Know Your Metro History
You've heard the story about what was to be the Georgetown Metro station, right? They were going to build one, but the residents protested, leaving the Orange Line to proceed directly to Rossyln. It turns out this "story" is pure fiction -- the only Metro station not built due to citizen protest was a proposed Oklahoma Avenue Station in Northeast.
If you're anything like us, you spend plenty of time on Metro's buses and trains getting around the city. If you're really like us, you spend that time wondering exactly how WMATA came to be. If you really want to know, you're in luck -- George Mason University history professor Zachary Schrag's new book, The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro has just hit bookstores and contains enough to keep you occupied for a few commutes to and from work.
Although a serious work of history, his 283-page book is a quite readable tour of the system's past from the 1950s to the present day, containing sections on the construction of the Metro, the architecture of the stations, its context during the freeway revolt and even transit-based development in Montgomery and Arlington Counties. Schrag, himself is a D.C. native who has returned to the region after getting his PhD from Columbia, has also created an interesting website on Metro history.
In his book, Schrag concludes that the system is a physical monument to Great Society liberalism which thought that "public things need not be mean, utilitarian, or even quantifiably cost-effective." Few people know today the advocates of urban freeways hoped to build two additional beltways inside the one we have come to know and fear, including one just a half-mile from the White House. The work of planners, political leaders and citizen activists stalled most of that road construction, with local governments channeling their transportation funds to a new regional rail system. While far from perfect, we cannot help but agree with Schrag that Metro has had a profound impact on the region, and recommend the book to anyone curious about the origins of our Metro.
And what about that Georgetown station? Turns out it was never seriously considered because the area lacked a concentration of jobs (like, say, the Pentagon) and the river crossing would have meant the station would have to be prohibitively deep. So much for those myths that Georgetowners wanted to keep the rabble out.