Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It isn’t particularly surprising, I suppose, that in Zachary Schrag’s Metro history The Great Society Subway the role of central city savior is played by, you know, Metro. What is somewhat surprising, even to an unapologetic transit supporter like me, is how convincing his case is; faced with riot scarred neighborhoods and a downtown abused by suburban office and retail growth, the…

Earlier this week Matthew Yglesias took us to task for referring to a “Mid-City” part of town when discussing a campaign for a new Trader Joe’s near U Street. Matt is actually quite wrong to suggest “shady real estate cabals” are the architects of the term Mid-City, but the fault for his misinformation is likely ours. You see, last winter we ran a post mocking the MidCity Business Association’s moniker, basically accusing them of trying…

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…

One of our favorite parts of this online exhibit of the history of Metrorail designed by historian Zachary Schrag is the ‘future of Metro’ section, which includes the image to the left. The design is by one of Metro’s original station architects, Stanley Allan, who imagines a circular line around the beltway and an entirely new Purple Line, among other additions. Back in the real world, officials broke ground last fall on the Anacostia Corridor…