Tag Archives: Transit

WMATA Infill Stations: Berwyn & New Hampshire Ave

The single-highest scoring infill station location from my back-of-the-envelope comparison was Berwyn, thanks to good transit connections, strong land use and development potential, as well as relatively easy construction. Infill stations at Kansas Ave or New Hampshire Ave are also common among crayonistas.

Berwyn

At first glance of a map, there’s a strong case for adding an infill station on the Green Line between College Park and Greenbelt. The two existing stations are 2.3 miles apart. The only road crossing the tracks in that span is Greenbelt Road, approximately halfway between the two stations.

I’ve opted to call this location ‘Berwyn’ due to the proximity to the Town of Berwyn Heights, and because the name would fit well as a unique addition to WMATA’s station name, but we’re talking about a station to be built near where Greenbelt Road crosses the tracks.

The wide right-of-way includes three Metro tracks and CSX’s Capital Subdivision (home to MARC’s Camden Line). WMATA’s third track isn’t used for regular service, but for testing new railcars, which are usually delivered to the system’s Greenbelt Yard.

View of the tracks, looking south from Greenbelt Road. Metro tracks on the left, CSX/MARC on the right

Connections: Because Greenbelt Road is a bit of a choke-point in crossing the railroad tracks, it already hosts a fair amount of bus service. Additionally, many of the routes traversing Greenbelt Road eventually turn north to terminate at Greenbelt Station, adding time and distance to a journey that could be shorter – if only there were a station where Greenbelt Road crosses the tracks.

Connecting bus service at Greenbelt station. Note all the routes feeding from the south that use Greenbelt Road.

Land Use: The Berwyn location is already seeing transit-oriented development with the townhouse project just north of Greenbelt Road – but it’s counted as part of the Greenbelt station development, despite the fact you can’t really walk between the two.

However, there are great development opportunities next to an infill station. Immediately to the west is the University of Maryland’s Severn Library, a high-density storage facility located in a former Washington Post printing plant. The site includes ample surface parking lots, ready for redevelopment. To the east is Beltway Plaza mall, already planned for additional housing. And in between, lots of properties fronting on Greenbelt Road are ripe for suburban retrofits and incremental additions of density.

Ease of Construction: The big reason Berwyn scored as the best overall infill station opportunity is because of (hopefully) easy construction. The right of way is generous; there would seem to be opportunities to add platforms with minimal track reconfiguration; or, use the generous spacing to reconfigure the tracks to make room for an island platform. Regardless of the design, the available space opens a lot of doors.

An ideal configuration would link mezzanine access directly to the Greenbelt Road bridge, allowing for easy bus-to-Metro connections and simple pedestrian access. Some additional work is required to create welcoming walking environments.

New Hampshire Ave

Should we call this spot Kansas Ave? New Hampshire Ave? That’s part of the conundrum. You can’t really do both, you’d have to pick one. And each avenue has big drawbacks.

Station location (orange rectangle) shows the Kansas Ave location

The context here is a 1.8 mile gap on the Red Line between Fort Totten and Takoma stations. Adding a station at either Kansas Ave or New Hampshire Ave would be plausible.

Connections: existing bus service shows a clear preference for connections at New Hampshire Ave, which hosts WMATA’s K6 and K9 Metro Extra routes. Kansas Ave, by contrast, is home to only the modest K2 bus, with just 22 round trips per day.

Land Use: a quick glance at a Google Maps aerial shows why NH Ave has the bus service: Kansas Ave terminates at the DC line, whereas NH Ave turns into a major suburban commercial strip.

However, within the District, the situation is reversed: Kansas Ave is surrounded by industrial uses and potential redevelopment sites, while NH Ave is hemmed in by parkland and steep slopes before you hit existing single family residential areas.

DC has a interest in protecting some industrial sites; but doing so is incompatible with adding a new Metro station, which will basically require high-density land use.

DC Future Land Use Map on left; Aerial Photo on right

Ease of Construction: this is the real challenge for either location: it would be a massive construction project – something on the scale of the original construction of the Red Line itself.

The Red Line is sandwiched between two tracks of CSX’s Metropolitan Subdivision. Building Metro required a complete reconstruction of the entire rail corridor; WMATA used the center of the ROW to preserve freight rail access to sidings along the route – most of which have since been abandoned.

