June 3, 2007
Biting the Big Green Apple
Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues.
I got a kick out of New York’s reaction to a report released back in April, showing that carbon emissions in the city had increased by about 8 percent since 1997. The news stories were alarmist and the leaders angry, promising to do whatever it took to reverse the trend and reduce emissions within 25 years. Admirable sentiments, but it made me chuckle to see how many New Yorkers buried the biggest story in the report, as far as I was concerned. The average New Yorker, you see, contributes about one-third the carbon emissions of the average American. If we all lived like New Yorkers, we’d immediately make the United States’ share of the climate crisis a great deal more manageable.
New York has to face the same challenges as other cities in reducing emissions from buildings and from power generation. Its main advantage over the rest of us is that more than 50 percent of its daily commuters use mass transit. Many of those that don’t will walk or bike, or use car-sharing services like taxi cabs. No city in the country has committed to abandoning the personal automobile trip like New York has, and so we all spew out carbon at rates much greater than the Big Green Apple.
Of course, New York hasn’t committed to mass transit because it’s green to do so. Instead its subways, commuter rail systems, buses, ferries, and cab companies arose and were built to handle the population size and density that makes New York unique among American cities. It’s that density that supports the commercial dynamism and diversity that define New York. It also allows New York to house nearly half the population of its massive 20 million large metropolitan area in the 300 square miles at the center.
But that’s New York, right? Even if we wanted our city to feel like our neighbor to the north, and most of us don’t, the barriers standing in our way are insurmountable--the Freedom Tower, to take one example, will be more than ten times taller than our city's height limit. But if our future (probably) doesn’t include avenues lined with 60 story buildings, we can nonetheless learn important lessons from the things New York does best. For starters, one of the main things we can do to reduce our own carbon emissions is to reduce our dependence on automobiles. The District is already well ahead of the national average in this respect—over one-third of D.C. residents commute via mass transit—but we can do better. It should be the official policy of the city government to reduce the use of automobiles by residents and non-residents alike. This doesn’t have to be hard; much of the work can be done by pushing mixed-use developments and avoiding suburban style errors like the Brentwood Shopping Center. The city should limit the amount of space given over to parking and improve alternatives like bike lanes and trails, as well as the cab fare system and bus routing. The city should also be thinking seriously and creatively about how to create new transit lines.
But let’s be honest: Washingtonians, they of the one trip in three via transit, are not the big carbon offenders in the region. For that we have to look to the suburbs, where transit use is minimal, congestion is epidemic, and commute times stretch into the triple digits. In many ways, the struggles of the exurbs are the problems of the exurbs, but emissions and pollution don’t stay put, warming and dirtying tiny areas over Centreville and Tysons Corner. Sadly, their failure in that respect is our problem, but we, good people that we are, can help them solve it.
Picture taken by {ryan}.
The second thing that the District should take away from the New York example is that policies allowing denser settlement in the center of the metropolitan area will help reduce the percentage of new development that takes place in an exurban setting. The Examiner reported this week that the Washington region can expect population growth of nearly 100 percent over the next fifty years, according to estimates from George Mason University. Fifty years is a long time, and we should consider such projections with some caution, but we can say with reasonable certainty that job growth in the region will continue, and that jurisdictions in and around the capital will build new homes to hold those workers. The key question then becomes, how much of the new growth will the center of the region hold?
In 2004, the District accounted for about 7 percent of the new housing approved in the metropolitan area. This year, by contrast, the District is on pace to account for over 10 percent of metropolitan housing; through the first quarter of 2007, over 17 percent of new permits in the region were for homes in D.C. Some of that shift is due to the fact that weakness in the housing market has affected the outer suburbs of the region more than the center, but part of the decline in places like Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties is due to popular concern about congestion and strained infrastructure—those places have deliberately begun to slow new residential growth.
