A Trip Within the Beltway

ArtsSpace - CUA Chock

2012-02-02T00:00:00.004-05:00

1966 B&O North Central Freeway

B&O Corridor- Now & Future?
See the two buildings jammed closest at left to the RR; and the alongside open space.

Also see: http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/04/artspace-demolition-special-april-30.html

New insane development from the people that built the 'Artspace' boondoggle demolition special, to block Washington, D.C.'s sole grade separated transportation corridor.

From the Brookland listerve:

We learned yesterday that the open green land at 9th & Kearny is up for sale.

A "Bankers Realty" informed us that the space is in Square 3831 & is made up of 4 Lots (0042, 0043, 0044 & 0045).

Their asking price is $1.2M.

We checked DC's real estate records which show all 4 lots are owned by DC & they add to $ 508,080 in assessed value.

However, there are 5 other lots (0018, 0038, 0039, 0040 & 0041) in that Square which were purchased on 11/30/11 (at $359K each) by Inle Development LLD with a 20015 zip code P.O. box.

Bankers Realty also informed us that the 4 purchased Lots now on sale (Lots 0042-45) were not purchased by Inle Development & that DC's ownership records (showing DC as the owner) would be fixed after a sale.

Currently, the owner for all of these lots is shown as "Brookland Artspace Lofts, LLC" & they are zoned "C-M-1."C-M-1 allows only 3 stores totaling 40 feet in height.

Apparently, Brookland Artspace Lofts bought both land on both sides of the tracks.

The Office of Zoning map was revised yesterday morning and does not reflect who the purchaser of the 4 Lots from DC is. We are attempting to determine if DC in fact sold these 4 Lots &, if so, thru what land disposition process, when & to whom. We are gravely concerned that these sales (and the implications therein) are a direct result of the Col. Brooks 7-story C-2-B application.Â Worse, we recognize the inevitable quality of life annihilation for the most directly affected 5A07 property owners who will have to contend with a 7-story apt. building 10 to 200 feet from their property and likely much, much more. Real Property Assessment Database:

https://www. taxpayerservicec enter.com/ RP_Search. jsp?search_ type=Assessment.

You'll need to put in Square 3831 to see Lots 0042, 0043, 0044, & 0045.

Very kind regards,

Commissioner Carolyn C. Steptoe
SMD 5A07
(202) 556-5886 - ANC cell

1966

1971

The 1966, 1971 (and of course the 1964 and 1960) plans placed B&O I-95 entirely on the railroad's eastern side, rather then the industrial corridor to the west along the east side of 8th Street which the Artspace Building being the first example here of this wasteful phenomenon of Transportation Corridor Demolition Specials.

Looking South Along 8th Street NE with Franklin Street Bridge

This owed to a basic failure to consider placing some of this freeway on the railroad's western side via the cut and cover tunnel beneath today's "John McCormack Drive". Such a tunnel would be mandatory for containing traffic noise, owing to the proximity of Catholic University of America- in the fashion of the future West Side Highway Tunnel beneath Riverside Drive in Manhattan, N.Y. , and Boston's Central Artery Project.

Washington D.C. un-built I-95 corridor alongside John McCormack Drive/Catholic University of America

Future Northbound West Side Highway Tunnel Beneath Riverside Drive

Boston I-93 Central Artery Tunnel

The 1960 I-95 Northeastern Freeway study* [*prior to the adaptation of the B&O "Y" route with I-70S, I-95 was to be the "Northeastern Freeway" with a separate "North Central Freeway" roughly along Georgia Avenue] considered and rejected a non-tunneled route along the railroad's west side as essentially too intrusive to CUA.

1960

The infamous 1964 report that deviated from JFK's 1962-63 planning, considered and rejected B&O route variants featuring an I-95 elevated directly atop the railroad for the same reasons.

1964

The 1966 'supplementary' report proposed a deck from Taylor Street to Irving Street atop, with new development extending to 10th Street NE in Brookland.

1966

Note, that the 1966 plans show the presence of a CUA building that has since been demolished, freeing up the "John McCarrick Drive- 8th Street NE" southbound I-95 Tunnel.

1966

Federal Legislation is imperative to save this corridor from impending ill-placed development.

1960
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/1960-northeast-freeway.html

1962
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/01/crafted-controversy-scuttling-of-jfks-b.html

1964
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/1963-64-north-central-freeway-study.html
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/05/1964-north-central-freeway-report-je.html
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/01/pin-point-b-rr-in-dc-only-after-more.html

1966
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/1966-north-central-freeway.html

1971
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/1971-deluew.html

270W, 270C, 270E

2012-02-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

Splitting inside the Beltway I-270:

270E- B&O North Central Freeway/ Grand Arc Mall Tunnel

270C- Wisconsin Avenue Corridor Tunnel, with split to Archibald-Glover and I-66 Tunnels

270W- Canal Road Twinned

Build270E and 270W together first as the most cost effective, with an I-66 K Street interchange including space for a 270C link

A Better Future A Different Future

2012-01-31T12:00:00.007-05:00

Terminator 2 Alternative Ending Washington, D.C. Future Park
Shows the improbable, yet teases us with the almost* probable [*actually quite probable as an excellent idea properly located, but for what sits at the top of the political pyramid].

With Washington Monument to the right, but closer, the axis of this future T2 movie's park's axis would be roughly from the Federal Reserve or U.S. State Department. Note that the video clip crops out the Washington Monument.

With Washington Monument to the Right, but if further away, this would be roughly along the existing railroad that extends north from Union Station,which is where such a new park could fit without massive building removal.

At Franklin Street

At New York Avenue

http://youtu.be/JgUsMkbipQQ

This WOULD seal the story forever. And it would have been perfect. Oh but noooo...we had to put up with the T3 crap and the T4 garbage. T1 and T2 rules, everything else is a bad attempt of the lost movie generations.

predatorxv 4 days ago

Alas, we get T3 and T4 as reflections of today's reality- that the removal of skynet did not equate a removal of the political force that continues to cast a dark shadow.

Indeed today we have the force that aborted the USNCPC South Capitol Mall along with anything to cover over the Metropolitan Branch B&O railroad.

As I heard from Richard Layman at a public meeting in 2007, the idea of covering the railyards behind Union Station was discussed and intended to be included in the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission's (NCPC's)1996 program "Extending the Legacy- Planning America's Capital for the 21st Century", only to be deleted from political opposition from the top. Notably, while it does not appear within "Extending the Legacy", that program features the "South Capitol Mall"- a logical name for the grand new grassy promenade actually shown in illustrations throughout, though with zero specific mention in any of the text as a "Mall", "Promenade" or "Greenway", and cloaked in more vague terms as a "Gateway" or "Boulevard".

Indeed, the makers of T2 picked an excellent idea for representing a future Washington, D.C. liberated from the traditional evil yoke ...

Pin point the B&O RR in DC only AFTER more detailed investigation of a band of alignments

2012-01-24T13:00:00.007-05:00

The Scuttling of JFK's B&O North Central Freeway
Started Prior to 11-22-63

Never-mind the key point made by the November 1, 1962 JFK Administration report:

Significance of Using B&O Route. Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meeting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges Counties and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan.- JFK Administration Report Nov 1, 1962

The engineering study for the North Central- Northeastern "Y" Route I-95/70S Freeway ordered in 1962 or early 1963 and its report supposed to take about 6 months, yet delayed until October 1964 stated:

During the preliminary line studies it became evident that the pin pointing the general corridor of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the District of Columbia should only be accomplished only after more detailed investigation of a band of alignments in that area

Why?- considering that the idea of highway routes in such bands as the Georgia Avenue corridor were debated cir 1960-62, and abandoned in favor of the JFK administration's B&O 'Y' Route?!

Nonetheless, amongst its 37 some route options, the 1964 J.E. Greiner "North Central Freeway Engineering Report" includes a B&O Route option in its map, "Railroad West - Franklin".

But that is merely one of the 'preliminary' options that does not get a detailed look, rather then one of the 18 options studied in further detail.

Of the 18 routes studied in further detail, 5 are for a B&O Route to the south of New Hampshire Avenue, but with each paired to the swerve into Takoma Park, and then either rejoining the railroad near the Takoma Park-Silver Spring border, or continuing apart from the railroad through Silver Spring to the Capital Beltway and beyond via Sligo Park.

#11 Railroad East Sligo
#12 Railroad East Woodside Sligo
#13 Railroad East Woodside Ritchie Sligo
#14 Railroad East Woodside Ritchie Dale Sligo
#15 Railroad East Woodside Dale Sligo

Below are the 4 variants presented for the B&O portion of the route south of New Hampshire Avenue. Note that the text merely refers to these options as variants of a "railroad" route with no mention of the "Sligo" deviation through Takoma Park- even though all four have it clearly visible at top.

North Central Freeway [initial] Engineering Study October 1964, pp 19-21

LOCATION STUDIES IN THE BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD CORRIDOR

District of Columbia

During the preliminary line studies it became evident that the pin pointing the general corridor of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the District of Columbia should only be accomplished only after more detailed investigation of a band of alignments in that area. The band would be limited on the east by the heavy complex of housing and the established limits of the Freeway Study Corridor, and on the west by the Catholic University properties. Accordingly, four alternative locations were established and analyzed in detail in this band, which extends generally from the vicinity of Rhode Island Avenue on the south to the vicinity of New Hampshire Avenue on the north. These locations are shown on Plate VIII, and are identified as the Railroad-East Study Location, Railroad-East Modified, Railroad Under Alternate and Railroad-West Alternate.

The Railroad-East Study Location has a low profile line, generally depressed, and for the most part, is situated east of the railroad and the industrial properties adjoining the railroad. Railroad-East Modified represents a slight westward shift of the Railroad-East alignment between the vicinity of Franklin Street and the vicinity of Taylor Street, which places the Freeway immediately contiguous to the eastern side of the railroad. It also has a low profile line, generally depressed. The Railroad Under Alternate, with a high profile alignment, generally spans the railroad right of way and is elevated over both the railroad and the cross streets which overpass it. The Railroad-West Alternative is a variation of the Railroad –West Alternate between the vicinity of Taylor Street and the vicinity of Riggs Road, and is also an elevated design. In the area of the interchange with Interstate 95, both the Railroad Under and the Railroad-West Alternates are located to the west of the railroad and then pass under New Hampshire Avenue and the railroad to rejoin the Railroad-East Study Location.

South of Michigan Avenue, the several alternates are narrowly separated and, in general affect the same properties, although the elevated profile of the Railroad Under alternate will permit some of the industrial properties to remain in place.

North of Michigan Avenue the Railroad-East Study Location will affect some housing, chiefly the rental units just south of Taylor Street, but in doing so would avoid much of the industry in the immediate area.

The Railroad-East Modified alignment, north of Michigan, avoids the housing stock south of Taylor Street, which is largely tenant occupied, but as a consequence will require the taking of the adjoining new industrial buildings which are mostly serviced by the railroad and which the Railroad-East alignment would not require.

Otherwise, property damages are similar for both the Railroad-East Modified Study Location. In the vicinity of the interchange with Interstate Route 95 and along the railroad between Riggs Road and New Hampshire Avenue, some industry is unavoidably affected. The latter industrial property is largely of recent construction, but consists of relatively small units, such as distribution facilities, which are not serviced by the railroad. Since both alignments would be for the most part depressed, air rights over the Freeway could be utilized for either housing or industry.

The Railroad Under Alternate was designed such that the freeway would utilize aerial rights over the railroad and any adjoining land which is necessary. South of the interchange with Interstate Route 95, industry along the railroad would generally remain in place Brookland Avenue, which parallels the railroad on the west, would remain open. In the interchange area, the industrial damage east of the railroad, which is encountered on the Railroad-Eats and Railroad East Modified Locations would be reduced. However displacement would result to industry west of the railroad which is not affected by those alternates. As on the lines east of the removal of the refining company’s petroleum products storage and distribution facilities south of Gallatin Street would be necessary. The Railroad West Alternate deviates from the Railroad Under Alternate in that area, and utilizes a large section of Fort Totten Park to avoid the refining company facilities. Otherwise, its right of way requirements are similar.

The Railroad-East Study Location and Railroad-East Modified are both relatively low in cost in cost of construction due principally to the wide spacing o cross streets and the consequent low number of crossing structures. Of the two alternates, the combined construction and right of way costs of the Railroad East Study Location are slightly higher. The Railroad Under and Railroad West Alternates on the other hand would be situated for the most part on elevated structures which would be very expensive to construct. Their high construction costs would greatly outweigh savings in rights of way costs and consequently their overall project costs would be much higher than those for he Railroad Eats Alternates. The cost disadvantage would prevail south of as well as north of Michigan Avenue, since it would be necessary to construct the facility on an elevated structure southward to Rhode Island Avenue as well.

The two alternate lines east of the railroad would permit the development of Interstate Route 95 and also of Fort Drive, both east and west of the railroad, in accordance with present planning. However, the Railroad Under and Railroad West Alternates would occupy the corridor reserved for Fort Drive immediately west of the railroad and would require the acquisition of new rights of way for that artery.

Information regarding comparative and relative costs and effects on housing, industry and employment of the several alternate alignments in the railroad corridor are shown in the accompanying tabulation.

Table

A review of the very high cost of construction and the comparatively low user benefit ratios for the Railroad Under and Railroad West alignments dictates the elimination of these alternate lines from further consideration. Their elevated locations would also be detrimental from the standpoint of winter maintenance when icing conditions and snow removal would present greater problems than for a ground level or depressed freeway. The visual features of the highly elevated facility, which would parallel the Catholic University property, would not enhance the appearance of the neighborhood and would consequently make these alignments less desirable.

Of the remaining alternates, the Railroad-East and Railroad Modified Study Locations are very similar in construction costs and users benefit ratios and the resolution of the choice between these alignments is based on the socio-economic advantages.

Economic studies made of the National Capital Region have shown that because of the Federal Government and related services, commercial and industrial operations account for a relatively small portion of the total regional employment. These studies indicated that in 1955 only about 15 per cent of the region’s industrial potential had been developed, but predicted that industrial production for the local market would become increasingly more practical as the population or mass market increases.

From an economic standpoint, it is essential to encourage and stimulate the
development of the industrial potential of a more secure and healthier share of industry in the overall economy of the area.

In weighing the advantages and disadvantages that result from alternate line studies, consideration must be given to the nature of damages with respect to time and possibility of eventual recovery. In the case of a choice of displacement of industry as opposed t o displacement of housing, it is obvious that many more factors would be involved in an industrial relocation and such factors would have to be evaluated for the specific area.

The industry in the area under construction north of Michigan Avenue, for the most part is tied to railroad operations and derived benefits from its contiguous location. Displacement of these industries would probably result in termination of operations in some cases or major relocations to areas affording comparable transportation facilities. Such industry loss or displacement is bound to result in job loses and decrease in employment opportunity in the area, together with the resultant losses to the general economy in this section of the District. Since the pattern for new industry is primarily to locate in the outer fringes of the region, the industrial employment loss in the district, due to displacement of industry would be a permanent one and create a greater imbalance in the proportion of industrial to other employment.

To avoid the industry in question the Railroad East alignment would take out housing units which border the industry. However, these are largely rental units, which in the Washington area undergo a normal turnover of tenancy every several years. The effect of displacement on these occupants while admit tingly unfortunate, is from our experience, less severe than would be the case for an area of owner-occupied dwellings. Although slightly reducing the number of residential properties, the Freeway in the Railroad-East Study Location would preserve the integrity of the neighborhood since it would pass along its edge and not through it, and would form a division between it and the industry along the railroad.

The normal housing inventory in the District of Columbia would probably have the capability of handling the displacement due to loss of housing, but if not readily solutions are available through construction of high rise dwellings or other types. This subject is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this Report under the section “Displacement and Relocation on the District of Columbia”.

In consideration of the stated factors, the somewhat lower cost and the avoidance of the housing units effected on Railroad-East Modified by the immediate and long range effects on the area that would result from the loss of the industrial properties. Consequently the Railroad East Study Location is judged to be preferable to the modified alignment, the Railroad Under or Railroad West, and is so recommended.

Montgomery County, Maryland

The investigation in the District of Columbia of an elevated alignment, which would utilize air rights over the railroad right of way and adjoining land was continued beyond the District of Columbia Maryland line, into Montgomery County as far as the business district of Silver Spring, where it would merge with the Railroad-East Study Location.

Basically an elevated alignment was found to have the same disadvantages as the similar design produced in the District portion, and consequently a detailed study was not developed. A preliminary estimate showed that its construction cost would be so high as to far outweigh any reduction in property damage it might effect. The traffic service that it could provide would be poorer because of less favorable interchange locations and the reduction in the number of feasible ramps that could be built. Inasmuch as the railroad itself is an elevated facility throughout much of this area, the Freeway I position above the railroad would be much higher than the surrounding land. Its excessive height would not only accommodate the much greater width of the Freeway which would encroach on adjoining properties taking or damaging industry, residences, college property and one large apartment facility. It would likewise pass through part of Blair Park affecting some of the park facilities and jeopardizing the continued use of the property as a public recreation area.

In view of the stated factors, the Railroad East Study Location was judged to be more desirable.

Route #11 "Railroad East Sligo"

The report thus justifies the deviation in Brookland for the sake of preserving industrial space which is more scarce than that for housing- though blunders as this swerve would have displaced the historic Brooks Mansion.

It does not even attempt to justify the deviation through Takoma Park, Maryland, asides from the straw-man argument of apparently considering an elevated above the railroad version, with no mention of the space alongside for a set of roadways depressed, or better yet, as cut and cover tunnels.

A Crafted Controversy- the Scuttling of JFK's B&O North Central Freeway

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2012/01/crafted-controversy-scuttling-of-jfks-b.html

Within The Beltway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/12/within-beltway.html

A Crafted Controversy- the Scuttling of JFK's B&O North Central Freeway

2012-01-19T14:57:00.071-05:00

1959

1962

1964

The standard overly simplistic explanation:

It was a political game of stopping highways in richer areas and it was simply shoved unto NE, with the North Central Freeway being pushed from NW, of a "white man's roads through black man's homes".

Reality:

It was a trickier such game. Yes the freeway in the wealthiest area – the I-70S Northwest Freeway was cancelled, while planning continued upon the other two northern radial Washington, D.C. freeways that appeared in the 1959 Mass Transportation Plan: the North Central Freeway, initially along Georgia Avenue, and now designated as I-70S, and the I-95 Northeast Freeway, consolidated into a "Y" alignment based upon the centrally located railroad industrial corridor and the only such route with the space for the freeway with minimum local displacement.

That was the conclusion of the freeway discussions, cir 1960-1962, culminating in the adaptation of this B&O “Y” Route by the JFK Administration, November 1, 1962, with a major freeway controversy to follow, resulting not from that itself, the plan was relatively uncontroversial until the release of the long delayed engineering report delayed a year plus past the 6 moths it was supposed to take, past JFK’s assassination, and up to the very next Presidential election, in late October 1964, representing a route planning deliberately BOTCHED as if by design to inflame local opposition.

"Significance of Using B&O Route. Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meeting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges Counties and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan. Further savings are realized by placing the rapid transit line to Silver Spring and Queen’s Chapel in the same railroad corridor."

Yet the initial engineering study on the North Central Freeway, ordered in 1962, started in 1963, and released days before the 1964 Presidential election, stating

“ During the preliminary line studies it became evident that in pin pointing the general corridor of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the District of Columbia should only be accomplished only after more detailed investigation of a band of alignments in that area”,

with 37 routes almost all over the map, with a ‘recommended’ route -- option #11 "Railroad East- Sligo". It largely following the railroad, but with deviations in Brookland D.C., and far far worse in Takoma Park, Maryland- massively inflaming local opposition. A Washington Post article September 30, 1964 prophetically understating titled "Freeway Report May Touch Off Suburb Storm"

"District and Maryland highway officials have been sitting all summer on a long awaited report on the North Central Freeway that seems sure to touch off a storm in Silver Spring. The report has been proposed as the major funnel to bring traffic downtown from the Bethesda Silver Spring area.

Ordered more than two years ago, the report is still in preliminary form. It calls for a freeway connecting the District’s Inner Loop with the Capital Beltway.

In Washington, the route runs generally along the corridor of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks….

The consultants, J.E. Greiner Co, of Baltimore were asked to make the study in mid 1962, it was originally expected to take six months. …

In the District the freeway will tie into with “the north edge of the Inner Loop,” Airis said. Officials from his department are still trying to determine just where the connection ought to be, he said.

One of the reasons the report took so long Airis added is that “we’ve had trouble nailing down the (Inner Loop) connection.

The preliminary report was turned over to the highway departments in June [1963 or 1964- this is not clear- though the facts ordered in 1962 and expected to take 6 months would suggest June 1963- DW]. District officials at first indicated it would be released without delay, but then kept postponing any announcements.

Concern by Maryland road officials over the suburban stretch apparently has caused most of the delay.

1963 brought major changes to the Inner Loop East Leg and approaches, however, like the 1960 I-95 Northeast Freeway, the 1964 and 1966 truncate their respective studies to the area from the vicinity of Rhode Island Avenue northwards.

1960, 1964 and 1966

1960

1962

1964

1966

The report made public by the Maryland State Roads Commission has caused much consternation here in Takoma Park, for we are severely affected by the proposed freeway. It seems at first glance over the maps and materials available through the libraries and civic associations that the proposed 10 lane North Central Freeway takes a wide swerve away from the B&O tracks and in that fact destroys our community.