Adding platforms at either location requires relocating the CSX tracks at a minimum, and perhaps the WMATA tracks as well (depending on platform configuration). Additionally, the New Hampshire Ave location is amidst a slight curve, further complicating construction.

Either location would be expensive, decreasing the prospects for these locations. However, the Kansas Ave location would seem to be the more challenging site, requiring rebuilding the existing underpass, acquiring adjacent properties, etc. The existing NH Ave overpass provides a bit more margin, but still presents a tight fit.

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.

WMATA Infill Stations: Blue/Yellow Line Ideas

Diving into some details about infill station locations, starting with the Blue and Yellow Line.

Franconia Road

The Virginia portion of the Blue Line features several long stretches without stations. Today’s Franconia-Springfield Station hyphenated after the system’s original plan to serve each location with a separate branch fell through.

The Blue Line follows the existing RF&P railroad corridor, first built in the 1870s. Today’s transit services are much newer – the Blue Line was extended to Van Dorn Street in 1991 and to Franconia-Springfield in 1997. VRE launched service in 1992 and added a station at Franconia-Springfield in 1995.

Aside from the Capital Beltway, the only street to cross the tracks between Van Dorn and Franconia-Springfield is Franconia Road, reflecting the age of the corridor.

Connections: Franconia Road sits more than a mile from Franconia-Springfield station and more than two miles from Van Dorn Street. Existing east-west travel in the area along Franconia Road provides potential for connecting transit and last-mile trips.

There is limited existing bus service across this stretch of Franconia Road, but adding a station here (and the potential connections it can offer) would open the door to a rider range of services.

Land use: The area is surrounded by mostly single-family residential uses (a combination of detached houses and townhouses), with a mix of auto-oriented retail and institutional buildings. Assuming that the residential uses are unlikely to change, the remaining areas offer only modest redevelopment potential.

The existing streetscape along Franconia Road itself isn’t friendly to walking. However, with modest suburban retrofits, this area could be transformed.

Ease of Construction: One potential benefit is that a station here ought to be easy (and cheap) to build. The WMATA tracks are straight as an arrow, with plenty of space between the CSX/VRE right of way and adjacent development. Adding side platforms to the existing rails ought to be a simple design.

Test fit of side platforms at Franconia Road.

Additionally, having platforms straddle Franconia Road’s overpass allows for headhouses along both the Eastbound and Westbound travel lanes, creating a chance for easy and direct bus connections.

Alternatively, the platforms could be entirely on one side of the overpass or another; there’s plenty of space. Likewise, if there’s a need to minimize vertical circulation to save cost, you could arrange to change the track geometry here to fit an island platform in. Point being – there are lots of options.

Eisenhower Valley

Eisenhower Valley is one of the areas where WMATA planned for a potential infill station from the start, preserving an area with sufficient space for a station, located near the eastern edge of the Alexandria rail yard.

The existing site has the right geometry for an island platform station – even the third rail is already positioned to the outside edge.

An alternative site is available closer to Telegraph Road, which offers better connections to existing development south of the tracks, as well as existing access to development in the Eisenhower East area of Alexandria via Mill Road.

Alternative location for Eisenhower Valley infill station.

This site is located along a four-track WMATA section – the two outer tracks serving the Blue Line, and two inner tracks feeding the Yellow Line from the Alexandria Yard.

Screenshot from OpenRailwayMap, indicating the alternative location.

Adding side platforms along the outer tracks should be relatively simple. Additionally, the warehouses immediately south of this location are owned by WMATA and potentially redundant facilities, as WMATA finishes work on their new Alexandria office building nearby.

Either location fills a lengthy gap on the Blue Line. Eisenhower Valley is nearly two route miles from Van Dorn Street and 4/5ths of a mile from King Street/Old Town. The alternative location is approximately 2,000 feet as the crow flies from the existing Eisenhower Yellow Line station.

Connections: Here’s the rub – without a much larger project, there aren’t many good connections here. Almost all travel in the area is east-west along either Eisenhower Ave or Duke Street. Adding a north/south street would be a big (and contentious) investment. Absent a major change to the street network, passengers on foot would either face a long walk to Duke Street, or force buses along Duke into a lengthy detour.

