Tag Archives: retail

WMATA Infill Stations: Oklahoma Ave and River Terrace

Because of the challenges in adding underground infill stations, most candidates are going to be at grade or above ground. Almost by definition, that means fewer opportunities for infill stations around the core of the system, and therefore within Washington’s city limits.

The existing system features a huge gap as the Orange/Blue/Silver lines cross the Anacostia River. The east of the river stations (Minnesota Ave and Benning Road) are both two miles from Stadium-Armory.

Filling this gap is not a new idea – early WMATA plans called for stations at both locations. Oklahoma Ave was on the books long enough for renderings to be drawn up.

WMATA originally considered the area next to the Benning Road Power Plant for a rail yard (the “S&I” oval on the map above, for service and inspection). The adjacent Kenilworth Ave station eventually moved east and became Minnesota Ave.

These two sites are unique in that they do not parallel any existing railroad services, where future regional rail might offer faster, longer-distance service, allowing Metro to focus on shorter distance travel markets. Part of the argument for more infill stations, particularly in the suburbs, is the promise of regional rail. However, these two locations do not need that promise to fulfill their roles – they offer compelling visions on their own.

Oklahoma Ave

Metro planners envisioned Oklahoma Ave as a park and ride station, taking advantage of the extensive surface parking for nearby RFK Stadium on non-event days. The nearby Kingman Park community vociferously opposed a parking-focused station, and WMATA eventually dropped the station in 1977.

Adding an infill station at Oklahoma Ave would likely follow the same concept from the 70s: two side platforms along the existing elevated guideway.

Connections: Potential transit connections from Oklahoma Ave are relatively weak. Almost all transit is located just north along Benning Road, including the DC Streetcar as well as extensive bus service. It wouldn’t be difficult to extend those lines to connect with the station, but the expense (and ongoing time penalty for bus riders) for doing so would depend on the broader plan – if Oklahoma Ave were built together with a River Terrace station, the latter could offer superior transit connections.

Land use: This is another challenge for the area. The immediate surroundings are the northern parking lots for now-vacant RFK Stadium. A large portion of those parking lots are now athletic fields. The parking lots were originally created by filling in the Anacostia’s tidal marshes. As a result, the entire area is within the floodplain, and unlikely to ever be developed as housing or office.

Redevelopment of the remainder of the RFK site outside of the floodplain is a contentious topic with complicated jurisdictional issues yet to be resolved. If the site were to return to a stadium/venue use, the ability to disperse crowds to multiple Metro stations would be a potential advantage.

Without an intense use at RFK, the rationale for Oklahoma Ave is less clear, particularly if River Terrace were built. However, if RFK Stadium were to be redeveloped as some sort of venue with large crowds, then the case for Oklahoma Ave is much stronger.

Ease of Construction: The biggest benefit at Oklahoma Ave is that construction ought to be easy – existing elevated track in the middle of a parking lot. The potential complications would involve any operational changes to the existing line, and determining any role for this location in future Metro expansion plans.

River Terrace

An infill station at River Terrace presents a tantalizing opportunity. The existing tracks are located at a key chokepoint and river crossing, served by one of the busiest bus lines in the city. The existing neighborhood to the south of Benning Road is isolated, separated from the rest of the city by the river to the west, DC-295 and the railroad tracks to the east, and the former Pepco site to the north.

Connections: Benning Road serves as a critical choke point for transit service, making it a great candidate for improved infrastructure. Lots of bus services cross the river here; the nearest crossing to the north (US-50) is along a freeway, and to the south (East Capitol Street) lacks good service. The DC streetcar terminates just to the west, with longstanding plans to extend it along this stretch of Benning Road.

In the future, the H/Benning corridor has long been targeted for Metrorail service. One of the longstanding concepts would be the “separated Blue line,” a new trunk line through the District to separate out existing Blue Line services from Orange and Silver services. Such a vision ought to include River Terrace as a four-track station enabling cross-platform transfers.