The ease with which Washington is able to continue building a larger share of the region’s housing will determine the extent to which more people means more sprawl and more traffic. If we, with our dense street grid and nearly half of existing Metro stations, take in a mere 5 percent of new growth, then we practically guarantee that population will flow primarily to areas beyond the reach of mass transit. The more we limit new growth and density in the city, the more responsible we are for increasing area emissions. It isn’t enough for us to build green roofs; we either seize the reins and take the lead in accommodating new, transit friendly growth or we leave the problem of carbon emissions to those who have proven themselves wholly incapable of planning and building in a responsible fashion. It’s unfortunate that the region’s exurbs have grown so incautiously, but this is the world in which we find ourselves.
But there is an upside, and it happens to be a pretty good one. Reducing our dependence on cars and increasing our density will have some nice side effects for the District. Density means more people paying into the city treasury. It means more people shopping for different kinds of things, which equates to a larger and more diverse array of businesses. It means less dead space, fewer vacant lots and boarded up properties, fewer overgrown rat-infested wastes, and fewer local businesses struggling to stay open on main streets while residents drive to the suburban Target. We can tell everyone we’re doing it for the good of the region, but we’ll hardly be sacrificing.
But the most important thing to remember is that the alternative isn’t the status quo. Things will change in the District whether we’re proactive or not. If we fight density and cling to our cars, we’ll make cutting emissions more costly for ourselves and more difficult for the region. More Washingtonians will be displaced as the premium on homes near Metro and downtown increases. Whether the next half-century delivers into Greater Washington 2 million or 10 million additional people, the District will change, and we can greet that change with foresightedness or nearsightedness. If we’re smart, we’ll start learning lessons where we can.
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Even the most jaded urban hipster eventually gets sick of living stacked like cordwood and paying through the nose for the privelege. And it's usually around the time they start hooking up and getting knocked up and start pooping out the crotchfruit. For some folks, DC will never be safe enough or clean enough or their schools good enough and they gotta live somewhere.
Back before stinking hell of the automobile age, people still fantasized about escaping the cities, choked as they were with the stench of horse manure and flies the size of softballs. It's a natural human instinct to want space, and no amount of density fetishism is going to change that. So you're welcome to worship at the golden calf of "new urbanism" until the cows come home, but that still doesn't change the fact that public transit will never meet the needs of the majority of suburban residents. We can pull and tweak, like shoving some of the BRAC Belvoir refugees nearer to the Springfield Metro, but those options are few and far between. For the most part, the demographic will continue to be Joe Sixpack driving from Waldorf to Crystal City while his ex Jane Sixpack drives from Sterling to Hagerstown. Two hours on the road still beats 4-plus hours going from bus to metro to metro to bus, assuming that's even an option.
As for bashing Target, I don't see anyone in Columbia Heights crapping on Targets lawn. They were practically stumbling over eachother to give Target's board of directors blowjobs in exchange for a DC store. And I lost track of the number of "car-free" neighbors I've given lifts to Target/Ikea/Shoppers Food Warehouse. Why? Because shopping for basics downtown blows dogs for nickels and always will. And by "basics" I don't mean fancy coffee or overpriced tapas or $7 drink "specials." DC has that in spades. I'm talking about luxuries like fresh vegetables and bulk diapers and the stuff that makes living in this upholstered toilet bearable.
It's a moot point anyway. With current trends, downtown DC will be the exclusive territory of kid-free elitists, empty nesters who've traded in that 7-room mcmansion in Sterling for a Foggy Bottom luxury condo, and rock-bottom X-treme poverty. It'll be like some cross between Logan's Run and Omegaman, except with fewer vampires and more NRA-era Charleton Heston.
Oh, and until downtown has ANY 24-hour places where I can get breakfast, I say you can suck it. You aint a real city, yo. So long as people like Jemal run around buying up places like Waffle Shop and closing them down to make way for shiny chrome office blocks with NO GROUND FLOOR RETAIL, DC's priorities will continue to be screwed. In NYC, you can get any meal at any time of the day. THAT's a city. But who cares? All those offices generate LOTS of tax revenues for District coffers, even though they're deader than last christmas after 7pm.