The alternative location has a better existing street network to build upon, including the potential Mill Road connection – but has the same issues connecting north across the tracks towards Duke Street.

Land Use: Most of the surrounding areas are commercial or light industrial uses, with some newer residential buildings included. However, the biggest parcels (like WMATA’s Alexandria Yard) aren’t redeveloping anytime soon – and I’m not holding out for Hong Kong-style platforms over rail yards, either.

To the north, the industrial uses could be redeveloped, but this area also includes several facilities critical to Alexandria’s operations, including their police HQ, DASH bus garage, and others.

The alternative location would be adjacent to existing and planned high rise development.

Ease of Construction: At the originally planned location, the station itself should be a breeze. Just add a platform – no track relocation required. It’s the additional projects that increase the complexity – do you add a roadway connecting north/south across all the rail tracks? What kind of redevelopment do you plan for?

Slaters Lane

The only underground infill station location on my initial list is Slaters Lane. The site is located along a short (~2,500′ long) duckunder tunnel, where the WMATA tracks dive beneath a rail spur that formerly provided rail access to Alexandria’s waterfront and a now-defunct coal-fired power plant, set to be redeveloped soon.

With the Potomac River Generating Station closed, the rail spur no longer has any customers. Sufficient space exists without existing structures to allow for a station platform.

Potential infill station location at Slaters Lane

Connections: There’s an opportunity to offer good transit connections at Slaters Lane. The site is close to the existing Metroway BRT, and potentially additional services that could make use of the Route 1 transitway.

Spacing to existing stations is appropriate – Slaters Lane is approximately 2,000 feet north of Braddock Road and ~4,000 feet south of the Potomac Yard infill station. Infill stations have the potential to make Metro a suitable option for travel within Alexandria itself, while the current network focuses mostly on regional travel.

A critical element will be providing for walking access on both sides of the RF&P tracks, either via an overpass or underpass.

Land Use: The big benefit of a station in this location is land use. The area west of the railroad tracks was part of the earlier phases of the long-term redevelopment of Potomac Yard, including a mix of mid-rise residential buildings and townhomes. Both Slaters Lane (to the east) and Monroe Ave (to the west) include commercial uses. And within a short walk of a future station, there are several potential redevelopment sites, including the now-closed power plant.

Potomac Yard in the 1980s. Note the Braddock Road Metro station (opened Dec. 1983) in the lower right, and tracks ducking under to the north.

Ease of Construction: As I mentioned in the opening piece, my list of infill stations is almost exclusively above-ground locations. I’m not aware of any examples of building infill stations on an existing subway line without some kind of pre-existing design accommodation. Adding a connection to an existing, in-service rail tunnel is incredibly complex, expensive, and disruptive.

And yet, there are several reasons to include this location:

Shallow Tunnel: the existing tunnel was only put in place as a duck-under for the rail spur connecting the RF&P’s Potomac Yard to the Waterfront. The shallow design means only a small amount of excavation would be necessary.

Surface Conditions: the land atop the existing tunnel is either used as a roadway or open space, making an open-cut station design (similar to White Flint, Branch Avenue, Grosvenor-Strathmore, or Prince George’s Plaza) possible. Roadway reconfiguration would be required, adding to the project’s complexity.

Construction Methods: at the crayon level, the combination of surface conditions and shallow tunnel depth would make cut and cover construction feasible, potentially minimizing cost and complexity. Even if the final station design were underground, using cut and cover techniques on an open site is potentially beneficial.

Even so, this site is far more ambitious than any of the aboveground locations, and also risky.

Crayon Plans – WMATA Infill Stations

Adding stations to the existing Metro system is a plausible way to expand the transit system without some of the costs involved for new routes. The region has a modest track record for infill stations – the NoMa station opened in 2004, and the Potomac Yard station is set to open in 2022.

Both NoMa and Potomac Yard share several characteristics: above-ground tracks passing through formerly industrial areas ripe for redevelopment.

Potomac Yard Metro Station under construction, August 2021 – photo from Wikipedia

Some criteria for infill station sites:

Ease of construction: Above-ground locations are the only feasible sites. Lots of planners and crayonistas call out the possibility of below-ground infill subway stations, something that (to my knowledge) has never been done without accommodations for a station from the start.
Potential surface transportation connections: connecting to arterial streets that can carry connecting bus transit, as well as walkable street networks is vitally important.
Redevelopment opportunities: these places were bypassed for stations for a reason. Plausible transit-oriented (re)development sites and planning are critical elements.