We need more than four weeks to study the plan and mobilize citizens into action; we need time to weigh the alternatives and their consequences. Therefore it is urgent that the December 15 joint public hearings in Silver Spring be postponed.- Mr and Mrs T McQuire, Takoma Park Washington Post Letter to the Editor published November 30, 1964

Notably the initial Washington Post article dated November 12, 1964 reporting on this implies that the freeway simply followed the railroad in the Takoma area, with another article, dated November 14, 1964 claiming that the freeway plans were “popular”. The reaction was immediate, relatively broad and immensely (and quite justifiable negative) regarding the route deviation through Takoma Park.

1964

(also see 1964 Engineering Report Plates)

The Takoma Park Mayor and government passed resolutions[s] absolutely opposing the North Central Freeway as planned, and not the freeway as per the JFK B&O concept. As the Washington Post reported on a public meeting in Takoma Park, March 10, 1965 in an article titled Takoma Park Shouts ‘No’

Most of the speakers were adamant against the roadway which was outlined in a huge map which hung behind the rostrum. Takoma Park will be split in half by the freeway declared Mayor George M Miller and the lives of elderly persons will be needlessly and extensively disrupted. City Councilman Russell B. Jones added “The Council of Takoma Park opposes the freeway definitely and unequivocally but if a decision is made that that freeway is necessary, that further consideration be given the route that is the least disruptive to the community and its older people, and that the feasibility of a railroad route be studied.

E. Brooke Lee of 8409 Piney Branch Road Silver Spring took a more moderate approach. A population 53 times that of Takoma Park would use the proposed expressway and these citizens should be given some consideration.

Relocating the expressway along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line could bring this added convenience to those outside the city, he suggested while preserving the integrity of Takoma Park.

At least one Takoma Park citizen though firmly supported the proposal. “What Takoma needs is a new freeway, I say a new freeway cutting right through the heart of the town to bring new life and light commerce and industry to the community" Herbert D. Smith of 11 Pine Ave declared amid boos, catcalls and jeers.

That made immense sense as the route deviation was quite significant adding over a mile to the route, and cutting a swath directly through Takoma Park’s oldest residential neighborhoods (I invite anyone to walk-drive the two different routes to see for themselves). Meanwhile the area around the Takoma, D.C. railroad station was destined to be largely cleared and replaced by the WMATA rail transit station constructed during the 1970s, thus establishing a space for a an elevated or tunneled freeway. Mayor Miller, who unequivocally opposed the 1964 route, but not necessarily the B&O Route, who was first elected as Takoma Park Mayor for 1954, was consistently reelected, serving a total of ten terms before succumbing to cancer at Holy Cross Hospital in July 1972.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/05/1964-north-central-freeway-report-je.html

Takoma Park resident Sammie Abbott, unquestionably the most colorful of this manufactured controversies figures, was an accomplished labor organizer in Buffalo, New York, one time candidate for the U.S. Congress regrettably under the Communist Party label (his widow Ruth would exclaim and apologize to me personally that they had no idea that Stalin was the brute that they later found him out to be), and future 1978-1985 Takoma Park Mayor), was spurred to become an anti freeway activist in late 1964. Residing at 7308 Birch Avenue, and additionally an highly accomplished artist, Sammie Abbott began creating numerous examples of protest art against the option #11 Railroad Sligo East North Central Freeway- examples such as the two pamphlets and the 1964 Christmas card published in the Washington Post.

Sammie Abbott 1964 Protest Art

Every indication I've seen or heard (including interviewing Ruth Abbott, as well as driving her around various sites of the un-built inside the Beltway and D.C. 70S (270) and 95 and the built freeway segments (she had zero fear at speeds legal throughout much of Europe) , particularly when driving towards the I-95 stubs at the Capital Beltway, has the opposition spurred with the release of the infamous J.E. Greiner study report in autumn 1964, and not earlier; if there was a controversy about the B&O NCF when JFK was still alive or even into early-mid 1963, it was a small fraction of that that erupted in October – November 1964.

Indeed, the engineering report released October 1964, was seen as if designed to take people by surprise and to piss them off- an idea conveyed by the September 30, 1964 Washington Post article “Freeway Report May Touch Off Suburb Storm". Though the engineering report would justify its relatively modest swerve away from the railroad into Brookland as conserving relatively scarce industrial space as opposed to housing (without mentioning that this included the historic Brooks Mansion!), it would not even attempt explaining the ¼ away swerve away from the railroad through Takoma Park, Maryland, never mind the impacts of a new swath removing 471 houses rather than say 30 along the railroad. Particularly with the November 1962 JFK directive of “Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meeting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges Counties and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan.”

1964

With reducing building displacement a key point, these route deviations represented a clear betrayal of JFK's vision: a President who in early 1963 had cancelled the highly unpopular I-66 North Leg West route along Florida Avenue and U Street, by calling for a new study that lead to the 1965 emergence of the I-66 K Street Tunnel proposal. Indeed, President Kennedy and his wife expressed an interest in Washington D.C. planning during his inaugural ride along the Federal Triangle, and in all likelihood more involved himself with such planning issues than his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower

With groups including the Committee of 100 on the Federal City (founded by 32nd U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's maternal uncle, Frederic Adrian Delano in 1924) in support of the JFK B&O NCF concept, which that organization favored with a 4 lane I-70S and I-95 each converging into an 8 lane I-95 North Central Freeway, and with the November 1962 White House report placing it immediately along the railroad’s eastern side, it spurred no such popular outrage as would occur 2 years later and subsequently, with the botching of the route but a part of a series of events designed to steer popular sentiment.

As if on key, the assassinated JFK’s successor fanned the flames by stating his opposition to the NW Freeway, helping bump up class resentment; according to a January 17, 1965 Washington Post article, this was being taken in Takoma Park and an endorsement for the 10 lane 1964 route- with the emphasis upon the number of lanes conceivably masking the arguably greater intrusiveness of the route deviation away from the railroad through Takoma Park, Maryland.

And likewise, organizations, including this Committee of 100, which had supported the 1962 B&O Route North Central Freeway concept, used the indignation against the 1964 plan as the reason -- or excuse -- to reverse their position despite the significant differences in the two plans under the mantle of saving the homes of Blacks -- never-mind that prior to this highway planning politicization, the B&O Route was selected for its central location and or being the area for the freeway displacing the least number, with this new opposition featuring the support of the powerhouse Washington, D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling with a law suit alleging a lack of support from the appropriate government entities before such had likewise reversed their support. Such is an opposition, as indicated by the colorful protests, centered upon saving the 69 (or 34 as the plan was refined by 1970), holding out even against the route of the freeway with the highest utility with the least displacement as developed by 1973 with the B&O-PEPCO power-line route, displacing a total of 59 dwellings all the way to the interchange B near New York Avenue- a number comparable with the recent Virginia Springfield Interchange reconstruction project, and Maryland's Montgomery County Inter-county Connector- each displacing 57. With the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement project displacing 335 dwellings, and the feasibility of constructing a geometrically acceptable tunnel link to the northern end of the existing I-395 Center Leg displacing as few as 33 dwellings, we ended up displacing more dwellings by NOT completing I-95 through Washington, D.C.

How the government would handle this sort of 'planning' designed to fan resentment and opposition, in order to foment emotion and irrationality with the denial of the proposed freeway link’s basic utility- never-mind that the “Y” route replaced 3 separate freeways within a northern sector with no radial links between 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock (and 11:00 and 2:30 regarding parkways which don’t allow trucks, at least regarding the freeway’s basic need versus the issue of the number of lanes). As the Washington Post reported April 4, 1965 in an article 'Unit Opposes Any Freeway In NE Area'

The Save Takoma Park Committee issued a statement yesterday welcoming the highway chief’s “admission that the $350,000, three year (consultants) study is inadequate.”

“But their proposal for a new rote survey evades the real issue- namely, that no study has demonstrated that this ten lane freeway is necessary.”

How the media reported certainly help mold popular opinion. An early example of this is the December 28, 1964 Washington Post ‘Potomac Watch column article The Game in Upper Northwest

REALPOLITIK IN THE DISTRICT of Columbia is a game played best in the upper northwest.

That’s’ why plans for carrying Interstate 70-S into the city have been shifted over the years from the Wisconsin Avenue corridor in Northwest Washington to the North Central Freeway route in Northeast Washington. In the Northwest, protectors of the status quo use phone calls first names and chats at the country club. On the other side of town they use picket signs, jeers and letters of protest. In both cases, the goal is to keep the expressway the expressway—any expressway – from their side of town

SO FAR THE OPPONENTS of the Wisconsin Avenue corridor have been highly. Highway planners have been forced to look for another route n the other side of Rock Creek Park.

The shift was not racial. Both routes would run through white and Negro neighborhoods alike.

But the North Central Freeway would run for a long stretch alongside the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks.

The Wisconsin Avenue corridor would nick the Chevy Chase Club.

The North Central would displace families of modest means.

The Wisconsin Avenue corridor would displace some members of the Establishment.

The North Central has drawn the opposition such as the Woodside Forest Citizens Association and the Save Takoma Park Committee.

The Wisconsin Avenue corridor raised the prestigious hackles of the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade, the Federal City Council, Woodward & Lothrop and the chairman of the Riggs National Bank.

IT SHOULD BE NOTED however, that most of these groups indicated link through Northwest Washington for interstate 70-S, a proposal that subsequently bogged down mainly because of difficulties with parkland. They did not suggest putting it on the other side of Rock Creek Park.

At hearings in Silver Spring earlier this month the opponents of the North Central set up picket lines with outspoken protests such as “Fight Funk’s Folly” “In A Blue Funk”, and “Funk Will Meet His Waterloo.” Maryland Roads Commission Chairman John B. Funk’s replies were met with boos.

The foes of an expressway alongside Wisconsin Avenue had subtler lines of communication open to them.

All the chaps at the Chevy Chase Club had to do, for example, was to wait for the late District Commissioner David B. Karrick to show up for a round of golf to tell him what they thought. An old-line Washingtonian Karrick was not about to preside over the club’s dissolution – or even rearrangement of its golf course.

After two years of hot community debate, Karrick and Engineer Commissioner A.C. Welling outvoted Commissioner Robert E. McLaughlin in April of 1959 to kill the Wisconsin Avenue corridor.

“Boom Boom” Welling (he like to open new projects with cannon shots) had undoubtedly been cautioned extensively by then to hold his fire on freeway projects through Northwest Washington.

THE PROPOSAL however, was revived by the National Capital Planning Commission under former Chairman Harland Bartholomew. Then early in 1960 the Bureau of Public Roads said any interstate from Denver Colorado to Pooks Hill, Bethesda ought to come into town by the straightest route- the Wisconsin Avenue corridor. That brought out the big guns. Four committees of Congress jumped into the dispute. The upshot was a five year Congressional freeze on freeway construction through the Northwest west of 12th Street NW.

Out of all this came the proposal for the ten lane North Central Freeway announced this fall.

Both may be needed one day. Even Gen. Braddock thought that the Wisconsin Avenue corridor the best way to .. Rockville and that was in the French and Indian War. The North Central on the other hand would serve the more populous Silver Spring and Wheaton areas, among others.

Naturally no one wants a freeway to come barreling through his living room. Members of the Establishment have just as much right to object, as the families in the path of the North Central.

But … [making] the North Central tens lanes wide should be looked at critically. District highway officials … [did this] .. because they say they are going to leave Northwest Washington alone.

The north Central should be able to stand on its own feet. But it seems unfair to ask residents to make room for ten lanes in order to buy time for the Northwest. Property owners there should have to face up traffic demands in their neck of the woods, to.

Note how the entire history cir 1961-1962 culminating in the JFK Administration report of Nov 1962 is compressed into a single sentence “Out of all of this came the proposal for the ten lane North Central Freeway announced this fall." No mention of the B&O Route of 1962, nor its betrayal by that strangely over-delayed report released nearly 15 months over-due, nor that if there had been controversy in 1962-63 it was a fraction of that engendered by the October 1964 released report.

This selective omission would be repeated ad nausea, by subsequent mass media reporting so designed to steer sentiment concerning what was a relatively UN-controversial proposed freeway from the JFK Administration that was deliberately botched at the time surrounding and following his assassination. This was the selective report to focus solely upon I-70S being pushed east of Rock Creek Park, with otherwise precious little reference to the topographical realities, to effectuate a spin of this as primarily a battle -- regarding I-95 -- of saving 69 or 34 houses closest to the railroad.

By April 1965 nonetheless officials declared they would do a restudy. Consistent of the idea of inflaming opposition, the new plan was ELEVATED over the RR version- never mind at least the proposal of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City cir 1962-64 for a low level version. The elevated high level version would occupy much of 1965 in the public’s attention before being dismissed, and subsequently followed by calls and promises for a new “supplementary” study.

That 1966 plan, published in the supplementary North Central Freeway report by J.E. Greiner associates was a step in the right direction, with this version featuring a 6 lane I-70S that would flank the railroad (where the 1962 version had both directions east of the railroad) converging with a 6 lane connection from I-95 (envisioned with 8 lanes, 2 of which would be exit only lanes to a connection to North Capital Street), joining together as the I-95 North Central Freeway that would pass through a tunnel to the railroad's eastern side, with a neck down to 10 lanes, and so continuing south of Rhode Island Avenue to interchange B with the Inner Loop: the 6 lane I-295 East Le g, and the 8 lane North Leg East continuation of I-95 to the Center Leg (3rd Street Tunnel). With an eye towards better land space utilization, the 1966 'supplementary' report included a suggestion of a lid atop a segment of the I-95 North Central Freeway alongside the main campus of Catholic University of America just east of the surface road along the east side of the B&O railroad, though not to the south where the design was also somewhat depressed grade.

Cut and cover tunnels alongside Blair Park

I-70S enters near D.C. through a set of cut and cover tunnels compatible with Montgomery Community College, preserving Blair Park, AND transitioning to a configuration to flank the railroad (rather then having it all to the east) to reduce the conflicts.

3 lanes hugging each side of the B&O railroad in Takoma, D.C.

Interchange at New Hampshire Avenue

1966 North Central Freeway at Brookland- Catholic University of America

Entirely east of the railroad further south in Brookland, it avoided Turkey Thicket and Brooks Mansion, reducing the number of dwellings for the I-95 portion of the North Central Freeway to 69 houses (1910-20s vintage).

The 1966 supplementary study included the future addition of constructing a lid atop the depressed portion alongside Brookland, potentially making a cut and cover tunnel.

1966

By late 1966 the controversy had significantly died down, with the agreement of the various government agencies upon the supplementary study B&O Route, only to be again inflamed by the brand new Federal Highway Authority. According to a letter dated June 1, 1967 from Takoma Park resident and former --- to Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew:

Citizens of Takoma Park and Silver Spring had reason for their demonstrations of bitter dissatisfaction with the highway authorities of your predecessor's administration. After we had been given reason to believe that the causes of our protests had been in at least some part overcome, the matter now threatens to break into renewed bitterness. I am sure you will wish to avoid this as much as many of us.

We showed that the methods of traffic projections which were claimed to justify the North Central were fallacious, the results in error by as much as 400 percent. Our contention was tacitly admitted in "re-studied" versions of the proposal made public last year, sharply reducing the original plan of 5 lanes each way.

The re-studied proposal also tacitly admitted that the route first proposed was needlessly, even carelessly if not ruthlessly, destructive of our communities. The new version hugged both sides of the existing Baltimore and Ohio railway, thus avoiding a new swath of destruction to divide our communities and sharply reducing the number of homes to be taken.

The reduced, re-routed proposal was made public last year with endorsement of D.C. And Maryland highway authorities. The D.C. Portion was forced through the National Capital Planning Commission by votes of representatives of the D.C. Highway Department and of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. From this we concluded, reasonably enough, that the highway authorities of the two jurisdictions (Maryland and D.C.) had reached a firm understanding with the Bureau of Public Roads.

Many of us were therefore astonished and aroused to preparations for renewed protests when Washington newspapers recently reported that the Bureau has acted to open it all up again. We have not found the Bureau forthcoming with candid information, but the press articles intimate an intention to force Maryland to accept modifications of route or design ostensibly "cheaper."

The result is that the whole controversy, which had been somewhat quiescent, is beginning to agitate the communities again. I can assure you this is so, for although I recently resigned chairmanship of the Metropolitan Citizens Council for Rapid Transit and write this simply as an individual citizen who wishes your administration well, I do remain in close touch with neighborhood sentiment on transportation-related issues.

As the Washington Post would report, May 8, 1967:

Top officials of the Bureau have ordered a full review of the plans for the 3 ½ mile road … While it is good practice to disrupt as few people as possible in road building, is it worth the added cost of $22 million?

… Rejection by the Bureau would certainly fan the embers of one of the Washington area’s freeway controversies spearheaded by a group called the Save Takoma Park Committee. It rallied the residents of the middle income suburb composed largely of turn of the century homes on tree lined streets to strident opposition at hearings in Washington and Silver Spring on the original [1964] alignment.

This cheap skate attitude surely served the purpose of poisoning popular sentiment against the B&O North Central Freeway.

JFK Postage Envelope Issued May 29, 1967

Notably latter 1966- early 1967 was a time of transition and bureaucratic reorganization, with the U.S. Bureau of Roads being replaced by the then brand new U.S. Federal Highway Authority, with the outgoing administrator Rex Marion Whitton, who served from 1961 to 1966, quoted by the Kansas Evening Star about his retirement that at [the age of] 68

"I want to get out while I am still winning or at least that I am still winning"

as if on que of an impending planned scuttling.

Rex Marion Whitton

Lowell K Bridwell

His successor, Lowell K Bridwell (1967-69) was later the FHWA director overseeing New York City’s to be scuttled Westway Project, which would have replaced Manhattan's elevated West Side Highway with a modern interstate highway, the southern part via a tunnel in new land fill within the pier area, beneath a new waterfront promenade, parkland and new development providing the perpetual benefit of property tax revenue, thereby creating an new source of perpetual property tax revenues; the Westway Project would have no expense to the City of New York , yet was unfairly maligned as a waste of money, as a reflection of the generalized post 1961 idea that the U.S. was too poor to afford highway and transit. Notably Bridwell died in 1986 at the age of 62 a mere year after Westway’s September 1985 cancellation.

The dynamics of a high level decision to scuttle the assassinated President's B&O Route North Central Freeway were further displayed by the words and actions of again subverting the B&O NCF by new US Department of Transportation Administrator Alan Boyd, starting with the adaptation of the historical revisionism that “forgets” to mention the route’s development 1961-1962, and its subsequent botching. As the Washington Post reported, January 15, 1968 Transportation Secretary Alan S. Boyd, who has refused to approve plans for the North Central Freeway, said yesterday the path of the road through Northeast Washington was determined

not by “where the traffic wants to go,” but by where “political opposition was insufficient to stop it.”

“All the traffic surveys say it should be built along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor,” Boyd explained in an interview on WTOP television’s Capital Conversation.

“But the people who live along Wisconsin Avenue or have business there have much more political clout than the people on the other side of town.”

Ten years ago the freeway was planned to run along the District shore of the Potomac River, Body said.

But it was pushed eastward,” he said, “until political opposition was insufficient to stop it.”

The outer approved by the National Capital Planning Commission in 1966 would run from the Capital Beltway through Silver Spring Takoma Park, and Northeast to a major interchange near Union Station. It would provide high speed access to downtown Washington from eastern Montgomery County.

“We’re going to have to find a better way to do it than to say we’re going to take the property of poor people and leave everyone else alone.” Body said. “That’s not the way the way the traffic moves.”

Boyd argued that highways could be built “to compact themselves reasonably well” in any neighborhood if stores and homes were built in the air space over the roads.
“We should not just tear up the homes of poor people and Negroes,” Boyd declared. “We ought t make a determined effort to put freeways where traffic wants to go.
Boyd, who said in November he would not approve another highway project, the Three Sisters Bridge, as presently planned, said he would continue his opposition until he knows “what’s going to happen to the traffic” that would use it. Under present plans, he said, “there’s no provision for a distribution system” to take heavy traffic from the bridge into the Northwest section of Washington

And, as reported in the Drew Pearson The Washington Merry Go Round column D.C. Mayor on Spot in Freeway Fight (yes the Drew Pearson who maligned the Tucker Motor Car), on February 21, 1968:

Secretary Boyd also argues that Negro communities are not the only ones to be relocated to make room for suburban freeways. Wealthier communities should move too. Specifically he has held up the North Central Freeway in Washington because it was shifted over from a high bracket residential community to a low bracket , because the white residents pack more political punch than Negroes do. “We should not just tear up the homes of poor people and Negroes,” says Boyd. “We ought to make a determined effort to put freeways where the traffic wants to go. We’re going to have to find a better way to do it than say we’re going to take the property of poor people and let everyone else alone.”

Boyd conceivably had the option of promoting reviving the Northwest Freeway- consider how that freeway could have fit within the re-development footprint in downtown Bethesda- Boyd had practicalities that he could have advanced: one could have pointed out that much of downtown Bethesda was to be demolished and replaced owing to the inevitable transit induced densification, and thereby promoted that segment as a cut and cover tunnel beneath new buildings there as well as in Friendship Heights; further south, where the grade must further descend owing to the NW Washington D.C. topographically, one could promote a revision of the southern portion via a deep drilled tunnel straight from the Tenley Circle area to the existing end of I-66, roughly twice the length of the 1960 I-95 Northeast Freeway study option with 4 x 2 tunnels 4,000 feet in length would have made a powerful backup to his statements concerning social equality.