Monkey, those are all lovely sentiments, but tell me, where in the District are people stacked like cordwood? Density doesn't have to mean tenements; it can simply mean nice little row houses instead of sprawling McMansions. In fact, a growing number of families are choosing to stay in center cities, because the alternative is so depressing: paying through the nose for too much house and spending all one's time waiting in traffic to get to work, or school, or the grocery store, or what passes for entertainment in the distant suburbs.
And I'm not knocking Target. I'm knocking design that makes it necessary to drive to Target. It's certainly possible to build so that people don't have to get in their car and leave the District to shop for everything. All I'm doing is encouraging the city to do more of that.
I lived in a building off North Carolina Avenue in Capitol Hill. The nice lady who lived above me used to party until 2am, then cleanup until 4 with a vaccuum and combat boots. The guy to my right was a chainsmoker whose stench wafted in through the ducts, the carpet, and clinged to the elevator like death to a sick gibbon. The woman on my left was nicer than most, but had a penchant for cooking things that smelled like fermented fish paste and ass. And below? Mister Hip Hop who was damned sure his set list was annouced at all hours.
Cordwood. Nice amenities, but cordwood nonetheless.
I did the rowhouse routine on 13th and Florida: vacant building to the north, empty lot to the south. Silent as a crypt until around 2002 when, after swapping hands numerous times, the vacant building nextdoor became group home to Mister Hip Hop II and the Hipettes. We moved before the empty lot became a three-story monstrosity and queer party house.
Come to think of it, cordwood is actually preferrable because cordwood doesn't stay up late blaring Blink 182 with a beer over its head yelling "WOOOOOOOO!" and vomiting in the alley.
Two major problems with designing it so that it's not necessary to drive to Target: cost and zoning. Targets locate in the burbs because it's cheap, land-wise and tax-wise. Ten-thousand-plus square feet of real-estate downtown aint cheap, and with DC's confiscatory business tax rates, it would take a Target decades to recoup it's costs. That's assuming Jim Graham wouldn't pass some resolution forcing Target to provide a living wage and subsidized healthcare. Then there's parking, which everybody says is evil until THEY need it. Columbia Heights was at a standstill over the parking issue at the DCUSA development: a minority wanted less parking and more retail (who wants cars idling in their backyard?), the rest wanted ground to break at all costs because THEY were tired of driving to the burbs to get anything.
And quit knocking suburban entertainment. Where's the BEST authentic affordable ethic cuisine? It's in Beltsville and "Koreatown" and Langley Park and every place where bluecollar working class immigrants live because they can't afford downtown because it costs too damn much to live there and the schools are successful only in producing kids who can accurately throw rocks at gays.
And you'd think twice before calling my sentiments "lovely" if you could smell my genitals from where you're standing. This monkey needs a bath tonight.
One of the impediments to increased central development in the region is the resistence of long-time residents to high-rise developments. I'd think there is room for development in NE (the area looks almost rural as seen from the metro), but more can be done in developed areas of NW and SE to increase the District's share of metro residents and ensure a more environmentally-friendly future for the Washington, DC region. How to balance this with the desire to retain families might be harder, though I assume some of the millions of NYC residents must be combining family and city living alright.
Gross.
Monkey, I just think you have to take a hard look at the costs and benefits of urban AND suburban living--you can't compare urban negatives with suburban positives. Sure, there are some interesting things to do in the suburbs, but it would be very hard to argue that entertainment options in the burbs are anywhere near as plentiful as in the central city.
And yes, there are things about city living that aren't always wonderful (though you're kidding yourself if you think that living in the burbs means not having to put up with your neighbors' crap). But you have to look at all elements of urban life relative to suburban life. If three hours of commuting a day is tearing your family apart, then maybe noisy neighbors in the city aren't so bad. If your car has to idle at red lights for 45 minutes so that you can get to the "convenient" big box grocery, then maybe a little inconvenience is what you need.