WMATA is currently in the midst of their ‘Blue/Orange/Silver’ study. The concepts released in 2021 did not include a new connection at River Terrace. These larger network designs will impact the kind of infill station design for River Terrace.

DC’s once-ambitious streetcar plans have been substantially curtailed. However, the one extension still officially on the books (though controversially) is the Benning Road extension, passing through the River Terrace site. One rationale for the extension is to connect the eastern end of the streetcar line to something, preferably a Metro station. However, because of the D&G junction, splitting Metro service along the Orange Line and Blue/Silver lines, connecting at Benning Road means losing the value of connections for Orange Line passengers.

Benning Road Streetcar Extension Plan – adding a Metro connection at River Terrace (34th St NE) improves connectivity for all users.

Land Use: Immediately adjacent to the station site is Pepco’s now-demolished Benning Road Power Plant site. The plant was demolished in 2012, and in later years was only used during peak periods of demand for a few days per year.

The plant was once the source of a huge amount of pollution, particularly in the Anacostia riverbed. Large-scale remediation and clean-up will be needed before redevelopment is feasible. Additionally, the site retains electrical distribution infrastructure and support for Pepco operations.

Despite all the challenges, it’s a 70+ acre site in the middle of the city with (potentially) excellent transit connections.

Ease of Construction: Compared to Oklahoma Ave, just adding platforms to the existing elevated section would be extremely complicated.

First, this section of track includes the notoriously unreliable D-route pocket track. The pocket track was originally slated to turn terminating Silver Line trains, but WMATA determined it was not suitable to serve that purpose reliably, and investigated alternative designs.

Second, the location of the pocket track (the straightest section) extends over the Anacostia River. Furthermore, the track itself is immediately adjacent to the Benning Road right of way, requiring some combination of road and bridge relocation or a station cantilevered over Benning Road.

Any design with side platforms ought to consider the possibility of a new Blue Line connecting through this location. The ideal design would allow for a future cross-platform transfer between the existing tracks and future Blue line services.

Third, Benning Road itself provides an opportunity for a creative and efficient passenger transfer from Metro to buses and streetcars. Doing so will involve extensive reconstruction in the area, meaning this won’t be a simple infill station – but the opportunity is too large to pass up.

There are lots of examples of efficient transfers between streetcars and rapid transit. Toronto is full of them, such as this one at Dundas West.

St. Clair West is another, featuring a fully-integrated streetcar and bus transfer loop built around (not just next to) the entrances to and from the subway. Passengers can transfer easily while protected from the elements and with minimal walking distance.

(side notes: Dundas West includes a small McDonalds, hitting on another minor obsession of mind, in-station retail. Also, do check out the excellent Station Fixation blog for a full visual tour of the entire Toronto system)

At River Terrace, this might involve diverting the streetcar tracks off of Benning Road itself to encircle a ground-level mezzanine for the Metro station, offering quick and direct transfers for passengers moving between modes.

Integrating retail uses into transit stations: opportunities to increase revenue, improve urban design and passenger experience

Integrating retail uses into transit stations presents several opportunities for transit agencies like WMATA looking to increase ridership and revenue. Such retail uses also have the potential to help development projects around stations, providing a key link between the transit station and the surrounding TOD.

Combining retail and transit isn’t exactly a new idea; train stations have often been retail hubs. They provide a node that attracts potential customers like a magnet. Rapid transit with full grade-separation is an additional layer for a city’s transportation network. Shifting passengers between the street layer and the rapid transit layer both requires space (e.g. a station) and creates the opportunity to enhance that space with amenities.

In-station retail offers obvious financial benefits, including a key revenue stream for agencies looking to diversify beyond fares alone. In-station retail also provides an amenity for passengers. The retail itself doesn’t need to be wholly contained within the station, either. Retail spaces can be integrated into station structures and transit agency property while improving the urban design of the area and drawing in non-transit customers.