As it happens, the kinds of places that meet these criteria are often the parts of the network already parallel to existing commuter rail lines. Overlapping services opens the door for additional infill stations on the Metro network.

Let’s imagine a future world where the DC region’s commuter rail systems have been integrated into a coherent regional rail network offering rapid transit service. Even compared to WMATA’s already lengthy suburban routes, those networks extend well beyond the end of the current system. Commuter rail evolves into regional rail; and WMATA (conceived as a hybrid between regional rail and urban rapid transit) evolves further along the rapid transit spectrum.

Based on those criteria, I have twelve possible infill station sites on the existing WMATA network. Many are aspirational, particularly in terms of land use.

Here’s the list:

Location:	State:	Services:
Franconia Road	VA	🔵
Eisenhower Valley	VA	🔵
New Hampshire Ave	DC	🔴
Berwyn	MD	🟢 🟡
Edmonston/Wootton	MD	🔴
Montgomery College	MD	🔴
Gude Drive	MD	🔴
Centerville Road	VA	⚪️
Oklahoma Ave	DC	🔵 🟠 ⚪️
River Terrace	DC	🔵 🟠 ⚪️
Wolf Trap	VA	⚪️
Slaters Lane	VA	🔵 🟡

Potential WMATA Infill Station Sites

Some of these sites are opportunistic. That is, the site could support an infill station built at a reasonable cost, even if the land use (both current and future) aren’t likely to change much. Franconia Road is one where adding some platforms to existing track ought to be an easy task (with the caveat that nothing in American transit construction is easy at the moment).

Others are targeted at potential large-scale redevelopment of low-density land uses. And some (e.g. Wolf Trap) are longstanding ideas that might not make much sense, but I’ve included them here anyway.

Take the three criteria above, and score each on a 1-3 scale (with 3 being the best) and this is the back-of-the-envelope ranking:

These twelve additional stations (in addition to the 98 currently open or under construction) have the potential to increase the system’s ridership. Each additional node in the network can increase the value for the network as a whole, particularly given the redevelopment prospects for the region.

Some caveats: Obviously, I’m just spitballing here. The ‘ease of construction’ is all relative, and leaving aside the larger issues of transit construction costs for the time being. Controlling costs will be critical to making any additional infill stations feasible, yet alone stations with marginal scores.

Still, all but one of these locations are above ground, and the one that’s in a tunnel is a short cut and cover segment. There’s precedent for building stations in this way.

I hope to go through the details of each station area in future posts…

Four Years of Tracking my Metro Trips

Not much has changed, and yet everything has changed.

The last two years have been… unusual to say the least. With the pandemic, lockdown, and working from home, I overhauled my commute, just like many others. And my Metro data tells the tale:

You can see the exact moment when the world shut down. From mid-March 2020 through Mid-January, 2021, I took a grand total of seven unlinked Metro trips. By mid-march 2021, I had resumed a new commute pattern, mostly for the purposes of daycare drop-off.

Metro during the pandemic has been different. 92.4% of my trips in 2021 have been on a 7000 series train, and the remainder have been on 3000 series. I haven’t ridden either a 6000 or 2000 series train since the pandemic began.

Some trivialities:

The entire 7000 series fleet is in service, and I snagged a ride on the newest car (Number 7747) on August 17, 2021.
Of the current fleet, I’ve ridden 1137 of the 1284 cars in service (what counts as “in service” is a bit of a moving target), or 88.6%
My most frequently ridden car is 7673, which I’ve caught ten times over four years.
The longest gap between cars I’ve managed is 1,382 days, on car 7111. That’s 3.78 years of the current 4 year timespan.

With life changes, so to will my commute patterns. The ‘new normal’ remains uncertain for balancing working in the office vs. working at home. My kid is now attending a school within walking distance. I’ve felt comfortable on transit during the pandemic with a mask and with relatively sparse crowds, but the pandemic’s continued impact on travel demand is painfully uncertain.

Who knows what the next year will bring?