DCster, I agree. I think one of the big challenges for the DC government is building a consensus among existing residents that density is necessary. In my opinion, that's one reason why it's a mistake to delay investing in new intracity transit--more transit options should help address concerns that new growth will equate to total paralysis on city streets. Of course, there are plenty of other residents who won't be happy unless they look outside and see nothing but trees, despite the fact that they live at the center of a 6 million person metropolis.
Ryan,
I think you are highly exaggerating the traffic in the burbs during the weekend. I drive most of time (weekends) in Alex/Arlington/Fallchurch area and 95% of the time it is rather smooth flowing traffic. 30min at light for a box store…that is utter silliness.
RJ, Arlington and Alexandria barely count as suburbs. They've done a much better job planning around transit than places like Fairfax. I do think it's telling, however, that some of the worst traffic in the Arlington/Alexandria area surrounds the Potomac Yards shopping center, which is a textbook example of suburban, car-oriented design.
Dude, you totally started with the urban positives versus suburban negatives, but I'll bite: there are more entertainment options in the suburbs than the city because there are MORE SUBURBS THAN CITY. Where are the wine festivals? Ethnic festivals? Where can you go camping, fishing, tubing? Where are the 24-hour diners? Where are the 24-hour kebab joints? The roadside bbq joints? Where are the cinema googleplexes, the gun shows, the ethnic brothels, the mom-and-pop meth labs? And if I want to see the official state sport of Maryland, I won't find it clomping down H Street NE with a lance. Most importantly, where are the malls where the kids can go to practice the fine art of loitering? Union Station lost it's cachet years ago.
Monkey, you know most of that stuff is in the District, too, right?
I think the District more than holds its own against all the suburbs combined, but that's not really the comparison we should be debating. The point is access to entertainment. Looked at that way, it's very hard to say that a suburban resident of Prince William County has the same access to entertainment as a resident of the District. There are some nice things to do in PW, but most of the region's entertainment options involve a car trip from that location, and often a very long and traffic hampered one. The awesome thing about a central location is that it minimizes the total distance to scattered destinations. So much the better for D.C. that it's also the hub of the Metro hub and spoke design.
And that's the point I'm trying to make. There are costs and benefits involved with urban and suburban living. I think that growing congestion and lagging infrastructure in the suburbs is reducing the net positives of living in suburbs--sure you have space, but it comes with steadily reduced access to the good things about the metro area. It so happens that transit-oriented, dense development is better able to absorb growth than the suburban alternative.
I'm very much in favor of living in dense urban transit friendly communities, but I frequently think the expectation is fairly unrealistic for a lot of people. For example, a co-worker was recently notified of a location change of her job from Arlington to mf Ashburn. Bam, there goes 3hrs of your life each day. My org just got shifted under a new VP, and it's been known that telecommuting is officially frowned upon under his watch, not that I ever did anyway.
Sometimes I feel that all the smug non-car-owning DCists must think that any of us who live outside the District boundary must all be fat and lazy racist SUV drivers who enjoy driving to work 3hrs round trip each day. Reality is more complex. If I worked for the government, or had a similarly secure job downtown, I would definately live in the District. However, I can't afford it anyway, and I'm lucky to have a nice house only 15 minutes (by car, metro rail/bus takes 55 minutes) from my current job. But like many people, the job situation could change at the drop of a hat, and most people can't sell their house and uproot their kids from school everytime they change jobs, or there are job changes outside their control.
The demographic predictions are pretty horrifying. I've come to the conclusion that the infrastructure that the DC metro area needs will never appear in my lifetime. The quality of life is only going to get much much worse.
Potomac Yards shopping center would be fine if they killed all but one of the stop lights and extended the left turn pocket out of the north entrance. Besides that 1 or 2 blocks north and south traffic clears up. Also note that one can take a Metro Bus from Crystal City Metro directly to PY.
"Sadly, their failure in that respect is our problem, but we, good people that we are, can help them solve it...."
*VOMIT!!!!*
what did spookiness say about "smug non-car-owning DCists.." ???
I swear, the sentiment expressed by the editorialship of this blog makes my skin crawl.
That's obviously tongue in cheek, V. If we were all dying of altruism in D.C., I wouldn't need to argue for policy changes.