Revenue: In-station retail offers a potential revenue stream for transit agencies. It won’t be a major revenue stream compared to fares, but it can be significant. Looking to Hong Kong’s MTR, famous for integrating development into and around transit stations, in-station retail (separate from MTR’s malls and other properties) generates approximately $270 million annually for MTR.

Obviously, Hong Kong’s real estate market is unique, and such results won’t necessarily scale in other places. However, other transit providers do pull significant revenue from renting space. Transport for London earned $95 million in gross rental income in 2013. In percentage terms (1.3% of of TfL revenue) it might not seem that different from WMATA, but consider TfL’s very high farebox recovery and low operating subsidy as well as additional revenue from London’s congestion charge.

London is also interested in increasing revenue from in-station retail, taking advantage of the real estate assets they have and the number of passengers passing through. The desire to grow non-transport revenue isn’t unique to transit agencies, either. For example, consider the desire of airports such as Dulles to grow and diversify their revenues, both as a hedge against business cycles and as a means to improve the experience of passengers.

Passenger Experience: In-station retail isn’t all about revenue, it’s also about improving the experience for passengers. For airports and mainline rail stations, this is a given. Even the FTA’s own joint development guidance recognizes the different retail needs for intercity transit stations.

Some of the recent renovations to Rotterdam Centraal show the opportunities to integrate retail into the main concourse of a rail station. The station renovation widened many platforms, all of which are connected by a single connecting concourse below grade. The wide platforms are not only comfortable for passengers waiting for their trains, but also ensure enough space on the concourse level between stairways for substantial retail.

Mezzanine level retail spaces in MTR’s Kowloon Bay station. CC image from Wiki.

Station retail focused on passengers can work for regular rapid transit, as well. In Hong Kong, MTR’s in-station retail includes both street-fronting retail bays as well as indoor spaces within the stations, targeting passengers as they make their way from the street to the platform. The type of retail in stations isn’t particularly exciting; convenience stores, bank branches, dry cleaners, and quick service food joints. These are nonetheless useful retail establishments, particularly for regular commuters.

Retail in the mezzanine/ticket hall of the Saint Lazare Metro station in Paris. Photo by the author.

Retail can be retrofit into existing stations as well. In Paris, several Metro stations include small retail spaces, often in the mezzanine. Similar to London’s plans to grow revenue via additional retail offerings, the spaces reserved for old (and now unnecessary) ticket booths can be converted into retail.

Urban Design: In-station retail isn’t just about providing money to the transit agency or convenience to the passengers. It also provides the opportunity to seamlessly connect the layers of the city – the street-level to the rapid transit system.

In London, many of the Underground’s sub-surface stations include a substantial headhouse with a presence on the street. Old steam-powered lines of the District Railway were built via cut and cover construction and kept near the surface with periodic open cuts to provide ventilation. The District Railway (now part of the Underground’s Circle and District lines) also didn’t follow existing street rights of way.

Aerial of Earl's Court Station. Note the railway in the open cut and the station buidlings above the tracks, presenting an unbroken street wall along Earl's Court Road. Image from Google Maps.

Aerial of Earl’s Court Station. Note the railway in the open cut and the station buildings above the tracks, presenting an unbroken street wall along Earl’s Court Road. Image from Google Maps.

Earl’s Court Underground station along Earl’s Court Road, with street-facing retail. Image from Google Streetview.

Tunneling outside of existing street rights of way along with the use of open cuts for the tracks means that the stations are structurally similar to liner buildings along overpasses. Earl’s Court station provides a good example, where the station’s headhouse and other development above the tracks creates an unbroken street wall for pedestrians, as well as retail spaces fronting the street within the old station headhouse.

This arrangement benefits all parties. TfL gets rental revenue from retail tenants. Retailers are leasing a space not just focused on Underground passengers, but with street-facing access for pedestrians walking nearby. The station’s architecture meshes seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood. The rail infrastructure has a relatively large footprint, but you wouldn’t know it from walking down the street.