Crayon plan for VRE’s Manassas Line

As part of the Transforming Rail in Virginia plan, the Commonwealth purchased half of the RF&P railroad (home to VRE’s Fredericksburg line) from CSX. The agreement includes not only the right of way, but also an agreement for shared dispatching and scheduling authority, opening the door for better on-time performance and more control over passenger rail schedules in a mixed passenger/freight corridor.

Unfortunately, the plan has yet to include any (public) agreements with Norfolk Southern, who owns the tracks for VRE’s Manassas Line. In many ways, the Manassas Line has more potential than the Fredericksburg line – the Manassas line travels through relatively densely developed suburban areas along a corridor that lacks competing highway travel options. The rail line is already double-tracked and mostly grade separated, yet doesn’t host much freight traffic for NS. With the eventual expansion of the Long Bridge enabling more Amtrak and regional rail traffic, the line is a perfect candidate for increasing service.

The vision for regional rail in the DC area: run it like rapid transit. Frequent, all-day service.

My basic, quick-and-dirty vision for the line:

Purchase the line from NS
Electrify the line, and link through to the NEC
Develop stations to maximize ridership

https://twitter.com/alex_block/status/1427640804517060614?s=20

The last item would represent the biggest physical change on the line. The railroad itself is a large barrier in this part of suburban Virginia – only a handful of north-south roads cross it. Conveniently, these areas also include areas with commercial and industrial land uses (orange) ripe for eventual redevelopment as station areas (green).

Crayon of the new VRE Manassas Line – Close the existing Rolling Road station; add new stations at Rolling Road, Burke Lake Road, and Old Ox Road.

The existing Rolling Road station would close. All stations would be rebuilt to enable operation on both tracks in both directions, as well as to provide pedestrian and bike connections to neighborhoods on both sides of the tracks. Locating stations near the north/south roads also creates the opportunity for connecting bus transit, which currently doesn’t exist.

Other ideas for the Manassas line:

Add a station at Clifton, VA – limited development potential due to historic preservation, but a strong, walkable small town core.

Consider an extension to Haymarket, VA – VRE studied this, but it would require splitting already infrequent trains among two termini, as well as require extensive investment to avoid NS conflicts.

Two years of tracking my Metro trips

Two years ago, I started tracking my WMATA rides for extremely trivial reasons. After a while, my curiosity is now ingrained as a habit, a small bit of gamification of my commute (even if that game is basically Calvinball).

(Since I originally started doing this to see how quickly I would ride in the same car, I should note that on three occasions, I’ve ridden the same car twice in one day. The longest gap between rides on the same car is 707 days between rides on car 3230.)

With two years of data in the books, I thought I’d share some highlights: 2,013 unlinked trips, using 986 unique railcars, covering about 73% of the current fleet. Seventy five of those cars will never be ridden again, retired as part of the 5000 series. From the current fleet, there are 333 cars I’ve yet to ride, and an additional 113 that have been retired before I had a chance to ride. The fleet makeup is constantly evolving as Metro continues to accept new 7000 series cars, so the precise numbers change often.

My obsession has provided means to monitor the introduction of the newest members of the 7000 series, with 706 cars of the 748 ordered now in service.

Beyond changes in the Metro fleet, I’ve been able to document changes in my own life – different daycares, different jobs, and different commutes. I’ve also noticed how Metro changes their operations and railcar assignments as they take on major track work and as their fleet evolves.

Some charts:

Most of my trips are commute trips; red bars correspond to WMATA’s peak fare periods.

I’ve ridden all but 2 of the 2000 series cars that are in service; I rode 75 of the 5000 series before they were retired.

More than half of my rides have been on 7000 series trains.

My regular trips make frequent use of all services except for the Red Line. Most trips are still tied to the Orange/Silver/Blue lines, serving my home station.

I was also curious if I could put two years of tracked trips into one chart, so here’s an annotated version:

You can see the retirement of the 5000 series cars, the slowly increasing size of the 7000 series fleet, re-assigment of cars around the system, particularly in response to this summer’s lengthy Platform Improvement Project shutdown. The retirement of most of the 5000-series fleet also shifted the 6000 series – previously common on the Green line, but then shifted to the Orange/Blue/Silver lines.