"Clomping down H Street NE with a lance?"
Okay, I'll bite.
WTF??
Yes, public transit is swell. But it's not an answer for everyone. For those of us that run a business, public transit doesn't work. Try hauling a refrigerator home on Metro. Doesn't really work well.
I too am getting sick of the car-free snobs turning their nose up at those of us that must have cars.
Yes, car sharing is swell, Zipcar in particular. But it's not a complete answer either.
And until DC gets a real cab system then public transit is not a real option for many. Many of our neighborhoods are still unsafe at night, no matter how much we kids ourselves into thinking otherwise. And the DC cab system is run as a make-work program instead of what it should be - an integral part of public transit.
And I'm totally with Monkey on the issue of new buildings with no retail. DC MUST require real retail on the first floor of these new buildings. Otherwise, the city experience sucks, as there is no one on the streets after dark and it becomes sterile and boring.
I swear it's like our city planners and Council have never been to a real city. They don't seem to understand what makes a city tick. Nope. Instead they sell out to the highest bidder, not requiring even basic retail on the first floor. This ain't rocket science, folks.
Hillman - The Council doesn't give a fat rat's fart about how a city ticks. They care about generating the maximum amount of tax revenue per square foot of downtown space. How else will they be able to parcel out millions in earmarks for pet projects? Unless you're Ben's Icecream or Coach and Four in the Reeves Building, small businesses are screwed to the floor.
The city ain't for everybody and neither are the burbs. But the problems in one have a nasty tendency to spill over to the other. Failing to deal with crime and lousy city services and affordable housing pushes city residents out. Failing to deal with congestion drives some back in. We're kinda stuck with eachother, so making it a pissing contest of who sucks more really doesn't address any of these issues. What it comes down to is how much are you willing to pay in taxes for nirvana?
As for the "clomping down H Street with a lance" remark, I was referring to the wholesome sort of entertainment available a short drive from Baltimore.
"For that we have to look to the suburbs, where transit use is minimal, congestion is epidemic, and commute times stretch into the triple digits."
How does time stretch into triple digits? Is that 100 minutes or 1:00 hour?
I agree with monkey, some people just don't want to live in apartments or even townhouses. They want a single family separated house. I don't think that this means no transit though. I think there is a middle ground, where people live in single family homes but take transit. Out in the suburbs, this would happen if we expanded and improved commuter rail. VRE and MARC are shadows of Metro North, MARTA, and the MTBA. We could have had a system like them but we turned them into bike trails.
Will that get Johnny Mannasas to take VRE to the Target? No, of course not. But getting single family home dwellers to commute via transit is an important step.
Silent as a crypt until around 2002 when, after swapping hands numerous times, the vacant building nextdoor became group home to Mister Hip Hop II and the Hipettes. We moved before the empty lot became a three-story monstrosity and queer party house.
Where did you move to, are you in the 'burbs now?
potomac yards would be better if they would build an infill station on the blue/yellow line right behind it so you could get there via metro. look at a map of the area, that's got to be the longest gap between stations just about anywhere in the system, especially since it's in the center of the area, not out at the end of a line like greenbelt. it's just a piss-poor utilization of a multi-billion dollar infrastructure investment.
is it wrong to say that i hate buses?
i'll consider public trans if it comes in the form of a train. until then, i will continue to drive, as it is more time efficient and costs about the same (...for now)
and, btw, this is off-topic, but we're not allowed to comment on the argyle whatever it is cartoon thing, but it sucks. can we have something actually funny there if you're going to run a cartoon?
This isn't exactly a DC-specific observation, but I think it's relevant to the discussion.
I used to have a neighbor who grew up in what she called a suburb of Montreal but it was more like a smallish, semi-rural town vaguely near the city. She says when she moved to the States she was struck by how the suburbs here have no sidewalks. In Canada, she noted, they do.
