Peter S. Craig: An Editorial Reply

The Washington Post Does Not Get It-
subverting transportation based upon lies

(excerpts)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

For more than two decades, Mr. Craig battled business interests, developers and members of Congress who wanted to build a bridge over the Potomac River to carry Interstate 66 into Georgetown and seven multilane highways, which would have destroyed more than 200,000 housing units, many in historically black sections of the city.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203176.html?sub=AR

CHRISTOPHER WREN, the great 17th-century English architect, whose many works dominated the London scene, had as his epitaph, "If you seek his memorial, look about you." Similar words might be fitting for Peter S. Craig, who died Nov. 26 at the age of 81, only in his case it would be what you didn't see that would mark his significance. ... [such as] a long-planned North-Central Freeway running through much of the eastern part of the city and over places where thousands of people live. In all, Mr. Craig and his allies succeeded in blocking about three-quarters of the interstate highway system once planned for the District....

There are still some who argue that the city made a major mistake when it blocked those highways. Most Washingtonians, we think, when they look about the city, with all its beauty and its history as community and national capital, would say otherwise.

The Washington Post reports he was a railroad attorney at Covington & Burling- something to think about concerning Washington, D.C.'s beauty, given the Posts' own expressed cluelessness convenient for diverting attention from the blight of to Washington, D.C. NE in the areas behind Union Station, with beauty in from, but ugliness behind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

Mr. Craig was working for the powerful Covington and Burling law firm in the 1950s, specializing in transportation regulation matters, when he became aware of plans to build a freeway from the Georgetown waterfront up Glover-Archbold Park and out Wisconsin Avenue into Bethesda, where it would have joined what is now Interstate 270.

Craig was also long involved with the “Committee of 100 on the federal City”- a private organization founded in 1923 by Frederic A. Delano, uncle to FDR and brother in law to Covington & Burling co-founder, railroad industry attorney Edward Burling. OK, so this law firm has a long history representing the railroad industry.

He got involved in 1959 when planning was going to bring a highwa, the I-70S Northwest Freeway, near his residence in Cleveland Park.

Why- the logic of the Wisconsin Avenue corridor as the most commercialized corridor spaced roughly midway between the Potomac River and the B&O corridor, & the barring of a highway allowing trucks via Glover-Archbold Park, leading to a search of alternatives, with a brief consideration of a Cathedral Heights Tunnel, before a 1958-59 route via a split at the top of Glover-Archbold for a parkway not allowing trucks, with an I-70S continuation via a separate route known as the Cross Park Freeway starting as a tunnel just north of Fannie Mae and the northern edge of the Sidwell Friends School property to parallel Tilden Street, skirting the northern edge of Cleveland Park and entering another tunnel crossing east of Connecticut Avenue and emerging to cross Rock Creek Park via a highway arc bridge before continuing as an open depressed freeway through Mt Pleasant, starting at , crossing 16th Street before turning south to parallel 14th Street continuing to an interchange with the open trench I-66 along U Street.

This highway would have displaced 74 dwellings along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor, about 8 to the east in or near Cleveland Park, and 100s if not 1000s to the east of Rock Creek Park. Whereas the 1959 version added the two tunnel segments in the Sidwell Friends/Cleveland Park area in addition to the Tenley Circle underpass, it would fail to even consider tunnel segments anywhere to the east of Rock Creek Park, limiting any options to merely depressed with sloped embankments or depressed with vertical retaining walls. From a preservationist standpoint, the most sensible opposition was that to the east of Rock Creek Park, with the least sensible being Bethesda, Maryland which ended up tearing out and replacing most of its downtown business district anyway via WMATA Red Line subway induced denser development that could and should have included an underground highway.

Its effective cancellation via the 1960 – Act mandating a moratorium on free planning for DC NW west of Rock Creek Park – via political pressure from the area with the fewest impacts testifies to the dominance of political affluence.

This did not mean that Peter S. Craig necessarily opposed other freeways within Washington, D.C.

During the early 1960s, Craig and the "Committee of 100" publically supported the concept of a “Y” route B&O railroad I-70S North Central Freeway featured by the November 1, 1962 Kennedy Administration White House report "Recommendations for Transportation in the National Capital Region; A Report to the President for transmittal to Congress by the National Capital Transportation Agency". Regarding that multi-model concept, the report stated:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2006/12/1962-national-capital-transportation.html

"avoiding the substantial relocation of persons, loss of taxable property and disruption of neighborhoods that would result from constrction 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."

The B&O corridor makes perfect sense not only as a railroad corridor providing a band of lightly developed industrial property, but also with its placement roughly midway between the Potomac River and the eastern portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway in Maryland.

It was consistent with a philosophy embodied in proposals made via Craig cir. 1962. Not for not buildings the highways. But rather for building highways instead more via existing corridors/right of ways, occasionally coupled with the idea of some short segments of these highways as tunnel.

I found two such proposals in perusing some of his papers and those of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City that are graciously made publicly available at the GW University Gelman Library Special Collections: constructing inside the Beltway Virginia I-66, not via the official route, but rather via a reconstructed fully grade separated Route 50 (already a major 4 – 6 lane artery generally flanked by service roads); and constructing the downtown D.C. north-south I-95 Center Leg (known today as the I-395 3rd Street Tunnel), not via the official routing via a swath cut via clearing a swath of buildings between 2nd and 3rd Streets, but instead as a pair of cut and cover tunnels respectively beneath 2nd and 3rd Streets. Obviously, neither idea was adopted, and I did not find any evidence of any official consideration.