Rather, he conformed with the dynamics suggested by the outgoing U.S. Bureau of Roads chief's comments about getting out "while it still appeared that we were winning." Indeed, he not only repeats the established media "spin" concerning I-70S (that 'forgets' the 1961-62 history leading to the JFK Administration's November 1, 1962, along with the route botching of the long delayed initial engineering report), thereby sustaining a resentment against he wealthier NW, he extends it to not only oppose I-70S along the railroad through Silver Spring and the Takoma Park area, but also to I-95 through the western edge of the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Brookland, displacing 69 WW1 era townhouses (with a 1970 revision reducing that to 34), just across the railroad from Catholic University of America. Indeed this geographical class angle would be useful, given that B&O and the Northeastern I-95 would have displaced but a fraction of that for the I-70S segment, due to the later construction of brick houses along the railroad's western side Blair Avenue, along with the Montgomery Gardens apartment complex near Blair Park.

The reaction of "white mans roads through black mans homes" had been the response to the botched planning unveiled in 1964, with its review of a broad array of route options of the type of freeway planning of the 1959 Mass Transportation Plan rejected by the planning discussions that had lead to the adaptation of the I-70S / I-95 B&O North Central Freeway in 1962 by the Committee of 100 on the Federal City and the Kennedy Administration. Hence it was a betrayal of the participants who accepted this eastward shift as the means of routing I-70S with the least displacement (and as the most logical-cost effective means employing the existing areas of the rail-yards for routing traffic from I-70S and I-95 into and through the Inner Loop: certainly a deep drilled I-70S tunnel from Tenley Circle to I-66 would work, especially with an under Potomac Tunnel to Virginia Route 27 and or 110, but would not handle I-95 traffic, whereas the B&O concept handles I-70S and I-95 traffic).

The 'social justice' idea conveyed with this freeway planning politicization can be seen as a history extending back a century earlier when the B&O Metropolitan Branch was routed where it was in NE with that corridor significantly industrialized, while the comparable stream valley in NW, Archibald-Glover Park, remained more or less in its natural state.

Boyd (like any other such FHWA figure) has the option of promoting a further design evolution of the I-70S/ I-95 B&O North Central. One with greater capacity, given his testimony before the House subcommittee on roads -- reported by a December 6, 1967 Washington Post article "3 Major Road Projects Are Unwise" -- against the North Central Freeway "as it is now designed" describing it as "a tremendously expensive and inadequate artery."

He could have promoted a re-design without the neck-down and within a right of way avoiding the historic Brooks mansion to the east, and the line of Catholic University of America buildings to the west with the freeway entirely under-grounded southwards of Taylor Street, with the added capacity via an added cut and cover tunnel carriageway along the railroad's west side directly beneath John McCormack Drive- named for the 1961-1971 Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, hence accommodating the traffic while maintaining and even enhancing the tranquility of this area directly alongside Catholic University of America: note Donald Trump's promoted treatment of the 57th to 72nd Street segment of Manhattan's West Side Highway of new concrete box tunnels directly beneath the new Riverside Park Drive.

Manhattan's Westway- cancelled September 1985

Manhattan's Riverside Drive Tunnel

Boston I-93 Central Artery Tunnel/Promenade

Consistent with this expansive view of 'social justice' meaning for the broadest segment of society, he could have gone further with the idea of extending the legacy of monumental Washington, D.C. by combining the tradition of the Mall as well as such places as Meridian Hill Park, make the surface area atop the new underground I-95 North Central Freeway Tunnel, with its underground walls designed to accommodate a lowering and tunnelization of the two track heavy railroad, and optionally portions of the two track WMATA aluminum rail car transit Red Line. Such an under-grounding would permit re-establishing vast portions of this corridor as parkland, and conceivably be advanced to bring the long buried creak back to the surface. One would think that given all the talk about improving cities, that there would be advancement of such things as a cut and cover and deep drilled NW Freeway, and especially a largely tunneled cut and cover North Central Freeway beneath a new linear park extending atop the railroad corridor sculpted into the land and its architecture into the shape outlined by God and Man as situation and framed by Washington, D.C.'s majestic Union Station: a shape that may be called the "Grand Arc".

USNC Extending the Legacy with UN-official addition of the Grand Arc 95 /270E

1997+ I-270 Takoma Station Town Square/Tunnel

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/07/volvos-subliminal-message-for-takoma.html

Abbott and his allies never had the opportunity to see a serious such under-grounded North Central Freeway, and had taken their hardline stance spurred by the unveiling of the deviant 1964 "option #11 Railroad East Sligo extended even to the 1962 B&O route, according to Zachary M. Schrag’s The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro,at p 121, because this would still displace “a line of houses parallel to the railroad”, even though a fraction of those by the 1964 plan.

Schrag does not elaborate, but of these, the best were and remain those along Takoma Avenue on the RR’s east side, at Takoma Park Maryland’s northwestern edge, plus the northernmost house within Washington DC to the RR’s east side, the landmark Cady Lee Mansion with a mere 85 feet setback- all situated with adequate room to construct a cut and cover tunnel extending beneath Takoma Avenue to join the already (1966) planned cut and cover tunnel along Montgomery Community College. Extending the cut and cover configuration beneath Takoma Avenue, whether with 2 in each direction all along the railroad's east, or 3 in each direction flanking the railroad would fit, and have sufficient length to drop with the topography to extend the tunnel further south within the footprint of what was cleared for the WMATA station and suitable for new transit induced development. The 1971 DeLeuw, Cather Associates and Harry Weese & Associates, Ltd. Washington D.C. version had the WMATA station area with a cut and cover I-70S North Central Freeway Tunnel with all six lanes to the railroad's east, thus displacing the historic Cady Lee Mansion along with the Takoma Avenue houses- and thereby creating a new means of inciting opposition. Before anyone advanced alternative designs more incorporating the space along the railroad's western side, as it enters Washington, D.C., perhaps with a set of 4 lane tunnel flanking the railroad -- I like the idea of employing this segment as a bypass for Maryland 410 around rather than through Takoma Park -- Maryland drops this link altogether in 1972.

1971

1966

Takoma Park area plates for the 1966 supplementary study B&O Low Level Route North Central Freeway, and the 1971 version

1971

Sam Abbott’s artwork – of which there is much evident talent -- might suggest a plausible subconscious reason for his sentiment, assuming that he necessarily liked the landscapes he chose to paint, which include those of rail-side industrial mud flats as those in his native Buffalo New York where he worked, organized was arrested, and imprisoned, where he met his future wife, Ruth, who was the daughter of his best friend who he was imprisoned with.

Certainly, according to Ruth, he was partially spurred against the freeway by her father and his friend who inveighed against the petroleum economy at a time when freeway construction was occurring roughly at the time that many electric rail transit lines were being deactivated, and replaced with smelly and noisy diesel buses (even as heavy rail had already been using diesel electrics).

Sam Abbott passed away in 1990.

Thomas Airis passed away in July 1991.

Abbott, Airis 1970 D.C. City Council hearing

US National Capital Planning Commission reversed itself in December 1968- the botching and the spin having done its job prior to the politically turbulent events of that year that brought the MLK and RFK assassinations respectively that April and June.

It was simply a 'white mans road through black mans homes', as the newspapers defined it: a simple truth in the context of the botched 1964 planning, but given the physical reality, an over simplification obscuring the more complex matters of political influence and power.

Not building the North Central Freeway saved, as per the 1966 design, 372 dwellings within Washington, D.C. and 163 within Maryland, with 69 of these, plus 110 respectively for the I-95 Northeastern Freeway, or 59 total for the 1973 I-95 B&O/PEPCO Route proposal.

This compares with the figures of 720 and 531 for the 1964 plan, 1,095 in D.C. for the 1960 I-95 Northeast Freeway near the B&O railroad; and 74 and about 1,000 respectively for the Wisconsin Avenue corridor and the east of Rock Creek Park segment of the Cross Park Freeway serving as the southernmost I-70S segment to its interchange with the I-66 North Leg of the Inner Loop Freeway at 14th and U Streets NW.

Of all of these, the most cost effective route -- B&O-PEPCO -- is endangered with ill advised real estate development along the north side of New Hampshire Avenue just inside Maryland (which would be fine if planned with having I-95 pass beneath) and just inside D.C. in the traditional open field of the Masonic Eastern Star Home, and in the Brookland - Catholic University of America area in the traditional lightly developed industrial bands to the east between Taylor Street and Michigan Avenue, and west to the south along 8th Street NE connecting with our John McCormack Drive southbound I-95 Tunnel.

1973 PEPCO-B&O

Likewise, and further what should be criminally negligent for creating a hazard, the deathtrap residential development in the I-70S Takoma Station area of wood framed dwellings within and generally at a lower grade of a potential derailment of the immediately adjacent heavy railroad that carries heavy freight cars. Meanwhile, people in Takoma Park found out that the planning of 'DE-mapping' the freeways for the sake of some extra funds to speed the WMATA system's construction (while denying a potential perpetual revenue from highway tolls- an option apparently unconsidered), provided zero promise of WMATA not one day covering some of the local green space of the WMATA facilities with new development, with a new proposal for 95 such dwellings at the Takoma Station green area and parking lots.

Meanwhile, slapping I-95 signs on the eastern portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway led to a greater traffic burden there, leading to the recent Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement project, replacing a single 6 lane span with a pair doubling capacity, with a displacement of 335 dwellings in Alexandria, and 57 at the concurrent Springfield Interchange replacement project. A new project the 11th Street Bridge[s] finally completes a no traffic light through route that dips down through SE, though yet nothing yet to humanely tunnel portions of the I-295 or DC 295 Anacostia Freeway, with now decades of in-activism -- consider ECTC's Marion Barry as just a start.

According to the November 26, 2000 Washington Post magazine article "End of the Roads" by Bob and Jane Freundel Levey, Takoma Parks Sammie Abbot guilted out Peter S Craig, with Abbott charging Craig with only caring for his neighborhood- never mind the significantly lower impacts of reusing an existing railroad industrial corridor rather than a swath through parkland or residences.

"I couldn't be parochial. I had to oppose the whole thing", he says, after Sammie Abbott called him out of the blue one night and said "All you care about is the rich White folks west of the [Rock Creek] Park". "He said I was being pretty provincial", Craig says. "He guilt triped me and as a good Quaker, I fell for it."

Never mind this shift to poorer Blacker areas was exactly what was being accomplished by the enemies of the northern radial freeways as the Northwest, North Central and North East. Had not Craig or Abbott, Abbott's ECTC confederate Reginald H. Booker, Marion Barry or anyone else following this line of reasoning pondered it in SE alongside the I-295/DC 295 Anacostia Freeway? Or in Springfield interchange or the Wilson Bridge replacement projects -- even if the areas are not majority Black -- both involving displacing more residences by widening the section of the I-495 Capital Beltway that became "I-95" upon the cancellation of the less necessarily imp-active idea of completing I-95 through Washington D.C. via the least displacement route of the B&O-PEPCO combination, reportedly over protests over the 34 WW1 era townhouses while running alongside Catholic University of America.

By going with the spin established by the very establishment running the show, Sam Abbott and ECTC's doctrinaire stance against the B&O Route North Central Freeway simply went along with what the established actually wanted, an establishment most plausibly -- consider the dynamics of a political wobble effect -- with the entity marked by the very landmark properties along the proposed freeway routes.

It could be said that, for a man as Sammie Abbott the political activist and artist described as politically angry, that he, even if unwittingly, was preserving the canvass for the ultimate expression of the shape revealed, with the B&O Metropolitan Branch railroad's head piece of Union Station, with the rail corridors covered- Grand Arc.

If Madrid, the Capital of Spain, can do it with its M-30 Rio Project, so can Washington D.C. with Grand Arc 95/270.

This Washington, D.C. Status Quo of a city locally split by surface rail-yards, the traffic burden shifted disproportionately onto SE, and the general inefficiencies of the absence of the Washington, D.C. northern radials, is a continuing social and political injustice.

Douglas A. Willinger
A Trip Within The Beltway
January 19, 2012

Grand Arc 95-270

2012-01-06T01:57:00.011-05:00

Time to rectify the social injustice of pushing the traffic burden disproportionately through SE, and that previously of the railway burden, to finally deliver Washington D.C.'s missing freeway linkage AND a new Northern Mall

JFK's Administration first proposed it as part of a "Y" route, along with the Committee of 100 on the Federal City - a tightly routed I-95 and I-70S along the B&O Metropolitan Branch RR -- Washington, D.C.'s sole above ground grade separated transportation corridor.

It was botched afterwards, politically sabotaged by the initial North Central Freeway engineering study which excluded it while considering instead an upwards of 37 routes all over the map, with a recommended route partially following the RR but with serious deviations in Brookland and especially Takoma Park. Though decently re-scribed in 1966, the B&O NCF was nonetheless demonified politically as a "white mans road through black mans homes" -- with infinitely greater protest hype upon the 34 houses in Brookland closet to the RR than the 600+ for the final North Leg East segment to link with the existing Center Leg (3rd Street Tunnel) -- never-mind it was relatively uncontroversial while the U.S. President who proposed it was still alive- JFK.

Politics of the past asides, the need and the logic of the still missing I-95 link inside the Beltway and into Washington D.C. is clear, along with the feasibility of the basic corridor proposed by the JFK Administration, augmented with routing its Northeastern Freeway into Maryland via the PEPCO power line right of way (replacing the Northwest Branch Park routing to Prince Georges Plaza Plaza shopping center).

Within the Beltway I-95 is clearly feasible with no residential takings in Maryland, and 13 retail strip properties, including a gasoline station, in an area alongside New Hampshire Avenue where I-95 would be depressed and could be covered with new development. Once within the District, it would displace about 27* houses north of New Hampshire Avenue and along a segment of Eastern and Rittenhouse (*considerably more if the tragically misplaced Comstock Homes "The Hampshires" project is built upon the now open space of the Masonic Eastern Star Home property) and then only 34 for the entire segment along the RR at the western edge of Brookland- 59 total- according to 1973 figures all the way down to interchange "B" within the railyards. This figure of 59 compares with that of 330 and 57 displaced in Virginia respectively for the Wilson Bridge and Springfield interchange widenings of the Beltway that became "I-95" with the cancellation of the real one for Washington D.C. With a re-design of the North Leg East link to the existing Center Leg/3rd Street Tunnel via a tunnel beneath O Street and arcing beneath the recreation field of Dunbar HS reduces the 600+ figure to as few as about 33.

But lets strive to go further to make this project truly knit the area together, with this highway project embracing a comprehensive redefining of this RR corridor,as the Grand Arc Project, building out the walls of Washington D.C.'s Union Station northward, covering over the railroads and the new highway built as encased tunnelways, all as the basis of a new Grand northern mall. The RR was built in one of two interior places with in Washington DC topographically suitable, the other being the Archibald Glover Park, which has no roads. Since the RR buried the creek, have the new buried highway UN-bury the creek, and reconnect the city by so decking over the rail junction trisecting the area Rhode Island and New York Avenues, in a fashion extending the legacy of monumental Washington, D.C.! Have it do this as well to the south by likewise addressing the existing built freeway segments, particularly the I-395 Center Leg and SW (and SE) Freeway and 14th Street Bridges, with parallel tunnelways beneath 2nd, 3rd and G Streets as part of a project building NCPC's 2008 proposal concept for a Washington Chanel Tunnel and replacement 14th Street Bridge[s].

Accommodate and reconcile greater human activity within a given footprint.

Madrid Spain's $5 billion M-30 project shows this is feasible.

Within The Beltway

2011-12-17T02:41:00.016-05:00

See the botching of the planning of I-95 through Washington, D.C. starting in 1963 months after the U.S. President issued a report for I-95 to run near Catholic University of America:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/1960s-washington-dc-freeway-planning.html

Late 1963-1964 study DISREGARDS JFK's prescription for freeway to hug RR
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1964-north-central-freeway-routing_08.html

Federal City Council subverts support for DC I-95 (mere weeks before 'supplementary' report faithful to JFK 1962 B&O Route) by calling for the disastrous 1964 route as "cheaper" (though a longer route taking 471 houses rather then some 30)
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/fallacy-of-federal-city-councils.html

Officials fail to commit to JFK B&O railroad route, waffling towards disastrous 1964 plan, as late as 1968 (the year that USNCPC reversed itself and went against freeway)
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/significence-of-waffling-on-b-north.html

Letter to Maryland Governor Agnew, 1967 on how waffling on North Central Freeway planning was inciting opposition.

Citizens of Takoma Park and Silver Spring had reason for their demonstrations of bitter dissatisfaction with the highway authorities of your predecessor's administration. After we had been given reason to believe that the causes of our protests had been in at least some part overcome, the matter now threatens to break into renewed bitterness. I am sure you will wish to avoid this as much as many of us.

We showed that the methods of traffic projections which were claimed to justify the North Central were fallacious, the results in error by as much as 400 percent. Our contention was tacitly admitted in "re-studied" versions of the proposal made public last year, sharply reducing the original plan of 5 lanes each way.

The re-studied proposal also tacitly admitted that the route first proposed was needlessly, even carelessly if not ruthlessly, destructive of our communities. The new version hugged both sides of the existing Baltimore and Ohio railway, thus avoiding a new swath of destruction to divide our communities and sharply reducing the number of homes to be taken.

The reduced, re-routed proposal was made public last year with endorsement of D.C. And Maryland highway authorities. The D.C. Portion was forced through the National Capital Planning Commission by votes of representatives of the D.C. Highway Department and of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. From this we concluded, reasonably enough, that the highway authorities of the two jurisdictions (Maryland and D.C.) had reached a firm understanding with the Bureau of Public Roads.

Many of us were therefore astonished and aroused to preparations for renewed protests when Washington newspapers recently reported that the Bureau has acted to open it all up again. We have not found the Bureau forthcoming with candid information, but the press articles intimate an intention to force Maryland to accept modifications of route or design ostensibly "cheaper."

The result is that the whole controversy, which had been somewhat quiescent, is beginning to agitate the communities again. I can assure you this is so, for although I recently resigned chairmanship of the Metropolitan Citizens Council for Rapid Transit and write this simply as an individual citizen who wishes your administration well, I do remain in close touch with neighborhood sentiment on transportation-related issues.

And afterwards that Washington, D.C. powerhouse law firm Covington & Burling PAYS for anti-freeway riots in the DC City Council
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/10/ectc-paid-to-riot-via-covington-burling.html

Who Really Stopped Washington, D.C.'s Freeways
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-really-stopped-washington-dcs.html

Political Mass Within The Beltway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/09/washington-dcs-supreme-bridge-builder.html

A Sampling of Attitudes Towards D.C. I-95
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/sampling-of-attitudes-towards-dc-i-95.html

These were a group of black-clothed priests that attended my June 5, 2005 presentation near Catholic University of America, at the Archbishop Carroll High School through the D.C. NE Historical Society. My presentation was "The Never-Built Freeways of Northeast D.C.: The Plans and the Controversy, Part I" by Douglas A. Willinger of the Takoma Park Highway Design Studio. IIRC, these men were identified to me as Jesuits: members of the Jesuit Order, established by Ignatius Loyola in 1543 to counter the Protestant Reformation, via strategizing to further and expand the power of the Vatican/Roman Catholic Church....

I remember two of these men in particular, one white haired elderly, described to me as liking to jump on the bandwagon rather then think for himself, and a young, dark haired, reddish complexion one – too young to have been more then a child when D.C. I-95 was canceled in 1968-1973 – who appeared to me to be of mixed Irish and German ancestry. It was he who expressed the astonishment that they were actually going to run I-95 through Washington, D.C., as if that was somehow unfathomable. He did not appear too pleased to hear me discuss its feasibility, even as I acknowledged the shortcomings of the earlier designs (and that I felt it was right to stop those earlier specific plans, such as the 1964 plan’s demolition of Brooks Mansion).

Figuring that these men had an interest in what they would likely call “social justice” matters, I ended my laptop projection presentation with my own example of activism: the South Capitol Street/ Frederick Douglass Mall, and its desecration by the atrociously placed Nationals Ball Park Stadium, with the visual image of the stamp-pair that I had created with Ian Goddard in early 2005. I looked forward to an interesting discussion.

http://wwwsouthcapitolstreet.blogspot.com/2007/12/south-capitol-street-frederick-douglass.html

http://wwwsouthcapitolstreet.blogspot.com/2006/07/physical-reality-only-structure-along_22.html

Instead there was only a cold silence.

Such so far reflects the general attitude of the authorities towards any urban freeways.

JFK Gave Us the "Y" Route I-70S-I-95 B&O RR Route D.C. North Central Freeway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/jfk-administration-gave-us-b-north.html

Recommendations for Transportation in the National Capital Region: A Report to the President for transmittal to Congress by the National Capital Transportation Agency November 1, 1962

At page 44:

Significance of Using B&O Route. Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meeting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges Counties and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan. Further savings are realized by placing the rapid transit line to Silver Spring and Queen’s Chapel in the same railroad corridor.