Lessons: WMATA’s proposed FY15 budget includes a limited amount of operating revenue from joint development; other presentations from the agency indicate an annual revenue stream of approximately $15 million dollars. In the context of a $3 billion budget, that’s not a lot.

In terms of urban design, in-station retail need not be limited to stations. Elevated structures around the world show the possibilities for integrating transit infrastructure into good urban design – and it’s not all about minimizing the footprint of the rail infrastructure.

WMATA is currently shopping several joint development opportunities to developers and potential partners, most of which take advantage of existing land-intensive uses (bus bays, surface parking, and some plain old vacant land) next to existing stations. Given the relatively large footprint of the entrances to the new stations in Tysons Corner and Reston for WMATA’s Silver Line, there’s an opportunity to mesh this kind of joint development into future expansion projects from the start. Comstock’s Reston Station development is a good start.

This isn’t just an opportunity for additional ridership or revenue, but can also serve as a catalyst for quality transit-oriented development.

A visual survey of selected elevated rail viaducts: Part 6 – Hong Kong

Another iteration of the series on elevated rail – for more, read the prologue, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5…

Hong Kong: Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway sets the gold standard for efficient rail operations. The system operates at a profit, the governing corporation makes money not just on transportation, but on the associated real estate development. Developing areas around stations both ensures a critical mass of riders to support the line, but also provides MTR with the long-term financial benefit of owning the assets that benefit from the rail system they operate.

All of these factors make Hong Kong an interesting subject for study. Many of the newer additions to the transit system are largely elevated; and many of those lines run through urban environments with street geometries and traffic volumes not dissimilar to suburban arterial streets elsewhere.

Large portions of Hong Kong violate many of the principles for great pedestrian streets, yet still manage to serve large volumes of city dwellers. Many MTR stations include pedestrian bridges and full grade separation for adjacent roads, rails, and pedestrians:

View near Ma On Shan MTR station in Hong Kong. Image from Google Maps.

Or, consider the massive pedestrian overpasses that traverse this large roundabout at the intersection of two highway-like arterial streets near the Tai Wai station:

Aerial of pedestrian overpasses near the Tai Wai station (top of image). Image from Google Maps.

The physical viaduct structures themselves make little effort to shrink into the landscape. The combination of large pre-cast concrete viaducts with high sound walls make for a fairly bulky aerial structure. This example is part of the Ma On Shan line near the Sha Tin Wai station in the Sha Tin district of Hong Kong’s New Territories.

Elevated MTR rail near Sha Tin Wai Station, Hong Kong. Image from Google Maps.

The rail line runs alongside the roadway. The roadways themselves are hemmed in by numerous fences and barriers; in this case, a median fence prevents jaywalking while fences along the road edge protect bike parking, with a bike trail and sidewalk beyond.

Pedestrian access to Sha Tin Wai station. Image from Google Maps.

Not all stations are surrounded with the wide roadways, but even on lower volume streets, fencing restricts ped movements to the crosswalks. In the distance, you can see a pedestrian bridge to provide ped access away from the intersection in the foreground. The pedestrian bridge ties directly into the station’s mezzanine level.

Street-facing retail spaces beneath the station mezzanine. Image from Google Maps.

Towards the other end of the station, you find street-facing retail within the station building, tucked beneath the station’s mezzanine. The concept is similar to the re-use of such spaces in older systems, showing that you can make it work without the charming brick and stone viaducts. Also worth noting: the global reach of 7-Eleven knows no bounds.

This kind of in-station retail not only breaks up the facade of the station (compare it to the blank walls of a similarly designed station without the retail), but the retail revenue helps fund the system operations. Retail is not limited to street-level exterior storefronts, but also includes in-station retail.

Mezzanine level retail spaces in MTR’s Kowloon Bay station. CC image from Wiki.

