dichotomy as well:

Arguments against overhead wires rest on two essential assumptions: that the city is filled with streets that have historically significant and aesthetically impressive views; and that wires and poles would be ugly intrusions on these grand vistas. The former is questionable, the latter a matter of opinion.

The point about wires obstructing views that don’t always exist is a good one.  As noted, DC’s canopy of street trees is a legacy worth protecting, yet these same trees (on, say, East Capitol street) make for a wonderful streetscape – but at the cost of forgoing views of the Capitol Dome beyond a few blocks.

East Capitol dome view

Google street view of Capitol Dome (it's in there somewhere) from East Capitol Street, near 4th Street.

This isn’t to say that wires wouldn’t obstruct this view – but the key point is that the streetcar plan does not propose to obstruct these types of views with wires at all.  Kennicott hammers on this point, noting that the current plans do not include major obstructions, both by avoiding major view corridors and considering the fact that wire ‘obstruction’ is relatively minor.  Like the trees that line many of these grand avenues, the positive benefits of the streetcars vastly outweigh the negative costs.

The takeaway message from all of these articles should be that a reasonable compromise – a hybrid of wires and battery power to protect key viewsheds – is both realistic and palatable to most Washingtonians.

This Week – Ice Hockey!

DDOT’s streetcar website has a lot of great resources.  All the things you’d expect, like open house dates, construction updates, their new plans and other documents, are there and easily accessed.

They also have a gallery of some great old photos of DC’s original streetcar network.

This image (circa 1943), from the old underground turnaround terminus for the southern end of the 14th line features a nice vintage advertisement for upcoming hockey games at Uline Arena.  Looks like Hershey and Cleveland will be in town to play the Washington Lions.   Hershey, of course, is now the AHL farm team for the Caps.

More photos:

Georgetown

Pennsylvania Ave, looking at the Treasury Building, circa 1925.

DDOT’s got a whole slew of historical photos in their online archive, well worth checking out.

Looking north up Connecticut Ave towards Dupont Circle, 1958.  Note the two underpass entrances – the nearest for streetcars and the other (currently extant) for cars.

Another from 1958, this is what’s now Freedom Plaza.

Feedback loops

The Tsarchitect succinctly summarizes the various discussions on McMillan Two.  As noted in my thoughts on the plan, this kind of dialogue is vital to make this a better plan.

  • JD Hammond offers a counter-proposal, drawing on Asian cities and how they interface with their rivers.
  • Dave Murphy notes the opportunity/challenge this plan presents for the BRAC process, as it involves re-use of a lot of land controlled by the Military.
  • GGW summarizes DDOT’s newest iteration of the streetcar plan, making the comment rounds now.

With regard to the McMillan Two focus area of the Anacostia, the streetcar plan raises a couple of interesting points.  The plan features a Minnesota Avenue line, which would parallel a great deal of the river while still running through established neighborhoods.  As mentioned in the GGW summary, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells suggested moving the N-S link through Capitol Hill further to the east, in order to better serve the planned Reservation 13/DC General development – a path that would also serve more of the proposed plan area, through both Reservation 13 and the RFK Stadium site. Such a line shouldn’t replace the 8th Street line, but it would be a nice compliment to it.

An interesting connection that’s not on the map is through Buzzard Point.  The plan features two lines terminating on Buzzard Point, near Fort McNair.  The obvious and interesting connection would be to extend tracks south across a new South Capitol Street Bridge, which would give you cross-river connectivity with multiple modes and via multiple routes.

Such a density of network connections is a great starting point to enable the kind of development needed to fill this plan with buildings.   It’s not quite DC’s version of the DLR, but it’s a start.

Miscellany

Basic Training

The Tsarchitect had a great reminder on the importance of the basics today – linking to a video from William Whyte, from a video version of his great work, the Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.

Part 1:

The remaining sections of the video are available here: (one – two – three – four – five – six)

I hadn’t watched the video since graduate school – thanks for the reminder.  It’s well worth a viewing.

NCPC Items

A couple of items related to the National Capital Planning Commission:

JDLand had an item a while back about their largely favorable reaction to the 11th Street Bridges project – with the exception of the streetcars, of course.

