NCPC Eco District to Lock in Existing I-395

A retreat from their 1998 plan to lower I-395 into a new tunnel beneath Washington Channel which essentially followed the extended Louisiana Avenue axis to a new 14th Street Bridge Potomac crossing.  This new plan instead covers the existing freeway, with buildings to the west of 9th Street SW, and solar panels to the east alongside the 28 notoriously close Capital Square townhouses between 9th and 7th Streets SW.  It would do nothing to add I-395 capacity nor eliminate its dangerous merges.

http://ncpc.gov/sites/default/files/SWEcodistrict%20Plan%20Summary.pdf

It would also cover portions of Maryland Avenue occupied by railroad tracks, and extend Virginia Avenue to the west of 9th Street SW.


See the 1998 proposal

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

A New I-395 Gateway- If It's Coordinated With New Development

A big "if" ...

New 14th Street Bridges
with tunneled vehicular connections to 14th Street and I-395

New I-395 tunnel segment to come with replacement of the existing 14th Street Bridges. Employs virtually the same alignment that I have proposed, though with a somewhat sharper curved transition to the existing SW Freeway then necessary.

Idea of revised ramp connections to 9th Street appears to require demolition of existing building at L'Enfant Plaza, which is consistent with desire to remove the "brutalist" 1960s-70s era architecture, and which would likely be eased by removal of the row of 28 townhouses that were irresponsibly placed only 16 1/2 feet from the existing SW Freeway retaining wall in 1999-2000 as the northern edge of the "Capital Square" residential project by EYI Associates between 0th and 7th Streets. With this occurring within sight of the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation, why did not these agencies object?

Beyond the sharper curved transition to the existing SW Freeway alignment, this NCPC plan differs from my conceptualization by lacking a split to a supplemental I-395 tunnel beneath G Street SW to ease constructibility (e.g. routing traffic- particularly during constructing the new connection to the existing SE Freeway alignment at 7th Street SW), while permanently providing additional capacity with a gentler curved connection to the north-south Center Leg (3rd Street Tunnel): easing a traffic bottleneck that customarily extends into Virginia.

The surface treatment differs with its lack of an extension of G Street SW towards the Jefferson Memorial providing some additional landfill to more integrate the area, and of a traffic circle at the 14th Street location of the I-395 tunnel portal. As I envision it, this new bridge/tunnel segment would be located on the extended axis of Louisiana Avenue.

This proposal also includes a new more literal "14th Street" Bridge -- together with the above mentioned new I-395 bridge -- crossing the Potomac River, with both having tunneled segment respectively to 14h Street and the SW Freeway. It also includes burying the railroad, preserving the existing railroad corridor but at a lower elevation accommodating a newly restored Maryland Avenue.

New development proposal by Hoffman-Struever Waterfront LLC

http://www.swdcwaterfront.com/

Yet will the authorities be able to control themselves to preserve the necessary easement for the new segment of tunneled I-395?

Or shall they place buildings directly in the path?

Boondoggles as "Capital Square", the "Golden Rule" apartment house, and a bit of the rush of development along the South Capitol Street corridor suggest the latter.

Final Approval for DC financing of Waterfront passed- SWDC Blog
A busy day for NCPC- Greater Greater Washington

National Capital Framework Plan- Continuing The Legacy

Something For Nothing

The authorities want to charge a toll on an utterly insufficient (and truncated) highway system, while out of hand dismissing any and all capacity increases.

If there is to be a toll, place it upon a new facility- namely the I-95 Grand Arc Mall Tunnel proposed by citizen writer Douglas A. Willinger since 1997.

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/20/2014.asp

DOT Pushing Commuter Tax for DC
Washington, DC visitors will soon pass through toll booths as federal officials continue the push to toll existing interstate freeways.

Commuters in the nation's capital are drawing closer than ever to paying a congestion tax, thanks to lobbying from the Federal Highway Administration. The agency has created a "toolbox of potential measures" to improve congestion in the area that essentially boils down to a single proposal: toll booths on the 14th Street Bridge.

The agenda from an agency meeting held Wednesday made it clear that improving capacity by widening the existing six-lane general purpose route is not an option. Aside from listed gimmicks such as "variable message signs" and "ramp metering" -- both of which are already present on the route -- the only significant options on the table involved tolling. To advance the concept of charging commuters, survey crews in unmarked vans have been photographing motorists at various locations after they had crossed into DC on the bridge over the past several weeks. The photographs allow officials to identify individual motorists using license plate recognition software and to calculate how much revenue can be raised from non-residents.

The 14th Street Bridge serves as the main access point between Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. Motorists would have no realistic free alternatives to enter the city under such a proposal. This would, in effect, revive the District's commuter tax, a two percent income tax levy on workers who lived in neighboring states. Congress blocked the fee in 1973, but for the past thirty years, city officials have looked for new ways around the law. In November 2005, a federal appeals court panel considered a District government lawsuit designed to reinstate the tax. Judge John Roberts, now chief justice of the Supreme Court, joined in the unanimous ruling upholding the 1973 law.

The US Department of Transportation likewise pushed commuter taxation by handing New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg $354.5 million so that he could set up an $8 tax on motorists entering Manhattan. This tax, following the lead of the London congestion charge, is expected to jump to $50 for the owners of politically unfavored vehicles like sports cars, luxury cars and SUVs.

View a copy of the toolbox document in a 149k PDF file at the source link below.

Source: Toolbox of Potential Measures (Federal Highway Administration, 10/9/2007)