WMATA’s Silver Line stations in Tysons Corner might have similar opportunities. “Sand Box John” Cambron’s photos from the Silver Line construction shows the size of the Tyson’s Corner stations. In particular, the two stations aligned to the side of the roadway (McLean and Tysons Corner) feature massive station structures with lots of potential space for these kinds of retail uses; however, such uses will now be retrofits rather than actively planned opportunities.

The curb lanes adjacent to the station are devoted to bus operations. Bus shelters on the near side of the street (just out of the image) provide riders with a quick transfer to the rail system by ascending to the overpass and walking directly into the station mezzanine.

Stations aren’t the only opportunities for multiple uses of infrastructure; Hong Kong features several examples of development in the air rights above rail yards, such as this development above the rail yard near the Kowloon Bay station.

Air rights development above rail yard adjacent to Kowloon Bay MTR station. Image from Google Maps.

Air rights development over Kowloon Bay depot. CC image from Wiki.

Scarcity of land and open space forces some creative uses for available space. The Chai Wan station, terminus for the MTR’s Island line, includes rooftop recreational space with a park and tennis courts:

Tennis courts built on the roof of the Chai Wan MTR station. Image from Google Maps.

The station includes ground level entrances and street-fronting retail (level 0), a mezzanine level with retail and ticketing (+1), the platform (+2) and rooftop recreational space (+3).

View towards Chai Wan station. Image from Google Maps.

Chai Wan station. Image from Google Maps.

The station’s tail tracks weave under and through buildings and over narrow streets:

Chai Wan station tail tracks. Image from Google Maps.

Table of contents:

A visual survey of selected elevated rail viaducts: part 4 – monorails, active uses under viaducts, and precast concrete in Puerto Rico

Pulling together some suggestions from the comments of the series prologue, part 1, part 2, and part 3…

Monorails: Always popular as a technology that can reduce the visual bulk of elevated rail, Alon Levy collected some comparisons showing that purported monorail cost benefits to be mostly illusory. But what about visual bulk? Alon makes a note of the smaller required structure:

It includes a diagram of monorail structures, which can be seen to be quite light and thin. The width of the structure from guideway to guideway is 4.5 meters including both guideway widths, and including the outside appears to raise it to 5.5. Two-track elevated conventional rail structures typically range from 7 to 10.5 meters wide.

Mumbai has monorail under construction:

Mumbai monorail, under construction. CC image from Wiki.

One long-standing example is Seattle’s monorail:

Seattle Monorail, as seen from a neighboring downtown building. CC image from Bala Mainymaran

Seattle Monorail from street level. CC image from The West End.

New York: Commenter Matthew (of Walking Bostonian) offered two photos from New York of mainline rail infrastructure. The approach for the Hell Gate bridge towers over parts of Queens:

Hell Gate bridge approach. CC image from Matthew in Boston.

Another example is from the Long Island Railroad, with retail spaces crammed underneath a viaduct in Flushing, Queens:

LIRR viaduct, Flushing. CC image from Matthew in Boston.

The LIRR shows an example of re-using the space beneath a vaiduct with retail; perhaps without the architectural glamor of the archways in Berlin or Vienna. Nevertheless, it shows the potential for re-using some of the space beneath elevated rail.

Vienna: Neil Flannagan (after looking at Berlin examples) suggested Vienna:

The Queens Boulevard and Berlin examples really seem like missed opportunities we could have had in Tysons: cheap infill retail using the bridge structure as a roof. It would reduce the barrier effect of the median, focus activity near the stations, and set an example of urban form.

This was the solution nobody was looking for because we were so set on fighting out the tunnel-versus- overground plan and trying to keep the project afloat. I certainly was guilty of believing that no viaduct could be attractive, and kept arguing for a tunnel. I was looking at the types without considering design. It’s the same trap that NIMBYs do, wanting to minimize the impact by making a building smaller, rather than better. Damn. Looking outside of the box is why Jarrett Walker is so great.

I would really take a look at Otto Wagner’s Wiener Stadtbahn. The infrastructure is pretty street-friendly. It’s also very well designed, particularly the bridge over the Wienzeile.