Obviously, the suburbs won't go away. But we can do lots of things to make the suburbs less car-centric. As some of the other posters have noted, you can live in a single-family home but still take transit if you have bus lines or rail lines running nearby. Also, make the streets more pedestrian-friendly. I'm visiting my mom in the bustling burg (not) of Buffalo Grove, IL, this week. There's been a huge amount of development here in the past 10 years, and there's actually now some real density. But the way the town is laid out, all these things are located along Milwaukee Ave. in a linear strip. And, while the city did lay sidewalks along the side of the road, there is literally NO WAY to cross from one side to the other without dodging 4-6 lanes of traffic. They put in sidewalks but put in no traffic lights or crossing lanes. So you have to either brave traffic or else walk 1-2 miles to the next stoplight in the next town to cross the road. Way to go, city planners.
#21, who's "they"?
The original Potomac Yard developer originally offered to build the first privately-financed infill station. Then, Alex city whittled away at PY master plans, and the result was a less-dense development. With less density, the metro station became less feasible, so the developer reneged.
Arlington is moving fast on their section of PY. Alexandria drags it's feet as always, so skittish about growth vs. preservation, density vs. "open space".
If I'm not mistaken, a Rapid Bus service or light rail system is supposed to be part of the redevelopment plans for Potomac Yards.
Ha! Ha! Nice try, Hill Rat! I've had my porchlight shot out one too many times to fall for that! Let's just say, I'm a short walk from tasty pastries and some of the best goddamn fried chicken wings you've never had. The sorta stuff they'd serve at Cakelove and Cluck U if they had a freaking clue.
How difficult would it be to have a station right behind Potomac Yards? They've got that huge honking parking lot behind the theaters that's never even close to capacity. AND there's the condo development just north of there. There's massive infill potential peeing in Metro's face and I haven't heard squat about a Potomac Yards Metro.
some people just don't want to live in apartments or even townhouses. They want a single family separated house.
There's nothing wrong with freestanding homes, as long as built in a sustainable way. Look at the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor. Walk a single block off of Wilson Blvd and you're surrounded by decent sized free-standing homes, complete with yards, dogs and barbeques. You may not have a 3 acre lot, but you're a couple blocks from the Metro, and have great access to DC. I don't think many urbanites "worshipping at the golden calf of new urbanism" have a problem with this model; its more the McMansions on 3 acre lots out in Fairfax and Loudoun that draw criticism. What do they need all that space for anyway? I'd shoot myself if I had to do all that mowing and housecleaning, let alone buy furniture I don't need to fill up rooms I'll never use.
I know Arlington is pretty whitebread and boring compared to DC, but I'm beginning to see why it is praised so much in the planning community. They really got the formula right. If I'm still in DC when its time to "start pooping out crotchfruit", I think a move to Arlington is the way to go.
PS Monkey you really need your own column.
"The point is access to entertainment. Looked at that way, it's very hard to say that a suburban resident of Prince William County has the same access to entertainment as a resident of the District ... most of the region's entertainment options involve a car trip from that location, and often a very long and traffic hampered one. The awesome thing about a central location is that it minimizes the total distance to scattered destinations. So much the better for D.C. that it's also the hub of the Metro hub and spoke design."
Again Ryan, I think you miss the point.
I
a) Nothing's actually open when people want to be out (e.g., late at night);
b) Metro isn't running;
c) Cabs won't haul you back home because its economically inefficient for them to do so under the current zone system;
d) The majority of blocks within the city center consist of high-yield tax-efficient office space that goes dark at 7.
So while the overall amount of entertainment available to a particular PW county denizen in PW county might be limited, the same person isn't beholden to the constraints that most urban folks are -- if they want to dance, or eat Korean food, or search for porn -- its only a drive away, and they don't have to do it by midnight, or 3am Fri-Sat.
If you're going to pimp for a car-free, urban existence, you have to start with making it both attractive and practical. In many senses, its neither.
And before assumptions are made: I live in the city, don't own a car, and move entirely by public transport, walking, and cabs, in that order.
Nonetheless, I still find that in order to have fun, or even just to get things done, I invariably have to fall back on relying on friends with cars. Until that changes, D.C. preaching about the awesometacularness of living in the city will fail to register with most folks.