And, at pages 25-26:

Three Sisters Bridge In the 1959 plan, Three Sisters Island Bridge was part of an intermediate loop (located between the Capital Beltway and the proposed inner loop) that virtually circled the city. The Agency's studies show no need for the portion of the intermediate loop between the Potomac River and the Soldiers Home area. Standing alone, the only purpose of Three Sisters would to bring trucks and additional auto traffic from Fairfax and Arlington Counties into downtown. For that purpose the bridge is not required.

As of 1957, there were a total of 22 bridge lanes across the Potomac River. Projects now under construction, or recently completed, will nearly double the number of such lanes ... [while] The Agency proposes two rail rapid transit lines to Virginia, one of which would serve the Three Sisters Bridge corridor. Rapid transit service would not have been provided in this corridor under the 1959 plan. With such service available, in 1980 a total of over 30,000 people - many of whom would otherwise be using their autos - would use public transportation from Virginia into the District in the morning peak hour, enough to fill 12 bridge lanes ... The result, as the following table shows, is that under the plan recommended by the Agency, central area bridge capacity will be adequate for the needs of motorists in 1980 without Three Sisters Bridge.

Yet a June 1, 1963 letter enumerates the cross town I-66 North Leg and Three Sisters Bridge as the most controversial segments require further study

“…I noted that certain portions of the highway network within the District of Columbia required further study. The guidelines which I believe should be followed in this re-examination are as follows:

The re-examination should focus upon the sections of the highway plans which have from the beginning been the most uncertain and the most controversial- the North Leg of the Inner Loop and the Three Sisters Bridge, both of which involve the manner in which necessarily involve a re-study of those additional portions of the plan which are directly affected by the conclusions reached in the re-examination…”

Since his November 1962 report had rejected the Three Sisters Bridge, his June 1963 letter calling for that bridge's 're-examination' meant that it might be needed, hence having JFK place freeways alongside Catholic University of America and Georgetown University.

Cancelled D.C. I-95 next to Catholic University of America

The canceled I-266 Three Sisters Bridge- pointing at Georgetown University

If only JFK had not been assassinated, he would have asked why J.E. Greiner dissed his prescription for the freeway to hug the railroad centrally located between the Potomac River and the eastern portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway, hence resulting in the freeways' political demonification. JFK specified the B&O Route, as "the key", to bringing I-70S and I-95 into Washington, D.C. "avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan"; yet the 1964 Greiner 'North Central Freeway' report excluded it, instead offering an upwards of 37 routes each with a far far higher amount of local impacts, akin to that in the 1959 planning. And it offers up a recommended route partially along the railroad but with serious deviations upon longer routes in Takoma Park Maryland and to a lesser degree in Brookland, D.C., creating mass opposition.

Apparently, none of the media outlets asked why the 1963-64 North Central Freeway engineering study report, released in October 1964, so deviated from JFK's proposal. In researching the history of Washington, D.C.'s un-built freeways I have yet to see this question about the Greiner report's betrayal of the JFK freeway plan addressed.

Ribbon Cutting

2011-12-16T23:44:00.006-05:00

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

Only a ribbon cutting- actual opening is in a few days, and from I-295 northbound, with the other ramps completed later.

Tomorrow's [Scheduled] Opening- 11th Street I-695 Bridges

2011-12-15T22:36:00.005-05:00

Friday, December 16, 2011
9:00 am - 9:45 am Refreshments
DC Department of Housing and Community Development
1800 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE
Washington, DC

10:00 am, Ribbon Cutting Ceremony

On-site parking will not be made available to the general public on the new bridges. Bus transportation to and from the event will be provided between 9:30 and 10 am from the DHCD Office.

For more information on this event, please call 202.484.2330. To learn more about the 11th Street Bridge Project, visit ddot.dc.gov/11thStreetBridge.

On Top NOT

2011-12-15T00:01:00.009-05:00

Emily Badger writes:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/12/imagining-city-without-its-public-transportation/690/

"Today, where that behemoth of an interchange would have sat right on top of Mount Vernon Square, there is instead a metro line below ground, and a mixed-use grocery store and apartment complex above."

Actually no.

The freeway was to be a TUNNEL, with any of the exposed roadways BELOW GROUND-LEVEL, and accommodating new real estate development.

As Scott M. Kozel correctly describes it:

http://www.roadstothefuture.com/DC_Interstate_Fwy.html

The I-66 portion of the North Leg of the Inner Loop would have extended from the present I-66 terminus near the Watergate Apartments at K Street NW, extending as the North Leg under K Street NW in a tunnel, and emerging east of Mount Vernon Square and junctioning with I-95 about a mile north of the U.S. Capitol Building.

The I-66 portion of the North Leg would have had 6 lanes. The I-66 K Street Tunnel was the solution to the original I-66 alignment that would have run east-west through urban neighborhoods alongside Florida Avenue NW, and between T and U Streets NW about a half mile north of K Street NW. If the K Street Tunnel had been built, it would have been a cut and cover design, about 1.5 miles long, buried out of sight under the straight 147-foot wide avenue, and passing under Mount Vernon Square, and it would have run from near Watergate almost to today's New York Ave./I-395 junction.

The underscores how writers must check facts rather then simply relying upon entities as WMATA, or 'mainstream' media such as The Washington Post, which can't even be honest about the route for I-95, let alone the I-66 K Street Tunnel.

I-66 K Street Tunnel
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/i-66-north-leg-west-k-street-tunnel.html

I-395 (I-95) Extension
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-395-extension.html

WMATA Pushing False Dichotomy of Them OR Freeways

2011-12-14T00:59:00.005-05:00

misleads by failing to acknowledge reduced footprint of freeway tunnels, particularly in the context of accommodating new development, and that transit and freeways were planned together

November 2011 WMATA report

http://planitmetro.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/WMATA-Regional-Benefits-of-Transit-11.28.2011.pdf

Building Metro allowed and produced economic development

Plans in the 1970s to improve access to the core included building interstates directly through the city. The region chose to use Metro to provide that access rather than take land for highways. Where there would have been highways, thriving neighborhoods now exist.

Without Metro: access with highways puts an interchange in Mount Vernon Square.

Actually beneath the streets and with new development
WMATA would have us forget that the I-66 K Street Tunnel planning came WITH transit planning

With Metro: Live, work, play.

Actually with Metro AND the freeways

In particular, much of the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood would have been lost to a large interchange. At the time, the interchange would have displaced 845 dwelling units and 97 commercial and industrial firms employing 980 people.

Actually not true, the interchange was to be underground, and beneath existing right of way, with some additional land acquisition which would have new development like that now being built. The displacement was quantitatively perhaps none (given the replacement housing within the new development atop), with 148 existing dwellings displaced for the Mt Vernon to 4th Street segment (the 845 figure including the extension to 1st Street NE, including the easternmost block of townhouses demolished about 10 years ago).

As the area has developed, north of New York Avenue, we now have a neighborhood of row houses, small apartment buildings, and churches. The sidewalks are brick and shadowed by tall trees. On New York Avenue, we have several restaurants, bars, and a car mechanic.

The City Vista block (east of 5th, between L and M) would have been parking above the freeway. Thanks to Metro, we instead have a vibrant development: apartments, condominiums, a large Safeway, a mobile phone store, a bank, a hardware store, a variety of restaurants (some with outdoor seating), a gym, and a Starbucks. A farmer's market has opened up a block away. It is a half to three-quarters of a mile to three subway stations, and only a mile to a fourth: Union Station where you can also connect to the Amtrak lines going all up the east coast.

In short, this is a great neighborhood with lots of variety and everything its residents need. Had the region chosen the freeway instead of Metro, we would have lost this neighborhood and its contributions to employment, taxes,and quality of life.

Sources: Map and description of displacement adapted from “District of Columbia Interstate System 1971,” November 1971, DeLeuw, Cather Associates and Harry Weese & Associates, Ltd. City Vista photo: Sean Robertson.

Forgotten is that the rail transit and freeway systems had been designed together.

http://mysite.verizon.net/cambronj/wmata/m80-52.jpg
WMATA Subway Plans Indicate the I-66 K Street Tunnel

1971 Freeway Planning Replacement Development

New Development OK with highway traffic on street rather than in tunnel?!

CSX Virginia Avenue Tunnel- Cross Sections Published

2011-12-04T03:18:00.003-05:00

Concept 5 preserves the most space alongside the SE Freeway, thus best facilitating the freeway's lowering/tunnelization, ESPECIALLY if it shifted the new northern tunnel closer to the new southern tunnel, rather then using the existing tunnel's centerline. Concept 5 avoids the waste of filling in a new excavation via making the new cut into a new tunnel, and furthermore preserves part of the existing tunnel's excavation for the outboard portion of the future underground SE Freeway.

The report also includes options of a temporary cut to the north of the existing tunnel, even though that provides less space for lowering-covering the freeway, but may run into issues with the existing elevated freeway's underground piling supports. Concept 2 is essentially CSX's traditional preferred plan, with Concept 5 a recent addition.

Virginia Avenue Tunnel Study
http://www.virginiaavenuetunnel.com/media/uploads/downloads/VAT_Public_Alternatives_Meeting_Presentation_Combined_FINAL_1.pdf

More from JD
http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm/3586/Virginia-Avenue-Tunnel-Project-Concept-Designs-Unveiled/

Takoma, D.C. Death Trap Residential Development

2011-11-02T01:14:00.001-04:00

"The zoning permits wood framed construction, reducing costs"

Post 2001 Washington, D.C. 'planning' for death trap residences of wood framed construction 'reducing costs' within rail-car derailment footprint, in total disregard of safety to chock this important transportation corridor.

Such de-railments along this corridor in 1976 and 1996 avoided mass loss of life because the dwellings were set back from the railroad, either via Blair Avenue, or a parking lot.

And to consider that these death trap developments, starting with Elevation 314 and Cedar crossing occurred after 911 with the lip service given towards transportation evacuation routes.

That would logically include this corridor -- the sole main north-south transportation corridor for what is said to be the Nation's Capital -- for the un-built and deceitfully de-mapped North Central Freeway proposed by U.S. President John F. Kennedy, November 1, 1962, only to be botched by its initial engineering study - deviating from JFK's prescription for the freeway to tightly the this existing railway - initiated at about the time of his assassination some 8 days after he personally inaugurated this freeway's Baltimore-Deleware segment.

Takoma D.C. Travesty- Cram 'em in

2011-10-18T20:21:00.002-04:00

Another example of a planning malfeasance- just inside Washington D.C.

This cramming in of residential units next to RR is insane- especially when it is built within the footprint of a derailment AND at a lower elevation, such as the dangerously close "Elevation 314".

I say it can all be demolished as hazardous- which it is not only to the new dwellers, but to local and larger community and societal interests and needs, particularly for a much needed super-project to give the area its missing and needed comprehensive transportation, linear parkland, and bringing that creek back to the surface.

Douglas Willinger
A Trip Within The Beltway
Build the Grand Arc

---
Proposed Spring Place Apartments â€“ October 19 & 24 Meetings & Hearings

Developers Donald Tucker and Bruce Levin propose building two five-story buildings, a total of 140 apartments, on Spring Place, NW (along the RR Tracks and behind the Gables Apartments on Blair Road, NW). Access would be at Blair and Chestnut.

Some residents have asked for changes and more time to work on the proposal. I hope the developers will agree. They are making revisions. As it now stands, here are the project details and the timing.

Details
* Buildings will be approximately 45 feet tall
* Phase I â€“ 60 affordable rental units, funded by several DC government programs, 11 parking spaces
* Phase II â€“ 80 market rate rental units, 31 parking spaces (parking lot backs up to Chestnut Street homes)
* Materials are Hardie Plank (a concrete product) and pressed concrete block

The developers are requesting that a short street/alley be closed and are also asking for a reduction to the parking requirements, which must be approved by the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA). The developers must provide a traffic study, which they estimate will be available in November. It is possible that no new traffic controls at Chestnut and Blair will be provided and that none will be required.

1. Wednesday, October 19 - Developers meet at the Landis Building, 7059 Blair Road, NW from 6:30 -8:30 pm to present revised plans. Contact the developers (info below) for a site tour between 4:30 and 6:30 pm.

2. Key Vote, Public Views Solicited - October 24, 7 pm, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4B - 4th District Community Room, 6001 Ga. Ave., NW

ANC 4B will vote on its recommendation to the DC Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) . The proposal is in the Takoma Historic District and HPRB must review and approve the design for its appropriateness, size, materials, and impact on the historic district, among other issues. Traffic and environmental issues are not part of HPRBâ€™s review.

3. Deciding Vote, Public Testimony Solicited - November 17 (Time TBA, but during the day)
441 4th St., NW, Room 220 South (next to Judiciary Square Metro â€“ Red Line)
HPRB will decide whether to approve the design, reject it, make changes, or ask staff to make changes
4. February?? 2012 - Board of Zoning Adjustment Public Hearing â€“ Traffic Issues - TBA
To see the proposal (no revised drawings available yet), go to my web page, ANCSaraGreen.org
Please share your comments with me.

--- Sara Green, ANCSaraGreen@yahoo.com (202) 829-8802

Developer Contact Information:
Bruce Levin â€“ 301-364-4510 blevin@keystarrealestate.com
Donald Tucker â€“ 301-654-6670 don@ecohousing.net

Sara Green, ANC 4B01
See my website: http://ANCSaraGreen.org

A Continuing Powerhouse Alongside the Federal Triangle

2011-09-27T02:22:00.002-04:00

Covington & Burling LLP

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/10/ectc-paid-to-riot-via-covington-burling.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-really-stopped-washington-dcs.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/12/peter-s-craig-editorial-reply.html

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2011/09/continuing-powerhouse-alongside-federal.html

Huff Post DC Thies Strikes A Nerve on Un-Built D.C. I-95

2011-09-22T01:14:00.014-04:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chuck-thies/the-war-on-automobiles_b_960021.html

The Huffington Post has started a DC blog, and its writer Chuck Thies has bravely struck a nerve:

" with summer approaching and an infant in the backseat, we decided driving a car without air-conditioning and questionable safety features was no longer an option. We sold the Volare for one dollar to a Rasta man from Philadelphia who was recovering from hip replacement surgery.

Then we joined ZipCar, which lasted for five years. It worked well.

A month ago my son started school across town. It is a public school, but the cost of commuting is pricey. A roundtrip taxi is more than twenty dollars in the morning and slightly less in the afternoon. ZipCar rental is risky at one hour; in order to avoid late fees that means a 90-minute reservation twice daily. And commuting by bus is an untenable time suck for self-employed parents: two separate routes, 45-minutes each way, two times every day.

So, last week we rejoined the community of car owners.

Now we are back in the crosshairs of those who prosecute the war on automobiles. I have already heard it several times: "You don't need a car," "You could do that with a bike," and so on.

Every day hundreds of thousands of vehicles hit the roads in our region. Some are delivering refrigerators; some transport salespeople, technicians and consultants who would lose valuable time waiting for a bus or whose customers are nowhere near a Metro; some are heading to the doctor; some are police or emergency vehicles; some are bringing materials to a building project; and, many are simply passing through.

In the 1950s transportation experts saw the future. They designed an outer beltway with Potomac River bridges connecting Virginia and Maryland. Roads like the Inter-County Connector, Rt. 301 and the Fairfax County Parkway are vestiges of this unrealized dream. Other highways, like I-95, were re-routed in deference to politics, not planning. If you look at a map of major roads in the region, it is plain to see what the designers had in mind. It is also possible to imagine those dreams reaching fruition.

The metropolitan area is growing. People are moving here and businesses are hiring. This trend is expected to continue for two more decades with more than 1.5 million new jobs coming to the region. Not all of those employers will be walking distance from a Metro. Every new home will not be built on a block with a bus stop. People with jobs will buy cars and drive them to places to spend money. That is reality.

I love walking, bikes and riding our much-maligned Metro. I do not like sitting unnecessarily in traffic. If the war on automobiles succeeds we will all be caught in a jam and the long-term prosperity of our region will be at risk."

Greater Greater Washington has a piece by David Alpert reporting on Thies piece, taking issue with Thies assertion of a "war on automobiles".

And Chuck Thies, an insightful commentator on District corruption issues on WPFW and the Georgetown Dish, decides to use his inaugural post to complain about the push for safer and better bicycle facilities as a "war on automobiles."

I'd link to it, except the Huffington Post uses detailed analytics to determine how long to leave posts on its home page, and this one needs to roll off as quickly as possible.

Here's the link. The vast bulk is a long recitation of every car Thies has owned and the location of every places he's lived or worked. But Thies comes to the conclusion that he can't drive because of the location of his son's new school, and therefore, any public policy that's not about automobility is the "war on cars":

There are powerful, multiplying forces aligned who seek to make driving as difficult as possible. They oppose spending money to build roads and want to occupy your parking space with a bike rack.

Don't get me wrong; I love public transportation, bicycling and walking. ... A month ago my son started school across town. ... So, last week we rejoined the community of car owners.

Now we are back in the crosshairs of those who prosecute the war on automobiles. I have already heard it several times: "You don't need a car," "You could do that with a bike," and so on. ...

People are moving here and businesses are hiring. ... Not all of those employers will be walking distance from a Metro. Every new home will not be built on a block with a bus stop. People with jobs will buy cars and drive them to places to spend money. That is reality.

I love walking, bikes and riding our much-maligned Metro. I do not like sitting unnecessarily in traffic. If the war on automobiles succeeds we will all be caught in a jam and the long-term prosperity of our region will be at risk.

The problem isn't with a public policy that increases transportation options, but rather with these people who hassled Thies for driving. It's fine for Thies to drive if that's easiest for him. I drive sometimes. I have friends who drive to work….

… I bike a lot. I take Metro and buses. And sometimes I drive. I don't feel bad about my transportation choices, but neither do I say that a project which helps people on one mode I use sometimes is a war on another mode.

Agreed, the problem is not about increasing transportation option. More options are better, as are options better designed for fit within the existing environment- with that becoming far more practical as demonstrated with Spain’s Proyecto Madrid Rio burying its M-30 urban freeway beneath new parkland.

Yet surprisingly little is said about the transportation option that would have served 100s of thousands of people daily- the elimination of all of Washington D.C.'s planned freeways of its downtown inner hub and its northern radials?

SO what does Alpert have to say?

Thies wasn't just talking about bikes; he's also talking about opposition to the Outer Beltway and most other freeways conceived in the 1950s. There are plenty of arguments against that as well, but most of all, none of it would help Thies' own personal driving concerns, which is what his whole article focuses on (after the many stories about the many cars he bought and sold, for how much and to whom).

If anyone can feel under attack, it's cyclists. Tom Coburn is currently tying Congress in knots to try to cut any dedicated bike and pedestrian funding, which if approved would surely lead most states to zero out entirely any spending on bike lanes and sidewalks.

Alpert can only there say “there are plenty of arguments against that was well” regarding the biggest deletion of a transportation choice (choosing not to perhaps of the numerous outright lies about the un-built freeways promoted by The Washington Post), with Thies hitting the nail on the head about un-built I-95 in Washington, D.C. –

“re-routed in deference to politics, not planning. If you look at a map of major roads in the region, it is plain to see what the designers had in mind. It is also possible to imagine those dreams reaching fruition.”

Indeed, I-95 was re-routed onto the eastern portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway in 1976 or 1977, after the abandonment of planning in 1976 to route it down a widened Baltimore-Washington Parkway and then along New York Avenue to connect with the I-95 Center Leg (subsequently renamed the I-395 Third Street Tunnel).

That plan came after the July 1973 cancellation of the last true extension (that is, via the clearly intended stubs at the interchange with the Capital Beltway) via the existing 250 foot wide PEPCO power transmission line right of way to its southern end at Ray Rd near New Hampshire Avenue, and continuing (in order to avoid the powerline substation) along New Hampshire Avenue’s western or southbound side to the DC-MD line, so continuing to turn to follow the B&O Metropolitan Branch RR (opened since 1863) that we know today as the above ground branch of the WMATA Red Line and the CSX/MARC RR- a total of 4 sets of RR tracks. I-95 was to follow this corridor to an interchange atop the railyards, and then following New York Avenue to connect with the Center Leg/Third Street Tunnel; it was accompanied by an I-295 Inner Loop East Leg to RFK Stadium and then curving along the Anacostia River to the SE Freeway Barney Circe stub; plus a cross town I-66 tunnel primarily beneath K Street. Planning in a 1971 report shows the tunnel concept of minimizing local impacts – think about noise and emissions containment – applied also to the final connecting segment of I-95 to the Center Leg and a portion of the I-295 Eats Leg along New York and Mt Ollivet with replacement housing atop; it also shows a similar yet inferior concept for the segment in the Brookland/CUA area, of a covered highway with replacement housing and community facilities, though with the western side with an open wall design that would have thrown and likely amplified the traffic noise towards CUA- a likely reason why an elevated design had been rejected, and perhaps a concern with earlier (1966) planning for this deck to continue directly alongside CUA. Oddly, a fully enclosed tunnel-way was apparently un-considered.

Likewise, it may seem bizarre how such a highway – un-built I-95 in Washington, D.C. and its connection to the stubs at the Capital Beltway was ever cancelled, let alone widely perceived as a “white man’s roads”- particularly given the low numbers of dwellings it would have displaced.

It would have displaced 0 in Maryland,as per 1973 planning, thanks to the PEPCO right of way; plus 13 commercial retail spots including two gasoline stations.