Some images from Vienna:

Vienna viaduct and bridge structures, with retail spaces beneath. CC image from Wiki.

Retail beneath a viaduct in Vienna. CC image from Wiki.

San Juan, Puerto Rico: San Juan’s Tren Urbano was also mentioned in the comments. Google does not have streetview images in San Juan, but a brief Flickr search for CC images turns up the following examples of the system’s elevated structures:

Tren Urbano. CC image from I Am Rob.

Panorama of the Torrimar Tren Urbano station. CC image from davsot.

Tren Urbano. CC image from Paul Sableman.

Table of contents:

Frager’s Hardware

Yesterday evening, Frager’s Hardware went up in flames in a four-alarm blaze. The iconic neighborhood institution has been in operation since 1920.

It’s the kind of neighborhood store many would love to have. At the same time, the store represents more than just a hardware store. While it can’t compete with the big box stores on price, it can offer a wider range of services and the local, personalized touch you won’t be able to find elsewhere. That kind of personal touch sells more than just hardware, it also sells t-shirts.

I happen to live nearby, and was able to snag a few photos from the roof.

6/5, 7:00 pm – full response underway:

6/5, 8:17 pm – more trucks and firefighters on the scene:

6/5, 10:59 pm – DCFD has the fire contained:

6/6, 8:34 am – daylight comes, the morning after:

6/6, 6:13 pm – traffic returns to Pennsylvania Ave, workers begin to board up the storefronts:

While the store appears to be a total loss, the owner vows to rebuild.

On restaurants, retail, and clustering – agglomeration economies and urban retail trends

A few intersecting stories regarding retail and restaurants:

In DC, a group of activists are pushing a moratorium on new liquor licenses for 14th and U and environs. There has been substantial pushback to the idea of a moratorium, yet proponents insist the dominance of bars and restaurants are crowding out brick-and-mortar retail establishments. From Jessica Sidman’s summary in the Washington City Paper:

Joan Sterling of the Shaw Dupont Citizens Alliance, the group that proposed the moratorium, kicked things off by reading from a written statement in which she talked about the negative impact the proliferation of bars and restaurants has had on neighborhood noise, parking, and rat problems.

Sterling also talked about the need for a better balance of businesses. Who wouldn’t want grocery stores, hardware stores, movie theaters, galleries, and retailers like Urban Outfitters, Container Store, or an Apple store, she asked? “These are all businesses that will improve the daytime foot traffic and strengthen the neighborhood more than strip after strip of taverns,” she said. (The moratorium would not, of course, mandate that any of those other retailers come in, nor does the status quo ban them.)

Two obvious problems arise from Sterling’s desire for a greater diversity of retail offerings. Sure, who wouldn’t want more shopping? The problem is that there’s no such thing as a neighborhood Container Store. You might have a Container Store in your neighborhood, but retail of that nature requires a much larger audience to survive than just one neighborhood (The Container Store, for example, has only four locations in the entire Metro DC area – Tenleytown, Clarendon, Tysons Corner, and Rockville – with a fifth location in Reston on the way).

Richard Layman consistently comes back to this point in his blogging. Not only does retail require a wider area to draw from, it also likes to cluster together into districts: “with transportation costs being relatively equal, people choose to shop in the retail district with the greatest variety of stores and the most appealing choices.” Not every retail district will be full of the regionally significant stores. However, many of them can be filled with a cluster of neighborhood-based bars and restaurants.

The other problem is mistaking the symptom and the cause: the old adage holds that retail follows rooftops. The real-life decisions are obviously more complex, but additional stores are likely to feed off daytime traffic more than drive it.

