1964 North Central Freeway Report JE Griener Company

CUA/Brookland Transport Corridor Chock

New demolition specials pushed to chock Washington, D.C.'s sole north south transport corridor


Although lip service was given to the idea of addition evacuation road routes for major cities, our jesuitical government is pushing further chocking the B&O Metropolitan Branch RR/ WMATA Red Line corridor.

Observe that the proposed urban deck atop the railroad does not extend to the north alongside Catholic University of America, as consistent with my supposition that CUA prefers the surface railroad as is to serve as a wall between it and the neighborhoods to the east. This is consistent with a recent "briefings" page by an "environmentalist" group against not only a comprehensive subway system including my ideas for vehicular tunnels, but also against the idea promoted by myself and Richard Layman -- my article, his article -- to underground this Red Line corridor.

While properties taken under eminent domain for roads deserve 3X market value for the time savings for the many, such demolition specials that are put up in complete contempt of comprehensive transportation planning that include vast new parkland arguable deserve less, say 10 cents on the dollar.

Mr. Kolvenbach really needs to cease his involvement with transportation and land use planning- and perhaps just about everything else!

For more information please contact: Deborah Crain, Ward 5 Planner, DC Office of Planning, 801 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 4000
Phone: 202-442-7615 Fax: 202-442-7638
E-mail: Deborah.Crain@dc.gov
Or visit the DC Office of Planning online.

Please RSVP: 202-610-0005 or rsvp@jsallc.com

Jesuit Contempt for Highways/Pushing It Away- A Sampling of Attitudes Towards D.C. I-95

New Lanes For the Wealthy

According to a Marc Fisher article in the Washington Post


Incredibly, with the Capitol visible at lower left, this illustration prophesies an elevated highway across the Mall- something with which I would disagree.

If that is supposed to be the obelisk of the Washington Monument, to the right of the Capitol below the letter "O" in "TOLLWAY", that perspective places this viaduct directly across and over the Reflecting Pool!

Such a route was officially planned during a part of the 1960s and 1970s, as the South Leg of the Inner Loop, though sensibly as a tunnel. This "diagonal" route, one of several options officially considered, had broad official planning group support during the late 1960s, with the primary objection that it would require replacing two spots of trees along the Reflecting Pool where it would pass directly beneath.


For that reason, a southerly tunnel route along Independence Avenue was instead selected during the early 1970s; yet the trees that the diagonal tunnel would replace along the northwest corner of the Reflecting Pool were nonetheless replaced anyway- perhaps due to a storm? By 1971 though, groups that had supported the concept of a tunneled link between I-66 and the SW Freeway had turned against the selected option of of a part tunnel, part open depressed, designed to be later covered option, and the project was canceled by 1976, with all of that corridor's traffic left upon the surface.

So the apparent message is new lanes, not for the general driving public as a tunnel, but rather only for the wealthy, and without regard to the surrounding environment.

WMATA's Aborted 'Mass Pass' Ad

This video promoted the use of WMATA rail transit with a
bobble head character of Pope Benedict.

It ends with a shot of him with Nationals Stadium in the background on lands that were a part of those once planned for the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission's Extending the Legacy South Capitol Mall.

Pope Benedict
with Nationals Stadium
on the South Capitol Mall


South Capitol Mall

Pay More For Really Nothing More

Charging us for the highways we need to accommodate greater human sociality with existing developed areas, enviro-elitism shall simply steal away the highway funds for even less mass transit as a result of the standardized zero sum distraction from bureaucratic bloat

Metro Washington D.C. Council of Government considering host of new road tolls but few new lanes, with none within D.C., completely ignoring feasibility of completing its urban highway network, even though its estimated upwards of $2.7 billion annually could pay for the new design full system within 10-12 years.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1283909~Report__tolls_would_rip_off_the_public

(excerpt)

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Transportation planners in the Washington region are considering an extensive network of tolls to help reduce congestion and fund transportation improvements.

The proposed solutions, which are to be discussed Wednesday by a regional transportation board, are similar to New York City's plan to charge fees for vehicles entering congested parts of Manhattan. Such tolls already exist in Stockholm and London.

In a report completed last month, planners with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments analyzed possible congestion pricing plans. The one deemed most favorable involves putting variable tolls on freeways and parkways throughout the region, as well as all river crossings in the District of Columbia and some other roads.

The tolls would operate with congestion pricing, meaning the price would vary depending on how bad the traffic is. The goal of congestion pricing is to use market forces to keep traffic flowing freely at all times. The tolls would be collected by transponders such as those used for E-ZPass, without the need for toll booths.

Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman, who chairs a council of governments task force on congestion pricing, said tolls are the wave of the future.

"It's inevitable that our society is eventually going to have to price our roadways," Zimmerman said in an interview Monday. "There's no free lunch and there's no free ride."

However, he said the report makes clear there are limitations in the potential of tolls to pay for new lanes.

The study looked at several options for adding new capacity and converting existing lanes to tolled lanes, which would continue to be free for buses and vehicles with at least three people.

Only one of those scenarios would pay for itself, however. It would not add any new lanes within D.C., and would charge tolls for all D.C. bridges and freeways and apply congestion pricing to the region's parkways, including the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and the George Washington Memorial Parkway. New lanes with congestion pricing would be added outside the Capital Beltway.

Nonetheless, even limiting new highway capacity is opposed by the 'environmentalist' elite that always seem to float to the top in our rotted out apostate government.

Michael Replogle, transportation director of Environmental Defense, criticized the report for focusing on options that would add new road capacity "that will generate more traffic and greenhouse gas pollution."

He said a better option would be to use congestion pricing on all existing regional roads.

Clearly this is a sop to the elites who prefer to continue the petroleum era and delay the development of alternative automotive propulsion.

Michael Reploge- Transportation Subversive

Extending the Legacy with the Grand Arc

Washington, D.C.'s future Northern Mall!

Here's an illustration from U.S. National Capital Planning Commission's 1997 publication "Extending the Legacy: Planning America's Capital for the 21st Century" that I modified with my concept for a northern mall via a reconstructed, under grounded, multi-model Metropolitan Branch RR corridor- the Grand Arc

Grand Arc Mall Tunnel at Franklin Street and Rhode Island Avenue

US NCPC model, looking south,
with aborted South Capitol Mall at top,
with ghost outline of the Grand Arc Mall extending northward from Union Station

I was told that the Extending the Legacy program WAS going to do something with this Union Station RR corridor, to depress and cover/deck it, but that it was pulled by those with significant political pull behind the scenes.

Perhaps the power elite don't like the shape of a giant comet poised at the headpiece of their literal stick figure of the U.S. Capitol Building?

The vista towards the Capitol
between Franklin Street and Rhode Island Avenue

Grand Arc Mall Headpiece: Union Station

This side was cluttered by the unsightly and unsymmetrical parking garage.

This second photo's area has since been cluttered by misplaced real estate development.

IMHO the parking garage and other such clutter ought to be demolished and replaced with something that for just a start is symmetrical, and more architecturally complimentary, and which preserves the vistas extending northerly from the axis of Union Station's flanking roadways.


Alas, monumental symmetricy appears to be lacking in what's in store for Union Station's backside areas.

http://www.burnhamplace.com/project.asp

The above rendering of the "Burnham Project" reinforces my hunch that the authorities seek to obliterate this transportation corridor's monumental thrust.