It would have displaced 59 in Washington, D.C. from the Maryland line southerly to the railyards interchange near New York Avenue: 23 and 5 alongside and near the northern side of New Hampshire Avenue, and then 34 at the western edge of Brookland with the highway routed entirely upon the RR’s eastern side.

It’s final segment along the northern side of New York Avenue, from that interchange to the Center Leg – the North Leg – East – would have displaced about 600 dwellings (replacing this vanguard of late 1800s charming latter 1800s townhouses with 1970s-esgue higher rises). The I-295 East Leg (the alternate route for DC I-95 to continue on through the SW Freeway and 14th Street Bridges to the “I-395” Shirley Highway in Virginia) would have displaced and replaced 172 1920s era townhouses.

Meanwhile, not building these highways ended up with the widening of the I-495/I-95 Capital Beltway in and near Alexandria Virginia with the Woodrow Wilson Bridge , as well as the complete reconstruction and enlargement of the interchange of this Capital Beltway with the I-95 mainline at Springfield: the former displacing some 330 dwellings; the latter 57: neither AFAIK with replacement housing. Nor with any such serious environmental mitigation as being covered- with Alexandria Virginia’s Washington Street Urban Deck being weirdly cut from 1,100 to a mere 200 feet as an 11th hour decision against and without even acknowledging the overwhelming opposition to this upon the Wilson Bridge Project’s Stakeholder Participation Panel on the Route One Interchange and Washington Street Urban Deck.

So accordingly, it is OK to displace 387 dwellings in Virginia (without replacement) , but not 231 (59 plus 172), nor 831 to include the connection to the Center Leg, WITH replacement housing and covering over as tunnel to contain traffic noise and emissions (an environmentally far more sensible idea oddly neglected by the transportation and environmentalist organizations).

Oddly, regarding the most architecturally worthy spot involved – the some 600 dwellings alongside New York Avenue, subsequent planning for this segment (revealed in a 1996 report commissioned by the DC Mayor’s Office) presents a tunnel with a curvature for the transition with the Center Leg that fails to meet FWHWA line of sight standards for curved tunnels; yet it ignores the never officially considered geometrically feasible routing option for a tunnel beneath O Street NE and NW before turning southerly beneath the recreation field at Dunbar HS, displacing not 600 but rather some 34 south of N Street and between 4th Street and New Jersey Avenue- a 95% reduction in displacement, with superior line of sight.

So we’ve demolished 387 in Virginia, for the sake of 93 (59 plus 34) or 165 (93 plus 172)- despite the matter of displacement, nor environmental mitigation- and for the sake of a LONGER route.

And with within Washington, D.C. it was that stretch of I-95 northward from New York Avenue (not inefficiently easterly and then via a Baltimore-Washington Parkway widened and redone to accommodate large trucks), displacing a mere 59 dwelling by early 1970s planning, or 69 by latter 1960s planning, got this political grief about “white mans’ roads through black mans' homes”.

One can see where this highway would go along the western edge of the Washington, D.C. area of Brookland- through the WMATA parking lots and bus depot area, and northwards through the industrial buildings all immediately along the RR’s eastern side. And southward through the 34 (1970+ planning) or 69 (1966+ planning) nearest to the RR- it would not have gone through the area of this RR where it widens as it passes south beneath Franklin Avenue, despite that option’s potential for the best windshield vista anywhere along I-95 from Maine to Florida. Clearly such a routing makes perfect sense regionally and locally: this RR is about midway between the eastern portion of the Capital Beltway in Maryland, and the George Washington Parkway in Virginia; it is the area’s sole existing above-ground transportation corridor and industrial corridor providing the space to construct a freeway with minimal residential displacement.

So does the PEPCO routing, however it was only the officially considered route for less than a year, within 1973, between its outright cancellation that July, and the February 1973 abandonment of the officially considered route since the 1950s of Northwest Branch Park, passing directly alongside the roughly simultaneous planning of Prince Georges County Plaza Shopping Mall.

Indeed, that was initially noted when this corridor was chosen for Washington, D.C. I-95, in 1962 by the White House:

“Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County, and northwestern Prince Georges County, and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeways proposed in the 1959 plan. Further savings are realized by placing the rapid transit lines to Silver Spring and Queen’s Chapel in this same railroad corridor.” – Recommendations for Transportation in the national capital region a report to the president for transmittal to Congress by the National Capital Transportation Agency- November 1, 1962

This was part of a highway design evolution- existing right of ways, helping result in significant reductions from the impacts of the 1959 planning- numbers. The JFK Administration was more open to unorthodox means of achieving more environmentally comprehensive grade separated express roads.

The following year, the U.S. President in a letter notes:

“…I noted that certain portions of the highway network within the District of Columbia required further study. The guidelines which I believe should be followed in this re-examination are as follows:

The re-examination should focus upon the sections of the highway plans which have from the beginning been the most uncertain and the most controversial- the North Leg of the Inner Loop and the Three Sisters Bridge, both of which involve the manner in which necessarily involve a re-study of those additional portions of the plan which are directly affected by the conclusions reached in the re-examination…”

“ the very large part of the highway program which is not under study can go forward as scheduled.”- John F. Kennedy letter June 1, 1963

Notably the June 1, 1963 JFK letter has him discuss the I-66 North Leg and the [I-266] Three Sisters Bridge as controversial and in need of further study.

Since his Administration’s November 1, 1962 report had down-scaled the former while unequivocally excluding the latter altogether, his June 1, 1963 letter can be taken to suggest that JFK had become receptive to considering the Three Sisters Bridge, landing essentially alongside Georgetown University for further consideration.

By that years end, President JFK had been assassinated, 8 days after he personally dedicated the Baltimore to Delaware segment of I-95, and the Baltimore, Maryland engineering firm, J.E. Greiner and Associates begins the preliminary engineering report on WDC’s North Central Freeway.

The planning was grossly botched: 37 routes all over the map. A recommended route #11 largely along the RR yet deviating significantly in Brookland, and even more-so in Takoma Park for a segment of the I-70S portion.

Selecting the B&O corridor routing was the consensus ultimately of the early 1960s controversies over the 1959 planning. Yet J.E. Greiner deviated from the JFK plan, being its betrayal.

That they would do this after cancelling the Northwest Freeway west of Rock Creek Park- created the backdrop of the protest.

The "Support" for the North Central Freeway by organizations as the Federal City Council, undermined it by endorsing the infinitely more invasive 1964 route #11 Railroad Sligo East plan.

Each successive plan would introduce new objection:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/06/north-central-freeway-most-botched-most.html

Washington, D.C. Cancelled Freeways Hegelian Dialectic
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/1960s-washington-dc-freeway-planning.html

A law suit against the B&O North Central Freeway by the law firm Covington & Burling on the grounds that it lacked the support statutorily required of the DC City Council and USNCPC- some two before those entities had reversed their support.
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-really-stopped-washington-dcs.html

The Specious Reasoning of the 1968 USNCPC Reversal
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/01/and-so-does-us-national-capital.html

The Circumstances of the 1969 DC City Council Opposition to the B&O North Central Freeway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/10/ectc-paid-to-riot-via-covington-burling.html

The Specious Reasoning of the mid 1970s 'de-mappings'private automobiles obsolete by the 1990s because of less petroleum, 1975 memo 'eg don't build the DC I-66 K Street Tunnel because the connecting segment in Virginia is being cancelled' yet that latter segment was built,

The Washington Post Lies About the DC I-95 Route
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/01/washington-post-lies-about-inside.html

Virginia Avenue CSX Tunnel

2011-09-15T23:44:00.002-04:00

A meeting was held on September 14, 2011.

No word to me yet if anything was said about constructing this tunnel with a prefabricated lid to minimize surface disruption time, nor likewise make it wider to accommodate the eastbound lanes of a future SE Freeway Tunnel.

More information at Greater Greater Washington, and at the project website.

Joseph Passonneau Dead August 22, 2011

2011-09-06T02:30:00.007-04:00

Joseph Passonneau- Renowned Architect
Defended St Louis Arch;
helped design I-70 freeway through Glenwood Canyon, CO;
but later let Washington, D.C. down

Died August 22, 2011 in a Washington DC nursing home, diagnosed 7 years ago with dementia- symbolizing his later years apostasy regarding urban freeway planning.

Attended Harvard on a scholarship, graduated 1942, entered Naval intelligence in the South Pacific.

Received job as chief architect for the Tennessee Valley Authority, and then a position at St Louis Washington University to teach part time, before being made Dean of that university’s School of Architecture.

Promoted the idea of the St Louis Arch.

Left St. Louis in 1967 for Chicago and later by the 1990s Washington, D.C.

Was involved with freeway design.

Designed the acclaimed I-70S Glenwood Canyon Colorado segment of tunnels and cantilevered motorways through environmentally sensitive narrow canyon. (I would have like to see him take that design approach to a 2x2ing of Washington, D.C.’s Canal Road past Georgetown University!)

Also designed the un-built Chicago Crosstown Expressway.

http://books.google.com/books?id=PJ8OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA257&lpg=PA257&dq=joseph+passonneau+chicago+crosstown+expressway&source=bl&ots=z0Ui554IRP&sig=knZXNcsvbT2qGPpwzP7aoXii65U&hl=en&ei=DrBlTsOSI8bpgAe89biaCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=joseph%20passonneau%20chicago%20crosstown%20expressway&f=false

The highway was planned as a divided roadway, with northbound and southbound lanes separated by a strip ¼ to ½ mile in width. Generally, this highway would bracket a linear industrial belt. Continuous frontage roads would be located in the interior of this corridor so that the land between expressway halves would have much greater accessibility than land on the outside. In its clearest form, this could become an effective design, providing greater (and continuous) access to high intensity industrial uses within the corridor; and lower accessibility (and therefore protection from heavy traffic) for residential areas on each side.

The Chicago Crosstown was cancelled in 1979 as one of Mayor Jayne Byrne’s first acts, and more recently suggested to be revived in some form.

Passoneau had hence been prominent in freeway design rural and urban. You might not have known that from listening to him in his later years- particularly since the late 1990s when he was listed as a member of the “Committee of 100 on the Federal City”, and gave a number of presentations at Washington, D.C.'s National Building Museum.

It was during his years in Washington, D.C. that he finally went apostate.

As a start, contrast the words of this one time Chicago Crosstown Expressway designer, with these given in 2004:

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/2871-i-26-connector/page__st__25

Next up was Passonneau, who introduced himself by noting that as a career transportation planner, he'd worked on most of the major highway projects in the country. Widely recognized as an expert in his field, Passonneau wrote an article about the history of the Washington, D.C., highway system that appeared in a recent issue of National Geographic magazine. Highway activists in the audience, on hand to support a six-lane I-240, seemed to greet Passonneau's appearance at the lectern with an admiration that bordered on awe. Knowing his time was limited, Passonneau said he wanted to add just two things to Moule's presentation. "Traffic always damages the corridor it goes through," he declared. "And if citizens aren't involved from beginning to the end, the project will not be successful."

This was evident with Passonneau's August 2000 National Building Museum presentation as the man for presenting the future Undergrounded SE Freeway presented as a less expensive alternative to a future Underground SW-SE Freeway- never-mind the sheer implausibility of that as the two freeways currently connect in an elevated configuration (IOW- burying – lowering – covering the SE Freeway requires likewise for the connecting segment of the SW Freeway at least to 7th Street SW).

Passoneau’s proposal was done without any apparent engineering considerations for the connections between this proposal for a SE Freeway Tunnel that somehow met the existing elevated grade of the SW Freeway.

West Portal of Joseph Passoneau’s SE Freeway Tunnel Proposal

SE Freeway – existing; Passonneau ‘tunnel’ illustration simply a ‘photoshoped’ lid atop the existing elevated freeway

A lid atop the existing elevated SW/SE Freeway junction would raise the elevation of South Capitol Street to radically affect its relationship with the buildings to the south- eg. placing at least the 1st story of the buildings alongside South Capitol Street below street level.

Told me that he had not dived into that ‘can of worms’ after giving his presentation where he confessed that if he was “king of the world” that he would have simply removed the freeway without any underground replacement.

An architect of the Glenwood Canyon I-70 segment and the Chicago Crosstown would not be normally expected to embrace such an apostasy from grade separation, particularly the potentials feasible with existing right of way tunnels and more urban appropriate beneath a traffic circle underground helix, such as that which I developed with the Alexandria Orb.

Nor did I expect to hear his simple reply to my sending him a copy of the Orb upon asking him in person that it was simply “overly ambitious’ without a further syllable of explanation, this all after hearing him say publicly that we should be more ambitious and not risk being under ambitious.

Neither would I expect to hear his outright dismissal of any completion of the Washington D.C. system even by tunnel as “bizarre”- being obtuse about the distinctions between earlier and later urban freeway design.

Nor, likewise, his far more plausibly bizarre answer to me at a subsequent National Building Museum presentation, that the 1990s USNCPC Extending the Legacy South Capitol Mall would somehow “wreck the [existing National Mall]”

Passonneau 2000 NBM presentation slide show rendering of his proposal for South Capitol Street excluding the "Mall"/"Promenade" concept of Extending the Legacy

The Forgotten Elephant- Building TOO DAMN CLOSE

2011-08-15T22:41:00.003-04:00

While Greater Greater Washington asks about the policy of guardrails only for people in automobiles ...

The "Elevation 314" 'train wreck' dwellings built within the footprint of a heavy RR de-railment- the windows represent people's condos, mainly built within the footprint of a heavy RR de-railment and at a lower elevation.

Notably this was approved in 2002- AFTER 911 with its slight bit of brief lip-service to the concept of evacuation routes.

I-95 Chock- Internet Censorship Test

2011-08-01T18:29:00.001-04:00

http://wwwfreespeechbeneathushs.blogspot.com/2011/08/internet-censorship-test.html

US NCPC to CHOCK its 2008 I-395 Tunnel Proposal?!

2011-07-28T22:01:00.001-04:00

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/11444/southwest-ecodistrict-looks-to-fix-60s-planning-failure/

New planning proposals by the United States National Capital Planning Commission to build too closely to the I-395 Southwest Freeway, potentially hampering their 2008 Washington Channel Tunnel proposal

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-i-395-gateway-if-its-coordinated.html

It continues the ill advised idea seen in planning irresponsibly pushed by such organizations connected with the 'Committee of 100' on the Federal City, of a west extension of essentially the building line of the cir. 1999 'Capital Square' townhouses, a mere 16 1/5 feet away, clearly complicating constructing the I-395 Washington Channel Tunnel, leaving no room to maintain traffic, while blocking adding even a single lane

MD National Motorists Association Asks 'Should the BW Parkway be Widened?

2011-07-22T21:22:00.002-04:00

http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-maryland-alert-should-the-baltimore-washi

July 22, 2011

NMA Maryland Alert: Should the Baltimore Washington Parkway (295) be Widened?

Open access to our federal government is a key issue in this day and age -- and that access includes roads to Washington...!

The Baltimore-Washington Parkway carries approximately 100,000 vehicles per day (Annual Average Daily Traffic), and this represents a five-fold traffic increase since the parkway opened more than 50 years ago. (See this historic overview.)

Yet when an NMA member called his Senator about the need to widen the Parkway to relieve congestion that had traffic at a daily standstill, he was told that he was "the only one complaining."

Do you agree that lanes (and not just an HOV lane) should be added to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway as soon as practically possible? Then add your voice to the chorus. Members of the Maryland House of Delegates and the State Senate, along with Baltimore officials, should hear the complaints about traffic on the parkway directly.

Here are the contact links:

Maryland House of Delegates
Maryland State Senate
Baltimore Department of Transportation

If any place needs its free and open access maintained, it's our nation's capital, right...?

New Blog- 'DEMOLITION SPECIALS'

2011-07-17T03:17:00.001-04:00

http://demolitionspecials.blogspot.com/

Inspired by boondoggles as 'The Hampshires' Masonic Eastern Star I-95 Blockage in Washington, D.C. amongst others...

Eastern Star D.C. I-95 CHOCK!!!

2011-07-13T20:18:00.025-04:00

Considering buying into "The Hampshires"?
Know this location's regional transportation significance.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/pepcobo-i-95.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/06/1973-pepco-i-95-extension-inside.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-95-pepco-corridor-southern-end.html

New demolition specials on D.C. I-95 route, in the form of "The Hampshires" a real estate project by Comstock Homes.

Was reported in December 2010. AFAIK it has not been covered in such planning related blogs as Greater Greater Washington.

According to the developer's web site:

http://www.comstockhomes.com/townsathampshire.php

METRO LOCATION - COMING SOON!

The Hampshires is situated in a quiet residential neighborhood within walking distance of two Metro Stations. The Fort Totten Metro Station, to the South, and the Takoma Metro Station, to the North, are each within a mile from the Hampshires community.

This exclusive community is being built around a landscaped Village Green featuring landscaped open space and a community center. The Hampshires combines the conveniences of upscale, urban living in a Metro accessible location with hard to find, private open space amenities. Opportunities to own a new home are limited, just 37 City Homes (single family detached) and 73 townhomes will be available at the Hampshires.

The Towns of Hampshires, ranging from approximately 1,800 to 1,900 square feet, will include 3 bedrooms, gourmet kitchens with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, upgraded cabinetry, open floorplans with generous room sizes, some with garages. The Towns of Hampshires will feature architecture designed to compliment the historical ambience the surrounding area.

The Hampshires is located at 6000 New Hampshire Ave. NE in the established Lomond Riggs neighborhood of Washington, DC. Pre-construction prices are expected to start in the upper $400’s.

For additional information about this community please contact the Comstock Homes sales representative at 703-883-1700 or request information online by clicking HERE.

At this time, I have yet to see any renderings.[* UPDATE July 15, 2011] Though described as including a village green, the project will likely include a number of new homes that can be described as demolition specials, to create new opposition to ever completing PEPCO-B&O I-95 within the Beltway.

[* UPDATE]- Here's a plan view from the design firm's web site:

http://francklohsen.com/#/portfolio/planning/6000-new-hampshire-avenue/

PEPCO power line right of way- 250 feet wide, extending about 5 miles from the Capital Beltway to the vicinity of Ray Road and New Hampshire Avenue, about 1,600 feet from the MD/DC line

I-95 'stumps' at the I-495 Capital Beltway, with parallel PEPCO right of way

I-95 extension- southern end of PEPCO & along New Hampshire Avenue in Maryland (1973)

I-95 extension alongside New Hampshire Avenue in Washington, D.C. (1971)

I-95 extension alongside New Hampshire Avenue in Maryland cross section (1973)

'The Hampshires' I-95 Demolition Special Project in Washington, D.C. via Comstock Homes (2011)

New Hampshire Avenue to PEPCO Connection
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-hampshire-avenue-b-connection.html

D.C. Freeways 101
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/trip-within-beltway-101.html

Bruce Depuyt's Jesuitical Spin

2011-06-30T23:41:00.017-04:00

on dealing with the Washington, D.C. region's worsening traffic problems

A June 21, 2011 presentation moderated by Bruce Depuyt, featuring David Alpert, creater of the blog Greater Greater Washington, Stewart Schwart of the Coalition for Smart Growth, and Richard Parsons of the Suburban Maryland Transportation Alliance; Depuyt askes what needs to be done to fix the Washington D.C. region's notoriously bad traffic problem, yet does so with a misleading spin, from the very start.

“Those promoting traditional method”
“A radically different approach to growth and transportation challenges”

Depuyt’s description, as applied, is factually erroneous- unfairly against Richard Parsons.

Rather, it should be described as those promoting a full mix of three main options:

1) expanding the WMATA transit system,
2) constructing more high density mixed used real estate development near such WMATA, and
3) expanding the highway system;

Versus those promoting only 1) and 2) but not 3), disregarding that is precisely what’s been done for the past 30+ years where it naturally is going to matter the most with the greatest ripple effects.

Yes, “traditional” – in the context of Washington D.C. regional planning – means NOT building any new major vehicular roads, a tradition of the last 30 some years, and of greater densification within the urban core/near WMATA transit stations, a tradition of the last 14 or so years. “radically different” could mean either abandoning that, or it can mean retaining that along with starting a supplementary stage of additions to the major roads network, including improved interchanges/intersections and all new links, for transit and highways.

From the spin, one would image that the Washington, D.C. region, which has got to include Washington D.C. has been building new grade seperated highways (freeways) for decades.

Yet it is within the Beltway and Washington D.C. itself where the region has suffered with the 'de-mapping' of most of the planned freeway network.

The Washington, D.C. area transportation system can be thought of as a giant carriage, with two radically different types of wheels on its left and right sides: one has a complete outer tread but with a broken and largely missing center hub, with a huge gap in its radial spokes; the other has virtually no outer tread, but with numerous more and more evenly distributed radial spoke; sitting between are a body polite telling u to simply move laterally towards the side with the latter type of wheel-and imagine the increasingly likelihood of getting shafted.

That was the result of the great transportation planning controversy of the 1960s and 70s.

We were promised both wheel-sets- a WMATA rail transit network, and a freeway-highway network. Though it was not offered with a transit outer tread – a beltway rail, offering that only for the freeway network owing to the relative little demand – it offered both WMATA rail and freeway radial spokes, as seen by November 1962.