You can also see how some cars tend to stick to certain portions of the system. This is easiest to see with the Red Line, since it’s both the most isolated from other lines and the line I ride the least. Before the PiP, you can see how most 3000 series cars with numbers above ~3175 were assigned to the Red Line. Likewise, most 7000 series trains between ~7150 and ~7300 are also isolated on the Red Line, except for a few weeks during this summer’s shutdown.

More charts from my obsessive Metro trip tracking

After fiddling with my spreadsheet full of tracking the individual metro railcars I’ve ridden, I’ve got a few more charts to show my year-plus worth of Metro trips.

Part of the reason I didn’t have these charts before is that dealing with time as a field in Excel/Google sheets is kinda a pain. It’s not always a clear number, but I was nevertheless able to sort it out.

So, some charts:

Trip Distribution: What does my overall trip distribution look like? Surprise, surprise! It’s peak-heavy.

The red lines indicate the break points for WMATA’s fare changes. A few obvious trends emerge:

Most of my rides are during the peak, right around peak commuting times.
Most of my off-peak riders are mid-day, using Metro to attend out of office work meetings, etc.
My PM commute is bi-modal, often due to two separate trips as I usually do day-care pickup.
Very few evening trips (again, likely thanks to that day-care pickup)

Railcar Distribution: One of the other observations was the unequal distribution of railcars across the system, particularly for the 3000 series.

I made these distribution charts for each rail car series. For example, here is the 6000 series:

You can see I’ve ridden cars across the entire 6000 series fleet. I’ve ridden in two of those cars five times each. As of the creation of this chart, I’ve ridden in 97 of the 192 cars in the 6000 series.

The distribution of my rides in the 7000 series is different:

The pattern is different, due to the continual expansion of the 7000 series fleet. The lower number cars are older and have this been around longer, and with more chances for me to ride them. And the distribution reflects that (note that this chart goes up to the eventual size of the 7000 fleet, which is not yet in full service).

But if you look at the 3000 series, the pattern is different:

As you can see, I haven’t ridden many cars above number ~3150. The reason is that I seldom ride the Red Line, and most of those cars appear to be isolated on the Red Line:

(Apologies for the automatically adjusting vertical scale) Obviously, this is not a huge sample, but the only Red Line 3000-series trips I’ve taken are on the older half of the fleet.

The Red Line is the most isolated line on the system. Also, I ride it the least (and therefore am unlikely to pick up small changes to the fleet management practices).

The next big fleet milestone will be the arrival of the full set of 7000 series railcars, along with the retirement of the 5000 series. That will probably trigger the last round of shifting yard assignments for a given fleet until the arrival of the proposed 8000 series.

TOD at IAD: a concept for developing Saarinen Circle at Dulles International Airport

As the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority continues work on Phase 2 of the Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport and beyond, it’s worth considering some of the transit oriented development opportunities at the airport beyond just the obvious connection for passengers at the terminal.

Airports around the world take advantage of their connectivity in developing an airport city: office space, warehouses, hotels all diversify an airport’s business income. It’s a virtuous cycle:

real estate connected to the airport has value;
rents from those spaces diversifies airport revenues and drives down their operating costs;
lower costs encourage more airline service which increase connectivity around the world;
increased connectivity adds value to the airport location.

Amsterdam Schiphol is one of the best examples, with nearly 6 million sf of commercial space on the airport grounds alone. They don’t just brand themselves as an airport city, but as the ‘Schiphol CBD,’ complete with new public spaces.

Munich Airport Center. Image from Wikipedia.

While that may be an ultimate goal, perhaps something closer to the Munich Airport Center (MAC) is a better match – particularly for any development in the Dulles parking bowl within Saarinen Circle. MAC is a pedestrian oriented retail and commercial complex connecting the airport’s two terminals and S-Bahn station, flanked by airport parking, buses, and a hotel. All of the key airport destinations feed pedestrians into the space: parking, taxi, drop-off, etc, increasing foot traffic to the retail spaces.

Schematic map of Munich Airport Center; note retail (red) and restaurants (yellow), Terminal 1 (top), Terminal 2 and the Forum (bottom), S-Bahn station (below), buses (left side) and taxis (right side).

The most iconic element is the MAC Forum, a large covered outdoor plaza surrounded by shops and offices. The airport operator extensively programs the Forum with a variety of sponsored events to draw in non-airport patrons (for whom parking fees are waived) in addition to workers and travelers.