Oddness: It cut out things unnecessarily. Between "miss the point" and a), should be:
I
Hookay.
I (heart) metro as much as the next guy, but our hub-and-spoke design with all of its glory doesn't translate to jack dittly if
Just to be clear, I understand why people live in the suburbs, and I understand the weaknesses of our current transit systems. I spend most of my time arguing for better transit coverage and service so that the calculus for the average joe will come out looking better for transit.
We can't expect people to make more sustainable choices just for the hell of it; we have to make those choices more attractive.
Ryan - I think it's dedicated bus lanes only. I'm not seeing anything indicating light rail, so I assume they dropped it. And it looks like a LOT of on-street parking is lost, so there's the "motivation" to use public transit.
Ah yes, thanks for the link.
Somewhere I saw the light rail proposal. I remember clearly when I though "pfff....yeah right". I believe it terminated at the Eclipse (the condos developed right across the street from the Arlington sewage treatment plant), so it might fall under the Crystal City redevelopment plans.
spookiness, by 'they' i was speaking like the ny ave infill station, where the landowners around the new station and the city teamed up to pay for the new station. and, from other comments, it looks like 'they' had planned that until alexandria killed the density and killed the economic incentive for them to build the station. a shame, but i don't see why there still can't be a way to build a station there for future use.
Global warming is yet another reason DC should selectively raise the height limit. If they can build 20 stories in Arlington, we should be able to build that high here too.
www.dcbubble.blogspot.com
I have seen plans that eventually a Potomac Yard corrider light rail could meet the planned Columbia Pike streetcar line at Pentagon City. I think the PY portion is still in the fantasy-but-eventually-doable phase. The Arlington commuterpage probably has info buried somewhere.
Exclusive busways can be the stalking horse of streetcars. One of the largest public criticisms of streetcars is alternatively that they get stuck in traffic like any other car, or that exclusive ROWs take away traffic lanes. Once the lane is taken away for a bus, it's a smaller step to get to rail.
At least, I am hopeful that a story like that will play out on K st.
Speaking of the sewer treatment plant near PY -- I was on my way to the Regal cinema on Friday evening, when it was nice and warm out, and the whole area STANK!!! (duh, I know that it is a SEWER treatment plant... but Friday was particularly stinky). My point is that I can't see why anyone would buy a place anyplace around the treatment plant. When the Eclipse and neighboring building open for residents they had better hope they have one hell of an air filtration system to bring fresh air into the building. Keep those balcony doors (do they have balconies?) shut!
P.S. I think a Metro stop at PY would be a great idea.
Twitch,
I wonder the same too. That whole area is not suitable for residential living. You are either down wind from a major treatment plant or have the jet fumes/noise of the airport. The first floor of the complex is supposed to have dinning establishments, but I think it will be a rather hard sell when your aromas are mixing in with some of Arlington's finest.
RJ -- good point: I forgot that the east side of the building faces the landing & take-off route for the airport.
FYI - Eclipse's website states they are selling condos from mid-$300's k to $1.3m.
If you live in DC you can send your crotch fruit to those fantastic public schools on public transportation!
RJ and Twitch,
You better believe that those condo dwellers will be B*tching up a storm after they bought condos and discovered their place is noisy and smells like sh*t. They'll be demanding reduced flights at DCA, and mitigation at the waste treatment plant.
Just like all the folks north of Old Town who bought a house next to a coal-fired power plant, and now decides they want to shut the plant down because it hurts their property values.
There are still messy aspects of industry and commerce, and I wonder where they will all go now that developers AND municipalities have decided that any plot of land is suitable for multifamily "luxury" housing starting from the 500's.
I thought it would be hard to top the condo dwellers who moved onto 17th Street in Adams Morgan only to discover that there's a bunch of noisy clubs on 18th Street in their backyard. The condo dwellers in Georgetown who suddenly woke up and discovered the Whitehurst Freeway in their backyard came close, but this Airport Sewage Loft crowd really takes the stinky/noisy cake.