Retail shops are but one form of aggolmeration. In last week’s City Paper, Jessica Sidman writes about the growing cluster of restaurants in part of the proposed moratorium zone. 14th Street, H St NE, 8th St SE, and others – in addition to the city’s already established dining zones. Payton Chung takes note of the trend – that retail is restaurants. Payton cites Terranomics: “There is only one segment of the market where we are seeing aggressive growth plans from inline users and that is the restaurant sector.” Payton adds:

Yes, we’d all love to be able to walk to the corner and buy some bolts from a corner hardware store, or socks from an apparel shop, but let’s face it: not enough of us do that often enough to sustain very many such businesses, particularly in areas that don’t have enough foot traffic to guarantee significant cross-shopping. Such uses will increasingly congregate within metropolitan subcenters — probably focused on today’s fortress malls or midtown destinations — so there will be winners and losers among retail nodes. At least everyone will have someplace to eat, though.

(BTW, connectivity to those subcenters will be necessary from ever-wider catchment areas. This will require rapid transit, not just walk accelerators like streetcars or bikeshare, in order to connect neighborhoods to retail focal points.)

Hard to fight the trend, particularly when additional restaurants can add value to neighborhoods – particularly when they cluster together. Payton’s point about the rising importance of regional transit to link these regionally significant centers together is a good one, as well – the pattern of transit-oriented development around transit stations can be a positive feedback loop for additional transit ridership and development. Regional significance can mean that a place achieves that critical mass where the retail draw is indeed pushing daytime traffic – but those kinds of centers will be limited to a few key parts of each region.

eBooks and Cities

Ryan Avent’s recently published Kindle Single on urban economics entitled “The Gated City” finally enticed me to venture into eBooks. I’ve tested out friends’ Kindles, but never felt the urge to spend my cash on one – I still like the feel of a real book and don’t care to carry yet another device around, particularly one with the limited application of the Kindle. Likewise, I’m not yet willing to drop the money for an iPad, so my device stalemate continues.

Presented with something I want to read and a product that’s only available in one electronic medium or another, I took the plunge. Likewise, knowing that other electronic-only publications I’d be interested in are coming down the pike only hastens the point. Not wanting to hurriedly invest in new hardware, I downloaded the Kindle reader for my computer, as well as the Kindle app for my Droid smartphone. I already do quite a bit of reading on the go via my phone, mostly through Google Reader and various mobile news sites (anytime the Washington Post wishes to adopt a better mobile site format, it would be welcome).

While I’m not wild about reading long-form works on my laptop any more than I already do, I’ve found the Android reader to work quite nicely. The added advantage of not being entirely reliant on a wireless signal while underground on the Metro is an added bonus. I already carry my phone with me all the time, thus there is no need to haul along another device.

Converting to e-books isn’t completely without remorse. Alon Levy noted (in the comments) his refusal to buy an e-book, noting “they are to browsing at a bookstore what driving is to walking on a commercial street.” Given recent discussions in DC about the loss of third places (that just so happen to sell hardcopy books – not without a bit of irony, given B&N’s foray into e-readers as well), this isn’t a change to take lightly. At the same time, I’m sure Ryan Avent would note that rapidly increasing rents for your local bookstore are a more worthy culprit – as well as the fact that the innovation that takes place in cities can often be disruptive.

Nightlife agglomerations & the corner bar

The Corner Bar, Divernon IL - CC image from Randy von Liski

A few booze-related items I thought I’d comment on:

The Hill is Home takes note of ANC 6B‘s seemingly preferred method to avoid “Adams Morganization” – a moratorium on all new liquor licenses. Nevermind that the trigger for this fear of Adams Morgan is Moby Dick House of Kebob – which makes me think those leveling this barb have neither visited Adams Morgan recently nor dined at Moby Dick.

Matt Yglesias notes that such efforts to control liquor licenses is fighting the natural tendencies urban economics, where things like to cluster. That’s what cities are, after all – clusters and agglomerations of people, firms, skills, capital, etc. Yglesias makes a great point about the appropriate scale of governance of these issues. While small, local groups (such as an ANC) might be affected by a new bar or restaurant, the practice of giving them veto power over things like liquor licenses has some severe implications:

The bigger question here is about levels of governance. Insofar as you empower residents of my building in DC to make the decision, we will attempt to regulate the food service establishments on our block so as to minimize late-night noise. After all, the service sector jobs lost in the process aren’t the jobs that we do while as homeowners we bear the losses of reduced property values on the block. And to simply disempower us, as a block, would be arbitrary and unfair. But empowering each and every block leads to highly inefficient outcomes with the bulk of the pain felt by low-income people and there’s no obvious reason of justice to think this kind of hyper-local empowerment is more legitimate than taking a broader view would be.