Entrance to the S-Bahn at the MAC Forum; CC image from Jeromyu on Flickr.

Munich Airport Forum; showing roof over the open air public space. Creative Commons image from Nir on Flickr.

The key elements of the Munich Airport Center include retail, restaurants, public space, and public transit. For adjacent development, the airport offers flexible office and conference space for rent (and is working on additional office development – they do not yet have planning permission for office space on the magnitude of Schiphol) as well as a connected hotel.

MWAA is actively looking to diversify their revenues at Dulles. For development, MWAA is shopping the Western Lands on the far side of the airport, searching for interest in a second on-airport hotel, as well as other various sites on airport property that might generate some kind of revenue for the Authority. Among other development opportunities, they list ‘Saarinen Circle’ as something to watch.

Saarinen Circle surrounds the surface parking lot directly in front of the Eero Saarinen terminal building. The Metro station (under construction) and parking garage are currently connected to the main terminal via a tunnel beneath the parking lot.

The Saarinen Circle site has several advantages. Space is plentiful (there was plenty of complaining about the decision to move the Metro station to the opposite side of the parking lot from the terminal), but the distances aren’t overwhelming: The distance between the garage and the terminal is similar to the distance between Terminals 1 and 2 at Munich. Development in the circle has the potential to make that walk a pleasant stroll among shops and public space, rather than through the drab-but-functional existing tunnel.

Because of the iconic Saarinen Terminal and the views of it for drivers approaching via Saarinen Circle, any development within the parking bowl couldn’t be very tall. Several historic preservationists objected to the Metro aerial guideway’s potential to block views. While this may foreclose on a large structure such as the one covering Munich’s Forum (after all, the canopy over the forum is the signature architecture for Munich’s airport – Dulles already has an icon), it shouldn’t stop all development. Using the existing tunnel level as the ‘ground’ floor would offer some room for development above. MAC is similarly surrounded by roadways and airport infrastructure at different levels.

Munich Airport Center makes good use of changes in grade to connect pedestrians between the terminals at multiple levels. Relocating existing taxi, bus, and valet parking to flank a new multi-level development between the terminal building and the parking garage/Metro station. The development not only has the chance to aid the finances of IAD by generating non-aviation revenue, but also in attracting more use to the Metro station via old-fashioned transit oriented development.

There’s plenty of developable land at Dulles, but only Saarinen Circle has the key location between the Metro station and the terminal. Airports around the world provide models for better uses of the space than surface parking.

Making multi-level cities work: revisiting the skyway, using it in edge city redevelopment

Elevated pedestrian walkway linking Tysons Corner Center with the Metro. Future development will add more elevated pedestrian-only connections to the Metro. Photo by Alex Block.

Elevated pedestrian walkway linking Tysons Corner Center with the Metro, bypassing heavily used auto thoroughfares. Future development (replacing the parking garage visible to the left) will add more elevated pedestrian-only connections to the Metro. Photo by Alex Block.

Is there a future for the skyway in American cities? Unlike retrofitting a new layer onto a well-established street grid and development pattern (as in Minneapolis), there’s an opportunity to use an extra pedestrian layer as a tool to help re-make suburban edge cities into places navigable by pedestrians.

In May, Jennifer Yoos and Vincent James published a brief history of grade separation for pedestrians in Places Journal – in other words, a history of the skyway.

There’s a common thread of unrealized grand visions. Victor Gruen’s plan for Downtown Forth Worth (1956) called for pedestrianizing the downtown, providing automobile access from a ring of parking garages accessed via skyways. The virtue of the plan was flexibility – the elements allowed for incremental implementation of the concept. Yoos and James write:

Gruen’s urban design proposals introduced something that could be described in contemporary terms as a form of tactical urbanism: a vocabulary of adaptable components, such as pedestrian bridges, plazas, and arcades, that could be deployed selectively. Construction could thus proceed incrementally, radically changing a city over time. Gruen’s plan for Fort Worth proposed to reorder the city around a central pedestrian plaza with shopping. Vehicles were relegated to the periphery, and elevated pedestrian bridges connected parking ramps to the walking zone at the urban core. Although it was framed within a compelling narrative that referred to everyday life in historic European cities, Gruen’s alternative was distinctly modernist.