JFK's Washington, D.C. Transportation System- November 1, 1962
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/12/1962-national-capital-transportation.html
Anyone remotely familiar with the region knows this is largely the WMATA system, but behold, much of the freeway system is simply missing- a fact testified daily by the sights of the numerous freeway truncations within and near Washington. Consequently, as a result of the mis-planning of the mid 1960s and later, there are no continuous freeway routes, encouraging thus the traffic to entirely spill onto the surface streets and/or take continuous yet longer freeway routes, primarily upon the Capital Beltway which goes around Washington, D.C. barely piercing its southernmost disconnected tip in Alexandria, Virginia’s Jones Point Park. This wastes a significant amount of time, discourages commerce, and does so unnecessarily from standpoints of local neighborhood preservation and costs, owing to the existing right of ways – such as the conveniently located 250 foot wide PEPCO power line corridor for extending I-95 within the Beltway – as well as the use of cut and cover tunnels, not only such beneath existing surface streets, but also to bring it back together where now bisected by surface and elevated rail .

Yet Depuyt with a straight face asks "To what extent do you envision some type of pushback against a more roads is better approach to solving our regions transportation problem?"

Depuyt sounds utterly ignorant of the history of Washington, D.C. and inside the Beltway highway planning -- we all know that the Washington Post loves to continually lie about it again and again and again -- and that the spin is assigned.

The dynamics suggest something highly hierarchical, with key properties along key routes, such as this, and hardly loyal to the principle of truth.

More on this:
A debate on the region’s transportation priorities

White Flint Interchange CAN Become a Great Place

2011-05-19T22:25:00.015-04:00

A few miles outside the beltway

View Larger Map

A very good, interesting and somewhat misguided article within the blog Greater Greater Washington that IMHO represents a doctrinaire bias against urban freeways akin to insisting upon single level ranch houses because of a lack of imagination to properly design stairs- blind them to the potential- despite the clear examples of urban friendly grade seperation ala beneath DuPont Circle.

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10499/white-flint-interchange-could-have-been-a-great-place/

My RX:

The concepts of more dense development and a more pedestrian friendly design are valid and contrary to the articles' presumption, are NOT necessarily mutually exclusive with the also valid concept of improved traffic flow. Remember DuPont Circle and the conversation in Greater Greater Washington to cover the open depressed portion of the DuPont Circle's Connecticut Avenue approach?

NO one calls for filling that in and closing off the underpass for the sake of restoring a more pedestrian friendly DuPont Circle!

The basic design of the Montrose Parkway underpass/MD 355 overpass (bridge) is actually basically sound, with the proper basic dimensions avoiding wasteful demolition, as a foundation for a more holistic plan extending both sets of concepts above.

All of this can be done in stages.

Add semi circle covers alongside the existing bridge to create the shape of a traffic circle. This can have any of a number of possible design configurations, and may retain the existing 355 straight through roadways. Below is an illustration of this concept of such a bridge with the additions of a pair of semi circles from a study on Washington, D.C.'s New York Avenue.

Imagine Bladensburg Road representing MD 355

My preference would not be an SPUI configuration, as that would create lengthy surface ramp stringing that would be the anti-thesis of a friendlier for pedestrians environment, and we want development lining the space along the depressed expressroad, rather than uncovered as here shown; rather I would perhaps retain the existing Montrose Parkway traffic light intersection just east of 355, with a master plan accommodating later adding a set of redesigned left turn ramps, such as with a circular roadway ramp that drops below 355 to continue onto Montrose Parkway westbound, to best allow air rights development atop Montrose Parkway on both sides of MD 355.

Add retaining walls and building supports atop the Montrose Parkway to the west for new denser development adjacent to if not directly atop. Drop the grade to the west and add such overpasses, starting with Hoya to allow covering the Montrose Parkway as tunnel between Hoya and 355, with adjacent plots for such air right development.

Alas, the conversation has been dominated by the relatively well funded establishment foundation type organizations with their devotion to doctrinaire attitudes against the very concept of grade separated urban highways, with justifiable outrage over various elevated freeways used as a slippery slop argument to foolishly waste existing below ground level roadways by filling them in rather than covering them- as if placing all of the traffic upon a single level was somehow more pedestrian friendly, while avoiding any discussion of design details.

UPDATE: May 20, 2011

The author of that piece, Rollin Stanley, Director of the Montgomery County Planning Department, and blogmaster of "The Directors' Blog" further confirms, in a follow up piece in Greater, Greater Washington, my charge that the new urbanist movement, specifically the reletively well funded and connected foundation type entities, promote an intellectual slippery slope argument blurring dislike of some elevated freeways into a dislike of all urban freeways. Key to this is the confusion of those that are elevated, with those below ground level, altogther neglecting to even acknowledge that those are compatible with being lidded (covered):

"Maybe 20 years from now the Montrose underpass may be MoCo's elevated expressway. The mistake realized decades later in places like Seattle, Toronto and San Francisco, where lots of money was invested to reverse the damage and open up new opportunities for creating better environments for people, not autos.

Several years ago, a portion of the one elevated expressway that reached downtown Toronto was torn down, about 1.5 miles of it. Support is now building to take down the rest. This is one of the locations around the world where the benefits of tearing down 1950/'60s era transportation infrastructure has and will open up new economic opportunities that also meld well with the greening of urban areas"

Such is the very sort of nonsence promoted by entities as the Congress for New Urbanism, blurring together the elevated versus the below ground level:

As an example of this deceit, see this video at 3:33 where they begin talking about the elevated freeway in Buffalo, N.Y., while flashing to images of the below ground level Kensington Expressway which locals want to make into a tunnel, yet such foundation type organizations have entered the scene by pushing the wasteful idea of filling in the trench and placing all of that corridor's traffic upon an 8 lane surface street.

Rollin's complete failure to even consider the positive potential of this underpass as a foundation for a more urban local environment, is like attempting to hammer a square peg into a round hole of a rigid ideology that is clearly wrong- imagine DuPont Circle today without its Connecticut Avenue underpass-tunnel. All for a pseudo intellectualism akin to rejecting any buildings other than those single level, owing to an inability to imagine-design staircases, yet pushed through societies of those perhaps more yoked than free as somehow 'progressive' and 'futuristic'.

Redevelop the 355 overpass into a circle with adding semi-elipes on each side, and lower Montrose Parkway to the west beneath a new such overpass for Hoya, for ultimately developing the land atop. Urbanism does better by forcing design innovations involving multiple levels for accomdating and reconciling greater levels of human activity - rather then to simply serve fewer people -- aka elitism.

They Started Building Too Close To The RR AFTER 911

2011-05-09T21:48:00.011-04:00

The U.S. govt says that foreign terrorists were planning to derail trains

Yet, they permit new residential real estate development creating a particularly dangerous situation, just inside of Washington, D.C. with its main north-south RR

View Larger Map

Think about the development at the Takoma WMATA Station- the Elevation 314 and Ceder Crossing projects, built AFTER 2001, with dwellings well within a RR derailment crash zone, even at elevations lower then the heavy RR!

Go to the Takoma D.C. WMATA Station to see for yourself.

What sort of government permits such such nonsensical development lacking safety buffer zones, which places people unneccesarily at risk for the sake of an agenda of further blocking parallel cut and cover roadway tunnels -- whether vehicular or rail -- for the sake of deferring to this corridor's past botched planning for its most wealthy and selfish property holding entities simplistic anti-freeway mania?

What is Wrong With the Pentagon?
http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-is-wrong-with-pentagon.html

Fort Totten Travesty

2011-05-01T00:01:00.004-04:00

The Sin of building toooo close to the railroad,
chocking JFK's B&O D.C. I-95 corridor

This is where D.C. I-95 was to turn from alongside the B&O Metropolitan Branch/C.S.X.-WMATA RR to the Fort Drive route between Gallatin and Galloway Streets, or, as per the superior PEPCO route starting near Ray Road, connecting to such by continuing further along this RR before turning away to parallel the northern side of New Hampshire Avenue, running through the field of the Masonic Eastern Star Home.

Homeland Security Better Served By Reviving D.C. Northern Radial Freeways
http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/homeland-security-goal-would-be-better.html

The Botching Of Washington, D.C.'s North Central Freeway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/1960s-washington-dc-freeway-planning.html

A Sampling of Attitudes Towards D.C. I-95
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/sampling-of-attitudes-towards-dc-i-95.html

Dave Murphy's Imagine D.C. Telling Deletion
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/05/telling-deletion.html

Shadow Government Dynamics
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/telling-indifference.html

I-95 PEPCO Corridor Southern End

2011-04-20T00:01:00.001-04:00

At Ray Road

WMATA Subway 35 Years Today

2011-03-27T19:53:00.003-04:00

Washington, D.C.'s underground (and elevated) rail-roadway network turned 35 today; more at Greater Greater Washington. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9831/happy-birthday-metro/#comments

L'Enfant Was a Mason

2011-03-16T20:56:00.009-04:00

According to a Scottish Rite Journal article;

from Troy:

MAJOR PIERRE CHARLES L'ENFANT, GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FELLOW SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI MEMBER NOW DOCUMENTED AS HAVING BEEN INITIATED INTO FREEMASONRY JUNE 5TH 1789

Note the following most relevant passages:

Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant was in New York City in 1788 to complete renovations on Federal Hall where Bro. George Washington took his oath of office as the first President of the United States in April 1789. Records indicate there were no other soldiers in the Continental Army with the last name of “L’Enfant,” and certainly none with the rank of Major.

John Stagg, L’Enfant’s proposer, succeeded vanden Broek as Master in December 1789 and John Pintard, the seconder, succeeded John Stagg as Master in 1790. It is not surprising that Major L’Enfant should have been proposed by John Stagg, Jr.; at that time Stagg was the secretary of the Society of the Cincinnati and Major L’Enfant, a member too, had designed the Society’s medal. In 1789 the lodge elected as honorary members two members of the Cincinnati who certainly would have been familiar to L’Enfant: Major General Friedrich von Steuben, President of the Society of the Cincinnati, and General and President George Washington.

Please use your email's or computer's search facility (the latter if your using an email client such as Mail or Outlook) for earlier posts of mine containing gathered information on George Washington & the Society of the Cincinnati, to give some more background to this late 18th century network.

- TS

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/Blog/?p=4222

It appears Pierre Charles L’Enfant was a Freemason afterall
See The Masonic Career of Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant.

It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere down the line - if they look hard enough - Pierre Eugene du Simitiere and William Barton are identified as Masons as well, even someone like Thomas Jefferson. Another example is the Compte de Mirabeau’s long contested membership in Freemasonry which has only recently been documented by Grand Orient Mason, professor Charles Porset.

http://scottishrite.org/journal/march-april-2011/lenfant-masonic-career/

THE MASONIC CAREER OF MAJOR PIERRE CHARLES L’ENFANT
By Pierre F. de Ravel d’Esclapon, 32°, Valley of Rockville Center, N.Y.

Photo: “Pierre Charles L’Enfant,” Allyn Cox, oil on canvas applied to the ceiling of the U.S. Capitol, 1973–1974. (From the Architect of the
Capitol. www.aoc.gov/cc/photo-gallery)/cox_corridors.cfm.)

When Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol was published in 2009, numerous commentators brought again to the fore the real or alleged Masonic symbols in the architecture of the city of Washington, D.C. When queried, Masonic historians such as Ill. Mark Tabbert, 33°, and S. Brent Morris, 33°, were quick to point out that while George Washington was a Mason, there was no evidence that Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, that city’s designer, was. Indeed, Bro. Morris in his highly readable and informative The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Freemasonry (2006) wrote: “Eager Freemasons with more enthusiasm than facts have claimed L’Enfant as a brother. It is unfortunate for them that there are no documents, either primary or secondary, showing L’Enfant was a Mason” (p. 181).

In the course of doing research on the early history of Holland Lodge No. 8 in New York City, I reviewed the list of members published as an appendix to the Sesquicentennial Commemorative Volume of Holland Lodge, No. 8 (1938). There, I found a tantalizing reference to a “Enfant, T. L.” listed as having become a member of Holland Lodge in 1789. Knowing from past research how French names were often misspelled when the manuscript version was copied for printing, I went back to the manuscript minutes of Holland Lodge for 1789. That year Bro. Reinier vanden Broek was the Master and John Stagg, Jr. the Senior Warden. Here is what the minutes report:

3rd April 5789: Major Francis L’Enfant [was proposed] for initiation by the Senior Warden [John Stagg Jr.] seconded by John Pintard.

Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant was in New York City in 1788 to complete renovations on Federal Hall where Bro. George Washington took his oath of office as the first President of the United States in April 1789. Records indicate there were no other soldiers in the Continental Army with the last name of “L’Enfant,” and certainly none with the rank of Major.

John Stagg, L’Enfant’s proposer, succeeded vanden Broek as Master in December 1789 and John Pintard, the seconder, succeeded John Stagg as Master in 1790. It is not surprising that Major L’Enfant should have been proposed by John Stagg, Jr.; at that time Stagg was the secretary of the Society of the Cincinnati and Major L’Enfant, a member too, had designed the Society’s medal. In 1789 the lodge elected as honorary members two members of the Cincinnati who certainly would have been familiar to L’Enfant: Major General Friedrich von Steuben, President of the Society of the Cincinnati, and General and President George Washington.

Also present at the April 3 stated communication were Past Masters John Meyer and Christian Baehr as well as Edward Livingston (the future mayor of New York, Senator from Louisiana, Secretary of State of the United States, and brother of the then Grand Master of Masons of New York, Chancellor Robert R. Livingston, whom he followed decades apart as Minister to France), and Samuel “Black Sam” Fraunces, the New York tavern keeper. Among the visitors were the Seigneur de Saint Trys, listed as a Past Master of a Lodge in Lyon, France.

17th April 5789: Messrs Julian McEvers, Francis [sic] L’Enfant, Francis Christopher Mantel, candidates for initiation, were severally balloted for and accepted.

We can surmise that the Secretary in his hurry to capture all the names was confused by the first name of the candidate following L’Enfant, Mr. Francis Mantel, and inadvertently gave his first name to L’Enfant. Among the notable visitors that day was Bro. Jacob Morton who was then the Grand Secretary

5th June 5789: Messrs Upton and L’Enfant were severally entered as apprentices.

Major L’Enfant’s initiation was witnessed by Bro. P. Smith, Past Deputy Grand Master of New York. On the same day, the minutes tell us

Ordered . . . That Brs. Wyckoff, L’Enfant & S. Fraunces be a Committee to take the necessary measures to ventilate the Lodge rooms.

The Lodge rooms were then at 66 Crown (now Liberty ) Street. Appointing a celebrated architect, albeit a newly minted brother, to that committee was, of
course, logical, and provides strong circumstantial evidence that Holland Lodge’s Major L’Enfant was the famous city designer.

There is no trace of L’Enfant receiving his Degree of Fellow Craft in the remainder of the minutes for the next 16 communications of Holland Lodge in the year 1789. The then custom of the Lodge was to award degrees quickly: Francis Mantel and Julian McEvers were entered as apprentices on April 17, 1789, and received their Fellow Craft Degree on May 22, 1789, with only one other communication between their 1st and 2nd Degrees. Normally, Major L’Enfant should have received his Fellow Craft Degree at the June 17 or 19 communications. He did not, and the minutes are silent on what may have happened. We do know that he was very much present in New York City, as this was the time when L’Enfant was finishing the remodeling of the Federal Hall at Wall Street near Broadway.

There is no further indication in the minutes of the fate of the committee of L’Enfant, Wyckoff, and Fraunces or of any report of improvements in the lodge room ventilation. Since we know from his biographers (H. Paul Cammerer, The Life of Pierre Charles L’Enfant Planner of the City Beautiful The City of Washington,1950) that L’Enfant was a very difficult man in his dealings with others, we might conclude that he was not invited to advance further in Masonry.

However, the historical record is clear: Major L’Enfant was a brother, even if he appears not to have advanced beyond Entered Apprentice.

THE KEYSTONE, Minutes, Holland Lodge New York 3rd & 17th April 5789
(Photos: Pierre F. de R. d’Esclapon)

Excerpts from the Minutes of Holland Lodge New York 3rd April 5789, show L’Enfant’s relationship to the Craft. They read, (above) “Major Francis L’Enfant [was proposed] for initiation by the Senior Warden [John Stagg Jr.] seconded by John Pintard,” and on 17th April 5789 (below) “Ordered . . . That Brs. Wyckoff, L’Enfant & S. Fraunces be a Committee to take the necessary measures to ventilate the Lodge rooms.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Scottish Rite Journal (ISSN 1076-8572) is published bimonthly by the Supreme Council, 33°, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction, United States of America, 1733 Sixteenth St., NW, Washington, DC 20009-3103.

1957 Northwest Freeway

2011-03-11T02:17:00.004-05:00

1957 Northwest Freeway Route Options

Arizona Avenue Bridge

Feb 24 Discussion at Greater Greater Washington

2011-02-25T02:48:00.018-05:00

also see: http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/02/extending-legacy-with-grand-arc.html

Eastern Star- 6000 New Hampshire Ave NE

Concerning that Myth of 'no space for additional roads within the beltway'

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/9379/langtrachtenberg-economic-development-transition-pushes-archaic-transportation-approach/

(excerpt)

SJE wrote " but can only go so far: there is no more room for additional roads. "

Actually the routes exist, e.g. I-66 K Street Tunnel (beneath the existing right of way), and I-95 (PEPCO right of way is 250 feet wide+ B&O corridor connected by 3200 feet of the New Hampshire Avenue corridor northern (southbound) side; but the political dynamics of going through Masonic Eastern Star at 6000 New Hampshire Ave, as well as that B&O corridor going right by CUA (which even opposes covering the RR), so in such a Masonic-Vatican dictated city, people will come up with all sorts of excuses for doing nothing.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/1960s-washington-dc-freeway-planning.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/09/washington-dcs-supreme-bridge-builder.html

As another example of this hidden hand on planning, does the new ICC segment turn north through Winters Run, away from the Kights of Columbus- a factoid I recall NOT seeing mentioned in the ICC related writing I have seen)

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2011/02/inter-county-connector-to-be-open.html

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 23, 2011 10:14 pm

@Charlie "All of this makes a lot of sense. I hope the Mayor's people realize the damage that evening and weekend parking meters are doing to the retail sector."

The point of making parking meters operational on weekends and evenings is to create turnover -- ins and outs. That is good for retail and restaurants.

Now we can discuss what the time limits are... the city has been a little tone deaf on how long a retail/restaurant establishment needs a customer in place to generate their turnover from an economic perspective.

by Some Ideas on Feb 23, 2011 11:42 pm

Charlie, the problem is what the report leaves out, not the milquetoast suggestions it leaves in. This stuff is all 1980s ghost-of-Geddes stuff.

by Neil Flanagan on Feb 23, 2011 11:42 pm

Here's one way to help visualize the road scenario. We have 32 parkways and highways (state, US and interstate) leading directly into DC. (Some are counted twice because they run through DC.) They are the following (going clockwise along the DC border):

Maryland Side (25): Clara Barton Parkway, MD-396, MD-190, MD-355, MD-185, MD-186, MD-390, MD-384, US-29, MD-650, MD-212, MD-500, US-1, US-50, MD-201, MD-704, MD-214, MD-332, MD-4, MD-218, MD-5, Suitland Parkway, MD-637, MD-210 and I-295.

Virginia Side (7): US-1, I-395, US-50, I-66, US-29, VA-120 and VA-123.

Other notable highways are I-270, MD-97, I-95, VA-244, the GW Parkway, VA-7 and VA-267, which bring a lot of traffic towards and into DC.

A number of highways listed act as streets or run for relatively short distances (a few miles or less). But the point is that we have many roads running toward DC -- a relatively confined area that is, on the whole, not car oriented. For comparison, we have 5 metro lines (hopefully to be 7 by the end of the decade), with 9 entries into DC.

by DAK4Blizzard on Feb 24, 2011 1:41 am

USNCPC got away with that sort of oversimplification in 1968 by confusing super arterials as arterials.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/01/and-so-does-us-national-capital.html

But such could be expected where so many failed to get much past the political sloganeering, to thereby let WMATA be built wihout extra capacity generally then a single track per direction.

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 24, 2011 1:50 am

@Douglass Willinger:
The headquarters for the Order of the Eastern Star is 1618 New Hampshire Avenue, not 6000 NH Ave.

On your argument that the Masons have impeded highway construction in DC, let me just say that the Masons are property rich and membership-dues poor; they are accordingly very businesslike with how they managing their property. Like any property owner, if they received a good offer, one that made an allowance for the expense of establishing a new headquarters, I am sure they would consider it.

And I am sure the Masons appreciate your plug -- keep it up!

by goldfish on Feb 24, 2011 9:43 am

Where did I say that Masonic Eastern Star at 6000 NHA NE is the 'headquarters'?

Yes the headquarters are at that Perry Belmont Mansion near DuPont Circle, where the Committee of 100 has had Christmas Parties.

The property at 6000 is a 'home' not headquarters.

Considering the years of shananigans (before even getting around to proposing the LOGICAL PEPCO route, rather then that detour to Prince Georges County Plaza shopping center to cut the capstone line on the map as proposed from about 1959 through 1972), one must ask- what is buried beneath that open field at 6000 NHA NE?

Something was behind the City Council of Alexandria's lying through its teeth about the Washington Street Urban Deck atop the Beltway, with the drones all unanimously 'voting' to take away most of the deck next to Freedmans' Cemetery WITHOUT any debate- something involved with planning and I dare say having the highest structure in that city, complete with a logo featuring architectural tools.