Ryan Avent adds on, noting that these kinds of restrictions and inefficiencies lead to poor outcomes for consumers:

That’s largely because it’s very difficult to open new bars. And the result is a pernicious feedback loop. With too few bars around, most good bars are typically crowded. This crowdedness alienates neighbors, and it also has a selecting effect on the types of people who choose to go to bars — those interested in a loud, rowdy environment, who will often tend to be loud and rowdy. This alienates neighbors even more, leading to tighter restrictions still and exacerbating the problem.

Sadly, this is the kind of dynamic that’s very difficult to change. No city council will pass the let-one-thousand-bars-bloom act, and neighbors can legitimately complain of any individual liquor license approval that it may lead to some crowded, noisy nights. It’s interesting how often these multiple equilibrium situations turn up in urban economics. In general, they seem to cry out for institutional innovation.

Avent specifically laments DC’s lack of the ol’ neighborhood corner bar. Having been born and raised in the boozy midwest, where the small, corner bar is an institution and people drink alcohol the way others drink water, I miss the corner bars, which aren’t as common as they could be in the District.

One of the problems is in the tools used to limit these licenses. As Avent and Yglesias note, the kinds of tools bandied about by ANCs lead to an inefficient marketplace. Instead of preventing Adams Morgan, something like a moratorium ends up ensuring a slippery slope towards “Adams Morganization” rather than preventing one.

On the broader issue of retail mix (ANC 6B’s stated reason to oppose new liquor licenses), the December issue of the Hill Rag had two contrasting pieces on the issue of retail on Barrack’s Row. The first discusses potential options – none of which seem palatable for actually encouraging retail. Regarding a moratorium, the impact is exactly what Avent describes:

One problem he cites is that it seems to be “too easy to become a bar or pub once you have the license.” So, even if there is a moratorium on new licenses, there is always the chance that existing licenses can morph from restaurants, which most neighborhoods don’t mind, to bars that operate later and attract different customers.

Another suggested tool is a zoning overlay district, but such a tool is a mismatch between the stated problem and solution. Zoning is best used to regulate the physical form and the use of buildings, broadly defined. Zoning can separate a retail use from a residential one, or an office use from light industry – but it is not an adept tool to parse out specific kinds of retail, or in differentiating between Moby Dick and Chateau Animeaux. The issue of bars and liquor licenses is more an issue of how those physical spaces are programmed. Zoning is not a good tool to control these kinds of issues, and these types of regulations often backfire.

Refreshingly, another article in the issue (about parking, no less) from Sharon Bosworth of Barracks Row Main Street gets at the real reason 8th St SE is more favorable to bars and restaurants instead of retail:

By mid 2009, The Wander Group, consultants who make saving America’s historic corridors their specialty, reported back to BRMS: our commercial corridor, specified by none other than Pierre L’Enfant in 1791, is today uniquely suited to businesses requiring small square footage because of the antique proportions of our buildings which are well protected in the Capitol Hill Historic District. Restaurants require small square footage and restaurant owners would always be on the hunt for charming, historic sites. Wander Group predicted more restaurateurs would find us, and so they did. Our tiny buildings are difficult (but not impossible) for most retail footprints, yet they work perfectly for restaurants.

In addition to those challenges, there’s the broader issues facing retail – online competition, fighting against the economies of scale for big box and chain retailers, etc.

Instead, we have an industry that works well in an urban setting and wants to cluster here. Here’s one vote in favor of more corner bars.

City Block

a work in progress…