The potential pitfalls of that approach were evident to Jane Jacobs from the start, with her prescient observation about the impact of a partial implementation:

While she broadly endorsed Gruen’s social programming, she warned that clients and others who enacted his plans would overlook that critical point, focusing instead on his strategies for traffic management. And as she predicted, Gruen’s model for incremental development proved tenuous as his proposals — or something like them — were built in cities across the country. Local governments implemented only those components that were desirable at a given time to particular political constituencies, with little regard for the whole. The concept of a vehicle-free center was often abandoned as the cities evolved. The socially-oriented urbanism that was so crucial to Gruen’s vision demanded a more integrated and comprehensive approach.

Indeed, this was my personal experience with skyway networks growing up in Minneapolis. The skyways provide climate controlled, grade separated pedestrian circulation. The provision of skyways allowed the city to use street space for vehicle movement, relegating pedestrians to inhospitable sidewalks or to second-level skyways that require navigation through a warren of privately owned and controlled spaces.

Conventional wisdom in Minneapolis holds that despite the drawbacks of the skyway system, it was a necessary move for downtowns like Minneapolis to make in order to compete against ascendant suburban shopping malls – such as Victor Gruen’s own Southdale Center. The flaw in the approach is for a naturally walkable and compact downtown to try and beat an auto-oriented shopping mall at its own game – it requires an assumption that the streets must prioritize car movement to compete with freeways.

Not that Victor Gruen would declare victory over downtown. His vision for Southdale was for a new kind of mixed use town center to surround the shopping mall – uses that never came. Another vision only partially implemented.

Yoos and James close with observations from Hong Kong, where the logic of separating pedestrians and cars ‘works’ best; combined with the required density to achieve critical mass (something often lacking in Minneapolis), challenging terrain requiring vertical pedestrian movement in any context, and a great deal of redevelopment activity to re-shape the city as a multi-layered place:

Elevated walkway systems now span the majority of the Sheung Wan, Central, Admiralty, and Wan Chai districts. The pedestrian network features a range of connector prototypes, including deck-access plazas and podiums, flyover bridges, open-air footbridges, and high-bridge networks (exterior pedestrian bridges over streets), interiorized walkways, elevated parks, and exterior escalators that scale the steep hillsides.

Yoos and James note that one factor to Hong Kong’s success with the strategy is total commitment: “Hong Kong’s lack of a significant historic conservation agenda” and the government ownership of all land results in a more complete implementation of the concept.

In the United States, a comparison to Hong Kong has limited applicability. However, I don’t think that means the future for multi-layered cities is dead. Path dependence means places like Minneapolis won’t be tearing out their skyways anytime soon, but the future for the concept is probably in urbanizing edge cities like Tysons Corner.

The plans for Tysons involve a massive redevelopment of an auto-oriented edge city into a transit-oriented and walkable one. Both increased density and successful transit require good pedestrian access. Tysons already has islands of walkable places inside the malls and the plan calls for incrementally creating a new grid of streets as redevelopment proceeds.

Connecting those places to the transit system requires either taming massive suburban quasi-highways, or moving pedestrians over/under them in another way.

Pedestrian plaza linking Tysons Corner Center to Metro. Note the access roadways for apartments, offices, and hotel below the pedestrian level. Photo by the Alex Block.

Pedestrian Plaza at Tysons Corner Center, programmed for Christmas activities. Photo by Alex Block.

The first phase of redevelopment at Tysons Corner Center is adding a pedestrian layer above the traffic, directly linking the Mall’s second level to the mezzanine of the rail station. A new hotel faces onto the pedestrian plaza, with loading and valet parking located one level below. The natural topography allows for a person to walk from the Metro station to the plaza (via a pedestrian bridge) to the mall on a single level, with auto movement below.

For the Mall, the additional development adds new uses (office, residential, hotel), stepping towards fulfillment of Gruen’s vision of a mixed use town center. Restaurants and bars dominate the new retail offerings, fronting onto the plaza as an attempt to create a sense of place as well as a functional pedestrian connection.

The sturm und drang over putting the Metro underground in Tysons missed the challenge of mixing pedestrians with suburban arterial roads. The elevated rail structure isn’t the obstacle to creating a walkable place – the cars are. And skyways might help provide a working alternative.

City Block

a work in progress…