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 24, 2011 11:07 am

@goldfish:
Seriously? DISENGAGE! DISENGAGE!

:)

by oboe on Feb 24, 2011 11:51 am

@goldfish:

Oboe's right. Besides, GGW already proved that the Masons didn't fight freeways, they supported them:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/5307/

by Matt Johnson on Feb 24, 2011 11:57 am

I just love it whenever something is blamed on the Masons. Throw in the Vatican and the illuminati, which as we all know might as well be the Committee of 100 and you have a conspiratrialsts' (is that a word?) dream.

by goldfish on Feb 24, 2011 12:20 pm

"Proved" (?!) by an April Fools joke- exactly 13 months after Imagine DC's tip of hand.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/05/telling-deletion.html

And here we have The Washington Post's freudian slip:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/01/washington-post-lies-about-inside.html

[to say nothing about the continuing lying about the feasibility of Washington, D.C.'s 'de-mapped' freeways]:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/12/washington-post-continues-lying-about.html

What is buried under that field at 6000 New Hampshire Ave NE?

by Douglas Willinger on Feb 24, 2011 12:26 pm

Within are pictures of that field:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-hampshire-avenue-b-connection.html

An ideal place for a cut and cover I-95 extension!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BZaPGsbLyHM/TCAjos_LqTI/AAAAAAAAFUU/lHgOKfhrmno/s1600/CIMG1684.JPG
by Douglas Willinger on Feb 24, 2011 12:40 pm

---

Freemasonry Let America Down
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2010/11/freemasonry-lets-america-down.html

Inter County Connector to be Open

2011-02-21T17:14:00.020-05:00

Though a bit outside the Beltway, the greater Washington, D.C. area in Maryland's first new freeway segment in years- a rare true progressive victory- though with a familiar twist!

Photo by C Patrick Zilliacus

Md. 200/Intercounty Connector tunnel [eastbound] under Winters Run community in Derwood, Maryland.

This reletively short tunnel (see ICC views at this official traffic cam site) is in Derwood, Maryland, where the ICC was re-routed - deviating from the longstanding Master Plan Alignment - on a longer route, away from the Knights of Columbus

View Larger Map

Opening to vehicular traffic postponed 24 hours to February 23, 2011

SW Freeway Landing Area Targeted

2011-02-10T23:58:00.007-05:00

'Southwest Ecodistrict'

Co-ordinated ? with the Washington Channel Tunnel?

from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Place

http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2011/02/public-meeting-southwest-ecodistrict.html

Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Public meeting: Southwest Ecodistrict,
Thursday February 17th

From email:

WANTED: IDEAS FOR FUTURE
L'ENFANT PROMENADE, MARYLAND AVENUE, AND SOUTHWEST PRECINCT

-Southwest Ecodistrict Public Meeting (focused on the area, depicted at left, surrounding the 10th Street and Maryland Avenue corridors in Southwest Washington, DC)
-
Thursday, February 17, 2011 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM

- USDA Headquarters,
Whitten Building Interior Courtyard 1400 Independence Ave. SW
-
SOUTHWEST ECODISTRICT VIDEO

The National Capital Planning Commission, in coordination with other federal agencies and the District of Columbia, invites you to attend a public meeting on the Southwest Ecodistrict Initiative -- focused on the 10th Street (L'Enfant Promenade) and Maryland Avenue corridors in Southwest Washington. This joint effort aims to advance the vision set forth in the Monumental Core Framework Plan by fostering an inviting, lively, mixed-use community, while accommodating the future needs of the federal and local governments. The initiative also supports President Obama’s Executive Order 13514 that calls on federal agencies to be leaders in environmental, energy, and economic performance.

Join the Conversation. Help shape this important area into a physical showcase of sustainable practices.

Come Prepared to Share Your Input. Project hand-outs will be available on NCPC’s Southwest Ecodistrict website on February 10, 2011.

RSVP preferred:
swecodistrict@ncpc.gov
Labels: land use planning, urban design/placemaking

posted by Richard Layman @ 2:47 PM&Permanent Link Comments

Obama- Nothing For D.C.

2011-01-31T15:06:00.003-05:00

The U.S. President gives another State of the Union speech with vague assurances thta the U.S. will outbuild the rest of the world.

Yet he can't mention or do anything about the absurdity of the failure to properly complete the Washington D.C. freeway system.

Nor anything about the ruiniously expensive pharma-alcohol-cigarette market protection 'drug war' which burns countless funds that would be better spent upon transport infrastructure.

Such is what can be expected from 'leaders'who give speeches, while flanked by a pair of Roman fasces?

When Shall the U.S. Congress Extend I-395?

2010-12-21T19:26:00.014-05:00

Does the sudden shift in 'appointment' of national DC overlord suggest a tail that wags the dog of a top down dictate against those questioning the truncation of the Washington, D.C. freeways

Yesterday I open up the breakfast links of the blog Greater, Greater, Washington to see that D.C. may get a new overseer, Brian Bilbray (R-CA), that questions the truncation of the freeways:

This is my chance to say something about this. I was absolutely appalled when I came here in the 1990's and saw what appeared to be the gross abuses of local control by the local community. Freeways were not allowed to go through because of Ward politics. Maybe it is because I am a Californian that I can't comprehend the ability of politics to stop a freeway dead in its tracks, not just once but twice. Though, I have seen it happen.

Yet upon clicking on the link to the original Washington City Paper article that GGW points to, which has this above quote, it already has this update:

UPDATE, 1:30 p.m. - Whoops: Mike DeBonis is reporting that [Congressman] Bilbray's been removed from the Oversight Committee, which means we don't know who'll be in charge of the District's fate come January.

Reportedly this is because Bilbray has been given another assignment.

Perhaps this is just coincidential, but will any of the other possible candidates dare speak out against the status quo of why I-395 dead ends at New York Avenue, mere blocks from Washington, D.C.'s two largest transportation - industrial corridors -- despite local support for the tunnel concept extending at least to the vicinity of Florida Avenue - with the authorities considering a sole tunnel alignment that fails FHWA line of sight standards?

I-395 Extension Superior Option UNconsidered
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-395-extension-superior-option.html

I-(3)95 Extension Historic Overview
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-395-extension.html

Also see the tag "I-395 Extension"

Capping I-395 Center Leg To Reconfigure Ramps

2010-12-20T23:42:00.000-05:00

http://www.ldproperty.com/395_air_rights/image_5.php

Southbound I-395 ramp with unusual configuration preserving a continous curbside surface connection along 3rd Street NW and going underground before G Street, providing a more suitable environment better seperating local and express traffic

Project shall erect new buildings atop a cap atop the I-395 Center Leg Freeway southwards from Massachusetts Avenue NW, along with reconfiguring the freeway's access ramps.

This includes removing the southbound off-ramp (which is viewed as unneccessary since the freeway only starts just to the north at New York Avenue- owing to the wholesale freeway cancellations of the 1970s and early 1980s), replacing a Roman Catholic Church rectory, and again moving the Adas Israel Synagogue (now the Lillian and Albert Small Jewish Museum) moved to its present site about 1969 to accomdate WMATA subway related development.

Project shall reconnect G and F Streets across-atop the freeway, with G Street for pedestrians and bicylists, and F Street including vehicular traffic (with a full G Street connection impractical owing to the design of the northbound offramp).

Cap North Capitol Street

2010-12-13T00:57:00.008-05:00

Malcom Kenton provides this photo at Greater, Greater, Washington, with this caption:
"As I recently suggested, imagine this mini-highway decked over to become a tree-lined plaza framing the view of the Capitol dome"

Indeed at that earlier article, he writes:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/8321/make-north-capitol-street-a-true-gateway/
DDOT should begin by studying the cost, feasibility and impacts of decking over the dug-in portion of North Capitol between Rhode Island Avenue and T Street and creating an attractive public square — replacing a noisy eyesore with a neighborhood amenity. Should a full decking over prove prohibitively expensive, other more affordable aesthetic enhancements, such as covering the fences with native flowering vines, ought to be considered.

The planned park covering Dallas's Woodall Rodgers Freeway. Photo from the Dallas Observer
blog.

Converting highway corridors into public parks is becoming a trend amongst American cities. Boston exemplifies how greatly a city can be enhanced when an ugly highway corridor is put underground and converted into a well-designed park. Dallas also seeks to convert its Woodall Rodgers Freeway into greenspace.

Improvements to the North Capitol Street and New York Avenue intersection should also seek to address traffic bottlenecks. The ramp from southbound North Capitol onto New York Avenue, which is now used by two high-ridership Metrobus routes and several delivery trucks, is a notorious one. A redesign of this intersection that improves traffic flow, while also leaving space for a greenery or a public monument or fountain would greatly benefit this developing part of
the city.

Instead of a noisy, unattractive mini-freeway that benefits those driving through Bloomingdale, Eckington, Truxton Circle, NoMa at the expense of those who live along it, future residents and business owners and patrons could benefit from visual enhancements that complement the surrounding Victorian architecture and the view of the Capitol, while still allow traffic to flow smoothly. Turning this part of the North Capitol Street corridor into a desirable destination would generate benefits that could exceed the significant costs of remaking parts of the infrastructure.

Capping the depressed segments of North Capitol Street (the photo above is of the northern segment that crosses beneath Rhode Island Avenue NE) would convert them into cut and cover tunnels, expanding upon the efficency of the below ground cut with a roof to further the social benefits. As these are roads allowing and reconciling greater human activity within a given footprint, one could imagine environmentalist organizations favoring their construction- provided a philosophy of human growth.

Around 2005 District authorities conducted a study of the Truxton Circle area of North Capitol Street between the two depressed segments of North Capitol Street- that included an option for a cut and cover segment in this area effectively connecting the two existing depressed segments. IIRC, it did not surface or provide intermediate connections to the surface at Florida Avenue, with sparce consideration of such.

Nor, AFAIK has there been consideration of any other concepts for extending the depressed segment[s], let alone that for extending the 'cap'.

The two depressed segments appear to be a part of an upgraded North Capitol Street, that was planned to connect with the planned North Central and Northeast Freeways, as seen here (image), and here (image).

47 Years Ago Today

2010-11-14T00:00:00.008-05:00

November 14, 1963

JFK video I-95 dedication November 14, 1963

This was the day of his final press conference.

His I-95 dedication speech may be read here.

It was 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy who took an interest in the development of the Washington, D.C. freeway system, particularly regarding the north-south inside Washington, D.C. segment of planned I-95

JFK's Adminstration Gave Us the B&O Route North Central Freeway
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/jfk-administration-gave-us-b-north.html

JFK Adminstration Freeway System Other Aspects
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/jfk-administration-dc-freeway-system.html

JFK was apparantly more hands with the planning than predecessor Eisenhower
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/03/eisenhowers-burning-tree-commute-desire.html

JFK's B&O North Central Freeway Was Subverted

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-jfks-dc-north-central-freeway-was.html

Arizona Avenue Bridge to Chain Bridge Road- Unbuilt

2010-11-04T21:15:00.007-04:00

Discussed in a recent article at Greater Greater Washington.

Illustration from a 1957 Northwest Freeway Report.

Also see map of unbuilt Nebraska Avenue Bridge- 1952 proposal
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/12/early-1950s-plans.html

New York Avenue Traffic Triangle

2010-10-21T00:42:00.006-04:00

Of course the authorities have nothing regarding any tunneled extension of I-395, and only consider it with the 1996 'Ron Linton' routing with its substandard tight turning radii for the tunnel's curved segment for connecting to the existing I-395- SHAME on them!

The Un-Considered Superior Option

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-395-extension-superior-option.html

I-395 Extension History

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-395-extension.html

Washington, D.C.'s Supreme Bridge Builder

2010-09-06T01:13:00.018-04:00

Cancelled D.C. I-95 next to Catholic University of America

The canceled I-266 Three Sisters Bridge- pointing at Georgetown University

From Rulers of Evil, Tupper Saussy, chapter 1, ‘Subliminal Rome’ pp 4-6

Vatican II affirms Catholic doctrine dating back to 1302, when Pope Boniface VIII asserted that “it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be the subject of the Roman Pontiff.” This was the inspiration for the Papacy to create the USA that materialized in 1776, by a process just as secret as the Reagan-Vatican production of Eastern Europe in 1989. What? American government Roman Catholic from the beginning?

Consider: the land known today as the District of Columbia. Bore the name Rome in 1663 property records, and the branch of the Potomac River that bordered Rome on the south was called the Tiber. This information was in the edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia’s article on Daniel Carroll. The article specifically declaring itself of interests to Catholics” in the 1902 edition, was deleted from the New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967). Other facts reported in 1902 and deleted from 1967. For example, when Congress met in Washington for the first time in November, 1800, “the only two really comfortable and imposing houses within the bounds of the city” belonged to Roman Catholics. One was Washington’s first mayor, Robert Brennt. The other was Brent’s brother in law, Notley Young, a Jesuit priest.

Daniel Carroll was a Roman Catholic congressman from Maryland who signed two of America’s fundamental documents, the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. Carroll was a direct descendant of the Calverts, a Catholic family to whom King Charles I of England had granted Maryland as a feudal barony. Carroll had received his education at ST. Omer’s Jesuit College in Flanders, where young English speaking Catholics were trained in a variety of guerrilla techniques for advancing the cause of Roman Catholicism among hostile Protestants.

IN 1790, President George Washington, a Protestant, appointed Congressman Carroll to head a commission of three men to select land for the “federal city” called for in the Constitution. Of all places, the commission chose Rome which at the time consisted of four farms, one which belonged to ..,. Daniel Carroll. It was upon Carroll’s farm that the new government chose to erect its most important building, the Capitol.

The American Capitol abounds with clues of Roman origins. “Freedom”, the Roman goddess whose statue crowns the dome, was created in Rome at the studio of American sculptor Thomas Crawford. We find a whole pantheon of Roman deities in the great fresco covering the dome’s interior rotunda: Persephone, Ceres, Freedom, Vulcan, Mercury, even a deified George Washington. These figures were the creation of Vatican artist Constantantino Brumidi.

The fact that the national statehouse evolved as a “capitol: bespeaks Roman influence. No building can rightly be called a capitol unless it’s a temple of Jupiter, the great father god of Rome who ruled heaven with his thunderbolt and nourished the earth with his fertilizing rains. It it was a capitolium, it belonged to Jupiter and his priests.

Jupiter’s mascot was the eagle. ...

Fascism nay be an ugly word to many, but its stately emblem is apparently offensive to no one. The emblem of fascism, a pair of them, commands the wall above and behind the speaker’s rostrum in the Chamber if Representatives. They’re called fasces, and I can think of no reason for them to be there, other then declare the fascistic nature of American republican democracy. A fasces is a Roman device. Actually, it originated with the ancient Etruscans, from whom the earliest Romans derived their religious jurisprudence nearly three thousand years ago. Its an axe head whose handle is a bundle of rods tightly strapped together by a red sinew. It symbolizes the ordering of priestly functions into a single infallible sovereign, an autocrat who could require life and limb of his subjects. If the fasces is entwined with laurel, like the pair on the House wall, it signifies Caesarean military power.

The Romans called this infallible sovereign Pontifex Maximus, “Supreme Bridge-builder.”

No Roman was called Pontifex Maximus until the title was given to Julius Caesar in 48 BC. Today’s Pontifex Maximus is Pope John Paul II.

As we shall discover in a forthcoming chapter, John Paul does not hold that title alone. He shares it with a mysterious partner, a military man, a man holding an office that has been known for more then four centuries as “Papa Nero,” the Black Pope. I shall present evidence that the House fasces represent the Black Pope, who indeed rules the world.

Later, I will develop what is sure to become a controversial hypothesis, that the Black Pope rules by divine appointment, and for the ultimate good of mankind.

-------

An entity considered a supreme bridge builder, will conversely mean that entity is that which decides to build or not to build a bridge.

Who stopped Washington, D.C.’s Freeways? Jesuit connections, aka Fordham University
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-really-stopped-washington-dcs.html

Washington, D.C. Free Planning Hegelian Dialectic
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/1960s-washington-dc-freeway-planning.html

1964 Highway Routing Mystery
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1964-north-central-freeway-routing_08.html

The Significance of the Waffling
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/significence-of-waffling-on-b-north.html

A Sampling of Attitudes Towards D.C. I-95 (Jesuit-CUA attitude: Keep it far away from us)
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/sampling-of-attitudes-towards-dc-i-95.html

A Beholden Doctrine
http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2007/10/beholden-doctrine.html

Tupper Saussy- Continuing Counter Reformation
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/search/label/Tupper%20Saussy

Tupper Saussy- Finding the Lost - Continuing Counter Reformation
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2007/09/tupper-saussy-finding-lost.html

Tupper Saussy- Abiding Religious War (1 of 5) Continuing Counter Reformation
http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2007/09/tupper-saussy-abiding-religious-war-1.html

Another Fenty Boondoggle?

2010-08-21T00:25:00.006-04:00

Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty's ceremony on project that has its northwestern end overlap with USNCPC's recent I-395 Washington Channel Tunnel

a revised version of my message to this project's developer's web site:

From the illustrations on your web site it appears that the northernmost portion
encroaches upon U.S. National Capital Planning Commission's proposed I-395 tunnel.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-i-395-gateway-if-its-coordinated.html

What consideration has been given to ensuring that the development does not impact the tunnel?

Sincerely

Douglas Willinger
A Trip Within The Beltway

The numerous 'planning' faux pas with jamming the nearby Capital Square townhouses a mere 16 or so feet from the SWS Freeway retaining wall, and the Golden Rule senior citizens' apartment building in the path of the not yet employed northbound I-395 Center Leg Tunnel on ramp can only make one suspect the worst- that the building to the left will be driven into the ground with the utter contempt for NCPC's Washington Channel Tunnel, as much as Nationals Stadium did to the route of the previously proposed South Capitol Street corridor tunnel.

Apparently Washington D.C. is utterly lacking in any sort of prevailing political order worthy of displaying architectural tools as a logo.

See more:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-i-395-gateway-if-its-coordinated.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/search/label/Demolition%20Specials

The Fallacy of NOT Building the Diagonal South Leg Tunnel

2010-07-08T01:31:00.008-04:00

Pics of the Reflecting Pool, July 2010; note the spots of smaller trees along each side at about the location of this 'diagonal' route I-695 tunnel.

Adopted from:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/i-695-south-leg_18.html

In 1966, a new design for Washington, D.C.'s South Leg segment of the Inner Loop Freeway appeared. It featured a single continuous, 5,600 foot long West Potomac Park tunnel, constructed by the cut and cover method, upon a diagonal routing fully east of Lincoln Memorial traffic circle and partially beneath the Reflecting Pool. Because of its continuous length, this was the one option featuring ceiling ducts for a ventilation system. Under this plan, the surface roads in West Potomac Park were to be removed.

This design, initially pursued as a full tunnel alternative to the previous design, was approved by the National Capital Planning Commission on September 15, 1966, and recommended to the D.C. Board of Commissioners for implementation. However, this diagonal route tunnel proposal came under criticism by the Fine Arts Commission at a meeting on September 20, 1967, for reason of its destruction of two spots of mature trees that flank the Reflecting Pool, which would require more than a generation for transplanted replacements to grow to the same size as the removed trees. Hence, the D.C. Department of Public Works would back away from this design at a closed door, Tuesday meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission, reported by a Jack Eisen article in The Washington Post on October 30, 1969. Accordingly, for reason of entirely avoiding the trees along the Reflecting Pool, the earlier plan, regained its earlier status as the largely officially preferred plan. Ironically, while this tunnel was not built, the trees it would have displaced and replaced along the north side of the Reflecting Pool were displaced and replaced for other reasons.

New Hampshire Avenue B&O-PEPCO Connection

2010-06-21T21:35:00.024-04:00

Pics of the New Hampshire Avenue area portion of the inside the Beltway I-95 route between its PEPCO and B&O segments

New Hampshire Avenue at the southern end of the PEPCO corridor

New Hampshire Avenue at the northern end of its commercial strip

This entire commercial strip from the southern end of the PEPCO corridor to the MD-DC line is about 1,600 in length and encompases about 13 retail strip properties, including the auto parts store that was originally built as a supermarket.

A recent planning effort envisions redeveloping this strip with far greater density- a concept compatible with the highway, as the segment would be depressed and hence accomdatable for a deck atop.

Just inside Washington, D.C., the route would displace about 27 brick houses- the number being this low because of the large open space of the immediately adajacent field.

This field is a part of the property of the Masonic and Eastern Star Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue, reportedly built in 1905.

The freeway would be depressed, would not require demolishing either of the two main structures, and could be constructed as a cut and cover tunnel in order to preserve the field.

My studies of the history of the official inside the Beltway highway planning have yet to reveal any openly stated concerns by any Masonic Order, including Eastern Star regarding the route nor the idea of a cut and cover tunnel which, AFIAK, was not proposed anywhere along New Hampshire Avenue.

Inside The Beltway Wisconsin Avenue Grade Separation!

2010-05-21T01:01:00.004-04:00

Now being officially proposed:
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/exec/brac/pdf/mcdot_crossingproject-alt4-gradesep_diamondinterchange-051110.pdf

Would lower a portion of Route 355 Wisconsin Avenue.

How about one for the intersection to the south- perhaps with some urban deck?!