However, they are not at all happy with DDOT’s decision to choose a streetcar system with overhead wires, and the document goes into detail on how this works against federal interests, as well as listing what non-overhead-wire streetcar options exist out there (none in the US so far). Their conclusions (page 22):

“Recommends that DDOT not include streetcar system components for overhead wires as part of the 11th Street Bridge project and that DDOT prepare an environmental impact statement for its proposed District wide streetcar system that examines potential impacts on the L’Enfant City and Georgetown and that includes an analysis of propulsion systems that do not require the use of overhead wires.

“Advises DDOT that the Commission does not support a streetcar system with overhead wires because it supports the unobstructed views to important landmarks along the city’s streets and avenues that are integral to the District’s unique character and result from the long-standing federal statutory prohibition against using overhead wires in Washington City (the L’Enfant City) and Georgetown.

“Encourages DDOT to pursue alternative propulsion technologies for the proposed streetcar system that do not require overhead wires in accordance with its January 24, 2008 commitment to include dual vehicle propulsion requirements in a solicitation package for the development and implementation of the broader streetcar system beyond the Anacostia and H Street/Benning Road corridors.”

Meanwhile, at GGW, Matt Johnson has a post up on potential freight rail bypasses of DC, triggered in part by safety concerns, and in part by the NCPC’s desire to remove the current rail rights of way though the District.

These aesthetic concerns shouldn’t be underestimated, but from my perspective, the minimal obstruction of streetcar wires isn’t worth the kind of opposition the NCPC is putting up.  Even if you take wires as a negative (which I do not think is a given), the net results are certainly a positive for DC.

Shopping Spree

Transit Miami reminds us all of a post from the Infrastructurist back in May with a nice comparative chart of transit costs by mode, with references to specific projects.

Modernism in DC

DC MUD had a great interview with architect Ali Honarkar (designer of the Lacey) with some great tidbits on DC’s style, height limits, and NIMBYs:

DCMud: Lacey has gotten attention inside DC, but also outside DC. What do you attribute that to?

AH: Yeah, I don’t know! (laughs). We designed it to get attention, that’s what you do. We’re not going to write a hit song and apologize, you want it to be played. Actually we’re getting more national than local attention. I’m a little disappointed with the local media, and I think it may be driven by sponsors, this very conservative southern town. You would think the Washington Post, as local media, should know what’s going on around here. We’ve seen the Lacey in New York blogs, LA blogs, and architecture blogs, and I’m always amazed how they find us. But they don’t have to find you here, we’re here, they should know what’s in their back yard.

On sustainable design:

DCMud: So green is not cheap, design is not cheap, how do you combine those two goods, and still make it affordable?

AH: Its hard, there are metropolitan cities, like NY would be the first, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, they have that. You put up a building anywhere in New York, they will still line up if its good. I think the DC culture, within the last 10 years has really changed, you see a lot more emphasis, not just on housing, but the restaurants, you see a lot more design, restaurants, bars, we’re getting there slowly but surely. We’re not very good at that, we just do it. There were so many ways to make the Lacy cheaper. But at the end of the day, the architect, the developer, have to be able to look back and be okay with it. The average life of a building is 25-30 years, we’d like to see the building there in a 100 years. Real estate is a long-term thing; we don’t do things for marketing purposes. With the whole green movement, nobody ever uses bad materials on purpose. Another way the AIA is using – you know when the record companies stopped using vinyl because it was no good – the same with the AIA, we achieved it in the Lacey, we’re doing it in a small residential project, you put a good project out there, people will follow.

On height limits and NIMBYs:

DCMud: Height restrictions and historic preservation?

AH: It’s partly that, but, no offense to attorneys, you do any work in DC, forget the ANC and historic preservation, but every other neighbor is an attorney. Its great to have pride in where you live, but people feel like they get to claim it, we see that all the time, we always feel like we don’t want to deal with it any more, but then we get a good client, who wants to do something different, and we say, okay, lets do this again. Its not historic preservation, I think its more the people in the neighborhoods that want to stop the process.

DCMud: Do you think the height limits are a good thing?

AH: I like them; I think you are most creative when you are challenged. DC is my favorite city, and you have New York for that. London, Paris, the scale is completely different, most European cities are like that. I like the height restriction where it is, we should just be a little more creative. We have suburbs to balance stuff out.


Wires schmires.

Jarrett (keeper of Human Transit) is off gallivanting around in Europe.  His travels took him to Vienna, where he noticed that the city a) has lots of overhead wires for streetcars, trams, and the like, yet b) somehow is still a pretty place.  How can this possibly be true?  DC’s laws state otherwise!

Not only does Vienna have streetcar/tram wires, they also have all of their streetlights suspended by wires as well.  Streets with both have two layers of wires:

In case it’s not completely clear, the wires carrying the lights are a meter or two above the heavier wire for the streetcar.  In a way, having two layers of wires seems a little more obstrusive than just having a whole lot of wires at one layer — e.g. under a switch in a trolleybus system.  But it’s not a huge difference, and the point is, Vienna is definitely getting by.  People even photograph the streetscape, and then eat in a restaurant, and then go spend money in the shops, as though they don’t even notice all those horrible wires.

How can they survive under such dire conditions?

Streetcar Planning in DC

One of Torontos Red Rockets

One of Toronto's Red Rockets

While I was out on vacation, wheels started turning on getting DC’s streetcar planning back on track (har har).  Public meetings, platitudes, and so on.  BDC offers the quick and dirty summary:

I wasn’t able to attend last night’s streetcar meeting with Gabe Klein, but based on summaries I’m not sure we learned all that much that we didn’t already know. The key points seem to be that Klein wants streetcars to be a priority and is appointing a new streetcar czar, that the Federal government is more excited about streetcars than in the past, that we’re still not sure about the overhead wire issue (but someone in Congress may address it soon), and that we’re still looking at 2012 before the first line in Anacostia opens.

However, there are still some serious questions about rather basic items (even leaving aside the power issue for now), like route alignments.  Greater Greater Washington notes:

Klein reiterated support for the streetcar alignments in the current Comprehensive Plan. The first streetcars will run from Anacostia over the 11th Street Bridge, and along H Street and Benning Road, ultimately connecting to downtown on the K Street Transitway. Phase two is 7th Street and Georgia Avenue, and Minnesota Avenue between Anacostia and the Minnesota Avenue Metro near Benning Road, connecting the two lines across River East. There are still many outstanding alignment questions, like how to connect the streetcar to Union Station, where to continue it over the 11th Street Bridge (to Eastern Market? M Street SE?), and where to place maintenance facilities and storage yards for the H/Benning line.

The Comprehensive Plan highlights these routes, complete with rather nebulous distinctions between modes – Streetcars in blue, BRT in green, and “rapid bus” in Yellow:

The first obvious question is to determine what other transportation facilities might be implemented in the near future.  I’m thinking specifically about Metro here.  I bring it up because the core of the streetcar alignments in Downtown look an awful lot like the ideas for separating Metro’s interlined portions of track.  From my earlier fantasy posts, potential new Metro trackage (comprised of a New Blue line and New Yellow line through downtown) would look a lot like the core ‘cross’ of the streetcar lines in the DC Plan:

After plenty of lengthy debates about the utility of streetcars asa means to improve mobility, it’s worth considering the chances for Metro (an unquestioned improvement in both mobility and accessibility) to come to those corridors, and potential time frames for such investments.   Streetcars and Metro can and would complement each other well along the same corridor, just as high frequency bus routes complement Metro (think the 30s bus lines and the Orange/Blue trunk line through the city, for example), but I have a hard time believing money would be available for both.

As the DC Plan indicates (and the other streetcar plans floating around reinforce), there are lots of places where streetcars could be effective in DC.  However, there are few remaining corridors suitable to heavy rail transit.  When combining that with the long term needs to eliminate interlined portions of track, this becomes a question of long term planning and vision.

Part of the value of these fantasy transit maps is the visioning they bring to the table.  My worry with the streetcar planning is that things are too compartmentalized to plan for a holistic transportation system, both within DC and the region as a whole.  Metro is set to see tremendous ridership growth over the next 20 years, and ensuring the transit system as a whole can handle the demand will be a tall task.  Streetcars will be an improvement, but core expansion of Metro shouldn’t be off the table, either.

(DC Streetcar Plan)