More on that here at Greater, Greater, Washington

Rhode Island Avenue Area Encroachment

2010-05-20T01:07:00.005-04:00

New development project encroaches upon B&O Metropolitan Branch 'Grand Arc' Corridor

New project with northernmost (Building 2) and METRO Garage structures definitely encroaching upon corridor right of way.

More on this project here.

About Grand Arc

A Telling Indifference

2010-05-15T01:02:00.024-04:00

Freeway cover (otherwise known as lids caps or decks) can block noise and pollution and reclaim land, yet the powers that be would rather push the burden away- as the Washington D.C. area reveals

As a historian of the Washington, D.C. freeway system, having made numerous observations as these, I have found surprisingly little if anything about the position of the two most important holders of property along D.C. I-95's most logical route: Catholic University of American, and the Masonic Eastern Star Order.

In particular I have yet to see anything about their position on the concept of the segments of freeway alongside the RR next to the former's campus, nor directly through the latter's Home property at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue NE, being covered - effectively reclaiming land providing space for various local amenities - while suppressing noise and potentially with emissions, particularly if properly ventilated and filtrated.

1966 Supplementary Study North Central Freeway alongside Catholic University of America

Note how this shows the area alongside the main CUA campus as covered as far north as Taylor Street.

1971 North Central Freeway

Note how this extends the cover further south to Rhode Island Avenue yet deletes the northern segment alongside the main CUA campus. While I have found a reference to the CUA heirarchey being officially neutral about the North Central Freeway itself, I have yet to see any reference to any such position on the cover, and its disappearance in the area alongside the main CUA campus.

1971 Northeastern Freeway PEPCO-B&O Route through the property of the Masonic Eastern Star Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue.

1971-1973 I-95 PEPCO Overview
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/11/pepcobo-i-95.html

1973 I-95 PEPCO Maryland Report
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/06/1973-pepco-i-95-extension-inside.html

I have yet to find anything about Masonic Eastern Star, say demanding that this segment be built as a cut and cover tunnel, prior to the cancellation of this 'PEPCO-B&O' route by Maryland, announced in July 1973

Stopping D.C. I-95 had its undeniable spill-over effect upon that segment of the I-495 Capital Beltway where the consequently missing I-95 gap was re-signed onto; that segment includes the Beltway's southern crossing of the Potomac River: the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. During the 1990s planning started upon the project to replace the existing 6 lane bridge with a pair of 6 lane bridges with corresponding wider approaches. As mitigation, this project was to include a cover atop a portion of this I-495 approach in Virginia; this cover or lid or cap was to be known as the Washington Street Urban Deck.

I would though find yet another expression of indifference to highway mitigation within the political halls at Alexandria, Virginia with their 11th hour deletion of most of the Washington Street Urban Deck that had been proposed to cover a 1,100 foot long segment of the I-495 Capital Beltway there.

Alexandria, Virginia Backroom Sell Out
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-could-have-been-said-backroom.html

What Others in Alexandria Got From Stealing the Urban Deck
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-others-got-from-siphoning-urban.html

Rubber Stamp U.S. NCPC March 2001
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-others-got-from-siphoning-urban.html

Rubber Stamp U.S. NCPC November 2001
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-things-went-at-us-nati_117295465376800441.html

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Stakeholders' Participation Panel on the Route 1 interchange and the Washington Street Urban Deck on August 26, 2000, overwhelmingly REJECTS proposal to shorten the deck
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/spps-august-26-2000-rejection-of-deck_13.html

The Alexandria City Council Lies Through Its Teeth- pretends that the August 26, 2000 meeting never occurred
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-happened-at-alexandria-city-hall.html

Promote a Good Idea- Alexandria then goes in reverse
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/alexandria-chop-job-on-urban-deck.html

The Shrinking Washington Street Urban Deck

My Alexandria Orb Proposal

Alexandria Orb brochure
showing successive shrinkage of the proposed Washington Street Urban Deck

reverse

The Alexandria Orb proposal was page one news, December 18, 2000 upon the Alexandria Journal and the Fairfax Journal.

Yet reaction within Alexandria, from my own observations were either of support or a stony silence- the latter tending to include the entire Alexandria City Council.

All of them would simply rubber stamp the deletion of some 80% of the proposed Washington Street Urban Deck, leaving places such as a restored Freedmen's Cemetery directly next to not parkland but instead an exposed 12+ lane segment of I-495: a decision that would be incredibly supported by every single established organization within Alexandria, accepted without any apparent debate, nor discussion, and all accepted unanimously.

AFIAK, publically, neither of the two most important property holders along this route, that of the George Washington Masonic Tower -- Alexandria's tallest buildings festooned with a giant compass and square -- and of St Mary's, immediately next to the I-495 approach to the Wilson Bridge[s] expressed any apparent interest in these decisions.

Nonetheless, all of this without debate, unanimous sort of political behavior may bespeak the dynamics of being yoked via membership into such fraternal entities, such as those found within the vast empire of organized Masonry.

Just shut up and be another jolly good fellow (yes man),
given an overpriced job as reward for loyalty and mediocrity.

George Washington Masonic Memorial,
Alexandria, Virginia's tallest building

1952 proposal in area of Alexandria, Virginia,
with George Washington Masonic Memorial Tower at left

The Significence of the Waffling on the B&O North Central Freeway

2010-05-15T00:37:00.009-04:00

The Failure to Commit to the B&O Route North Central Freeway

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/20http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif10/04/fallacy-of-not-building-dc-i-95.html

The negative popular response that subsided with the subsequent supplementary North Central Freeway engineering study released in November 1966 (that essentially followed the 1962 Kennedy plan), would be re-kindled by various officials waffling between the 1966 and 1964 designs, as late as 1968.

That included the supposed highway 'advocacy' of the Federal City Council, with its highly questionable prioritization against delaying highway construction, hence meaning supporting the 1964 plan over the 1966 plan in order to start construction a few months sooner. That amount of time, would be sufficient to reverse the official positions of the U.S. National Capital Planning Commission, and the D.C. City Council.

Letter to Maryland Governor Agnew, 1967 on how waffling on North Central Freeway planning was inciting opposition.

Citizens of Takoma Park and Silver Spring had reason for their demonstrations of bitter dissatisfaction with the highway authorities of your predecessor's administration. After we had been given reason to believe that the causes of our protests had been in at least some part overcome, the matter now threatens to break into renewed bitterness. I am sure you will wish to avoid this as much as many of us.

We showed that the methods of traffic projections which were claimed to justify the North Central were fallacious, the results in error by as much as 400 percent. Our contention was tacitly admitted in "re-studied" versions of the proposal made public last year, sharply reducing the original plan of 5 lanes each way.

The re-studied proposal also tacitly admitted that the route first proposed was needlessly, even carelessly if not ruthlessly, destructive of our communities. The new version hugged both sides of the existing Baltimore and Ohio railway, thus avoiding a new swath of destruction to divide our communities and sharply reducing the number of homes to be taken.

The reduced, re-routed proposal was made public last year with endorsement of D.C. And Maryland highway authorities. The D.C. Portion was forced through the National Capital Planning Commission by votes of representatives of the D.C. Highway Department and of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. From this we concluded, reasonably enough, that the highway authorities of the two jurisdictions (Maryland and D.C.) had reached a firm understanding with the Bureau of Public Roads.

Many of us were therefore astonished and aroused to preparations for renewed protests when Washington newspapers recently reported that the Bureau has acted to open it all up again. We have not found the Bureau forthcoming with candid information, but the press articles intimate an intention to force Maryland to accept modifications of route or design ostensibly "cheaper."

The result is that the whole controversy, which had been somewhat quiescent, is beginning to agitate the communities again. I can assure you this is so, for although I recently resigned chairmanship of the Metropolitan Citizens Council for Rapid Transit and write this simply as an individual citizen who wishes your administration well, I do remain in close touch with neighborhood sentiment on transportation-related issues.

The Fallacy of the Federal City Council's 'Support' for Washington, D.C. Freeways

2010-05-15T00:22:00.004-04:00

The Federal City Council’s Questionable ‘Support’ of D.C. Freeways
with 'support' as this, one can see why the highways did not get built!

Prioritizing opposing delays, meaning support for earlier far more destructive plans rather than wait a few months for an alternative plan.

The Federal City Council was founded in 1954, as an organization focused upon the planning of Washington, D.C. , ostensibly as an alternative to the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, Their web site boasts they involve themselves with the biggest projects – a claim juxtaposed with a picture of a statute of a lion, suggesting an indifference to smaller projects – with a mention of their supporting the construction of the WMATA subway system.

Its first major venture was the SW D.C. ‘urban renewal’ plan’ that included the SW Freeway.

Perhaps its most prominent official amongst the MSM is Donald Graham, executive publisher of The Washington Post: the newspaper that lies about the feasibilities of DC freeways, and which infamously did not report on the 1990s Extending the Legacy South Capitol Mall.

LINK- WP Lies About D.C. I-95

LINK- WP continues to Lie- false claim of 200,000 dwellings when it was but 1,065

LINK- Media Non-Reporting NCPC South Capitol Mall

LINK- Media Non-Reporting Abortion of NCPC South Capitol Mall

Given such a performance, Graham’s presence can hardly inspire confidence in the Federal City Council nor any other entity ostensibly devoted to Washington DC planning.

Unmentioned is their past questionable (Hegelian dialectic style) ‘support’ for constructing a fairly comprehensive inside the Beltway-Washington DC freeway system: note how I-95, I-66 and I-295 are truncated.

Such ‘support’ centered upon their opposition to *delaying* highway construction, as it meant going with highly unpopular, infinitely far more invasive highway designs/routings, rather then far more politically and environmentally sensible designs were on the drawing boards, was self defeating, as with the mystery of the political subversion of John F. Kennedy’s B&O Route North Central Freeway, which would have gone alongside Catholic University of America (which really did not want it anywhere near them, with CUA strangely silent on proposals to cover the freeway, and to this day opposes proposals to cover this railroad corridor, evidencing an attitude that they like CUA being isolated from the neighborhoods to the east), and such things as their opposition to the K Street Tunnel concept for cross-town D.C. I-66.

From Freeways in the National Capital Region, by the Federal City Council, April 1966

"... The delaying effects of these new questions extend throughout the entire proposed road network."

And to think that this would be more months before the November 1966 publication of the Supplementary North Central Freeway that essentially followed the John F. Kennedy prescription , and also featured the I-66 K Street Tunnel alternative.

The Federal City Council position was remarkably similar to the Little report except for their spin upon their pessimism, with the former decrying delays and the latter decrying the supposed impracticalities, such as the need to as a start further develop the design of the I-66 K Street Tunnel's connections with the other segments.

1960s Washington, D.C. Freeway Planning Hegelian Dialectic

2010-05-15T00:20:00.009-04:00

A Highway Program Designed to Fail

elements:

The 1964 deviation from the 1962 JFK B&O Route NCF concept- undermining public support for a freeway along the B&O corridor, alongside which the most important property is Catholic University of America, and the subsequent additions of design objections absent with the previous plans.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1964-north-central-freeway-routing_08.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1966-north-central-freeway-routing.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1971-north-central-freeway-routing.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/06/north-central-freeway-most-botched-most.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/05/telling-deletion.html

The mid-late 1960s ‘pro’ highway push from organizations as the 'Federal City Council' that prioritized opposing highway construction delays, hence, meaning support for earlier more impactive unpopular plans.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/fallacy-of-federal-city-councils.html

The mid to late 1960s waffling of various officials as late as 1968 to build the earlier (1964) versions of the North Central Freeway.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/significence-of-waffling-on-b-north.html

The lack of much discussion regarding proposals to cover portions of such proposed roads as the North Central Freeway, or the section of I-95 that would have run through the property of the Masonic Eastern Star Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue, for the PEPCO route alternative that only became the official route in Maryland between its July 1973 cancellation, and the February 1973 cancellation of the previous proposed routing via Northwest Branch Park that had been the plan since the late 1950s.

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/telling-indifference.html

JFK Administration D.C. Freeway System- Other Aspects

2010-05-14T17:09:00.013-04:00

A down sized, down scaled highway system

JFK Administration- November 1, 1962

It eliminated the high capacity (8 lane) cross town I-66 North Leg in a new swath alongside Florida Avenue and U Street, replacing said with a 4 lane depressed express street beneath Florida Avenue, ascending to grade at U Street though with depressed underpasses.

It eliminated the high capacity East Leg of the Inner Loop alongside 11th Street NE/SE, effectively replacing it with a spur along Eastern Avenue NE to the I-95 Northeastern Freeway.

It eliminated the Three Sisters Bridge

at page 25:

In the 1959 plan, Three Sisters Bridge was part of an intermediate loop (located between the Capital Beltway and the proposed inner loop) that virtually circled the city. The Agency's studies show no need for the portion of the intermediate loop between the Potomac Rover and The Soldiers Home area. Standing alone, the only purpose of Three Sisters would be to bring trucks and additional auto traffic from Fairfax and Arlington Counties into downtown. For that purpose the bridge is not required.

As of 1957, there were a total of 22 bridge lanes across the Potomac. Projects now under construction, or recently completed, will nearly double the number of lanes, as the following table shows:

The above table does not include the Old Highway Bridge, though the Virginia Department of Highways proposes that the bridge be used with reversible lanes. This would add still another two lanes in each direction for peak traffic.

The Agency proposes two rail rapid transit lines to Virginia, one of which would serve the Three Sisters Bridge corridor. Rapid transit service would not have have been provided in this corridor under the 1959 plan. With such service available, in 1980 a total of over 30,000 people - many of whom would otherwise be using their autos -- would use public transportation from Virginia into the District in the morning peak hour. This is 18,000 more people than use such transportation today, enough to fill 12 bridge lanes. Figure 14 shows the difference in growth of vehicular traffic across the Potomac and compares that with present traffic needs.

The result, as the following table shows, is that under the plan recommended by the Agency, central bridge capacity will be adequate for the needs of motorists in 1980 without Three Sisters Bridge.

This letter of John F. Kennedy illustrates a further evolution of his administration's freeway plans for Washington, D.C.

“…I noted that certain portions of the highway network within the District of Columbia required further study. The guidelines which I believe should be followed in this re-examination are as follows:

The re-examination should focus upon the sections of the highway plans which have from the beginning been the most uncertain and the most controversial- the North Leg of the Inner Loop and the Three Sisters Bridge, both of which involve the manner in which necessarily involve a re-study of those additional portions of the plan which are directly affected by the conclusions reached in the re-examination…”

“ the very large part of the highway program which is not under study can go forward as scheduled.”- John F. Kennedy letter June 1, 1963

Notably the June 1, 1963 JFK letter has him discuss the I-66 North Leg and the [I-266] Three Sisters Bridge as controversial and in need of further study.

Since his Administration’s November 1, 1962 report had down-scaled the former while unequivocally excluding the latter altogether, his June 1, 1963 letter can be taken to suggest that JFK had become receptive to considering some sort of road alternative to the previous North leg proposals, and to the Three Sisters Bridge in some form as parts of the future Washington, D.C. road network.

Proposed I-266 Three Sisters Bridge between Virginia and Washington, D.C.
pointing at Georgetown University

JFK Administration Gave us the B&O North Central Freeway Concept

2010-05-14T16:29:00.013-04:00

Recommendations for Transportation in the NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION Finance and Organization: A Report to the President for transmittal to Congress ,the NATIONAL CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY, November 1, 1962

at p 29:

The 1959 plan proposed three radial highways between downtown and Montgomery County and western Prince Georges County: one in Northwest, a second in North Central and a third in Northwest Washington. Considerable controversy has developed over all three routes, but in the Northwest has generated by far the most controversy.

It is the Agency’s view that the North Central and Northeast freeways should be brought into the District and joined as a single route connecting with the recommended downtown freeway system and that the George Washington Memorial Parkway be built as planned. This highway system and the high speed raid transit service in Northwest, North Central and Northeast Washington will more than accommodate predicted traffic

at p 44:

Routes 70S and 95 in the District of Columbia and Maryland

The Third Street Leg will be extended along New York Avenue to 9th Street, N.E. From there the route will turn and follow the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad tracks towards Silver Spring. This will be the means of bringing Interstate Routes 70-S and 95 into the city from Maryland and of serving the central and eastern portions of Montgomery County and the western portions of Prince Georges County. Freeway service between downtown and western Montgomery County will be provided by the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Potomac Freeway.

The North Capitol Street Expressway from Route 70S to downtown is an essential part of the freeway network in this area.

As pointed out in Chapter III, the combination of these freeways, improvements in arterial streets, and rail rapid transit lines in the northwest and north central corridors will provide all the capacity needed by 1980 for auto, truck and public transportation trips between Montgomery Counties and the District

Significance of Using B&O Route. [italics original] Use of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad corridor to bring Routes 70-S and 95 into the city is the key to meeting the need for additional highway capacity in northern Washington, Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges Counties and at the same time avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from construction of the Northeast, North Central and Northwest Freeway proposed in the 1959 plan. Further savings are realized by placing the rapid transit line to Silver Spring and Queen’s Chapel in the same railroad corridor.

B&O Route North Central Freeway in green
along the northerly Metropolitan Branch RR

Following this November 1, 1962 report, John F. Kennedy issued this letter dated June 1, 1963.
The John F. Kennedy letter of June 1, 1963 enumerates the cross town I-66 North Leg and Three Sisters Bridge as the most controversial segments require further study

The B&O Route North Central Freeway, which is not mentioned above as then being controversial, was about to undergo its initial engineering study, commissioned by the relevant authorities in Maryland and the District of Columbia, with its report released October 1964.

That report would seriously undermine the B&O route concept by essentially excluding it.

That report did not study a single option that followed the B&O RR for its entire route, instead it considered an upwards of 37 routes basically all over the map in a vast band between 16^th Street and the Masonic Eastern Star property at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue NE.

LINK- Highway Routing Mystery 1964

LINK- 1964 North Central Freeway

LINK- 1964 North Central Freeway Engineering Study

LINK- 1966 Supplementary Study Report North Central Freeway

JFK I-95 Dedication: November 14, 1963

2010-05-10T22:34:00.008-04:00

Outside the Beltway, between Baltimore, Maryland, and the Delaware line

http://www.jfrederickandsons.com/delawarehistory/1963.html

On November 14, 1963, President John F. Kennedy dedicated the Delaware-Maryland Turnpike, the first completed section of I-95. The ribbon-cutting event for the 59-mile strip of highway would be Kennedy's last appearance at a public works project, prior to his assassination eight days later. Delaware officials appearing with Kennedy were Governor Elbert N. Carvel and Representative Harris McDowell.

Also present, Robert Moses.

John F. Kennedy; 35th U.S. President

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9522

Remarks at the Dedication of the Delaware-Maryland Turnpike.

November 14, 1963
Mr. Moses, Governor Carvel, Governor Tawes, Congressman Fallon of Maryland, Congressman McDowell of Deleware, Mrs. Brewster, representing Senator Brewster, who stayed on the Senate floor today, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:
It is a pleasure for me to join the citizens of Delaware and Maryland in opening this new highway. This highway has been built by the dedicated effort of the citizens of these two States, and it joins a great interstate highway which represents a cooperative effort between the United States Government and the people of the various States, through which this long ribbon will pass.
It symbolizes, I believe, this highway, first of all, the partnership between the Federal Governement and the States, which is essential to the progress of all of our people; and secondly, it symbolizes the effort we have made to achieve the most modern interstate highway system in the world, a system which, when completed, will save over 8000 lives a year and $9 billion in cost. And third, it symbolizes the effort which we are giving and must be giving to organizing an effective communication system here in the United States of America.
No industry has a greater impact upon the Nation and no industry has a greater opportunity to affect our economic progress. This administration has proposed a new, comprehensive, national transportation policy, calling for an examination of the relationship between highways, rails, air routes, and water routes, and our goal is the development of the most efficient, economic, and the safest transportation system for all of our people.
Finally, this highway symbolizes a coordinated effort which is consistent with the approach which we must have to the problems in this section of the United States, for it may be only a few years when the whole area, stretching from Washington to Boston, will be one gigantic urban center. We have now undertaken a comprehensive study of all of the transportation needs which this area of the country will require in the coming years. But highway planning is not enough.
Already one-third of the people of the United States live in the 15 States through which this highway will pass. By the year 2000, these States will need to find housing and parks for 23 million more people, an increase of roughly 50 percent in less than 40 years. They will need schools for 6 million more of your children. They will need hospital and nursing homes for some 8 million men and women over the age of 65, compared to 4 1/2 million today. They will need to provide an additional 2 billion gallons of water every day.
So we must clean these rivers and we must get fresh water from salt water. These are some of the facts which the people of the Northeast must face, and the State governments must face them with them, and the Federal Government must take the lead. They may be facts which some would prefer to ignore. They may be facts which some would prefer to forget, but if the United States of America, and particularly the Northeast United States, these 15 States, are going to move ahead and provide a better life for the people of Delaware and the people of Maryland, and the people of the United States, then we are going to have to do something about it.
Because people several years ago made the plans and took the initiative, this highway is now being dedicated. I hope in the year 1963 we will again take stock of the needs of the country over the next decade and we will begin today, this year, this decade, the things which will make this country a better place to live in for the rest of this century.
I congratulate you, the people of Delaware, the people of Maryland, and the people of the United States.
Thank you.