Craig at times expressed favor for this concept for the Georgetown waterfront via removing and replacing the elevated Whitehurst Freeway with a tunnel within the existing right of way; in 1968 the Committee of 100 briefly proposed extending that tunnel beneath the Potomac – a Three Sisters Tunnel – to Virginia; they soon abandoned that idea due to the costs of drilling a sufficiently long tunnel to accommodate a sufficiently gentle grade transition for trucks, with Craig’s idea for a shorter tunnel only along the Georgetown waterfront being coupled with the idea of it being sufficiently reduced in capacity not to preserve anything but rather so that it would be useful to fewer.

Such was followed by Elizabeth Rowe with the I-66 K Street Tunnel proposal

The flip- said to have been guilted by Abbott. Since he strictly opposed freeways in NW, he would have to do the same elsewhere.

Its absurdity- was in response to a response to a bastardized program - came in the name of stopping white mans roads through black mans homes. The idea of opposing “white mans roads through black mans houses” could make sense: as such meant a road that would go through a less affluent area rather then a more affluent area, or through the latter without the extra mitigation of tunnels seen in more affluent areas. Such example of this include the 1955 Inner Loop design for I-66 different treatments west and east of New Jersey Avenue- to the west as trench, to the east as an elevated berm, the 1959 NW Freeway that Craig stopped which would have taken fewer then 100 from the Maryland line to Rock Creek Park, but considerably more to the east, with tunnels only for areas to the west, and of course the 1964 NCF report’s options. [This led to some intelligent things as the I-66 K Street Tunnel proposal via Elizabeth Rowe in 1965-66. ] But opposing such was hardly was synonymous as simply stopping freeways as that would simply kick the can elsewhere- a main consistency of the shifting polices of Craig and the Committee of 100.

He could have called for greater right of way efficiency and tunnelization for the highways within the western part of the inner loop.

He could also have done that with the NW Freeway proposing a different tunnel for its southern end. But AFAIK he did not.

He could have called for greater right of way efficiency and tunnelization for the highways within the eastern part of the east loop. Oddly to me, despite all of his opposition to say the Glover-Archibold Parkway I saw no indication he opposed the Northwest Branch Park routing for the I-95 Northeastern Freeway before he opposed the freeway outright, failing to apply the concept of reusing existing corridors in this instance with that giant PEPCO power line right of way to New Hampshire Avenue that would require only 13 retail strip properties, and clusters of 24 and 5 houses flanking a short jaunt through the open field of the Masonic and Eastern Star Retirement Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue NE to meet the B&O Route. Craig could have further applied such concepts to the B&O NCF. But AFAIK he did not.

Instead he took a course that would effectively be a “white mans road through black mans homes” – or area, depending upon if it displaced dwellings along the railroad corridor in Anacostia SE – via the Anacostia Freeway. If it had not displaced any homes, it would have simply been placing the traffic disproportionately through such areas by stopping both the NW Freeway and the NCF-NEF.

Craig's allies, the Committee of 100 did this with a 1968 proposal for re-routing inside the Beltway I-95 along a longer portion of the NWBP and Virginia 4 Mile Run.

It was SE and in Virginia that Craig's allied "Committee of 100" would soon promote receiving even more of the burden, with their work to cancel the B&O Route North Central Freeway, supplemented by their 1968 proposal for a longer routing of inside the Beltway I-95 via Northwest Branch Park bringing it directly to the Anacostia Freeway, with the Baltimore-Washington Parkway reconfigured to come directly into the I-295 East Leg of the Inner Loop, and with I-95 continuing via the Anacostia Freeway extended somehow across the Potomac River to Virginia and continue via the 4 Mile Run corridor to the existing I-95 Shirley Highway.

Illustration: 1968 proposal, Brookland houses, ECTC protests

All to avoid 69 post WW1 townhouses targeted by the 1966 plans at the western edge of Brookland from the west side of 10th Street NE to the railroad’s eastern side, all to the south of Monroe Street that crosses the railroad just to the south of Catholic University of America located immediately to the railroad’s west side along Brookland Avenue. These 69 dwellings, a fraction of that targeted by the 1964 and 1960 proposals which would have decimated Turkey Thicket and Brooks Mansion which the 1966 and later plans spared, were colorfully protested by ECTC- the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis, even after this number of 69 was reduced to 34 by a 1970 D.C. Department of Public Works design modification realigning the freeway closer to the railroad, and/or substituting its eastern side sloped embankment with a vertical retaining wall. Internet writer Mark Bentley, in misc.transport.road noted:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/review-of-1998-panel-freeways-in.html

Mr. Korr was followed by our own Douglas Willinger, who, in rather agonizing detail, laid out some of the literally dozens of alignments that were at one time or another planned for DC. The most horrifying was of course the Rock Creek Park alignment. By 1971, as we know, the alignment was almost entirely along mostly abandoned industrial corridors, and had gone from taking 4,500 homes to a whopping 69. But of course those 69 homes were worth saving, as they are today worth 1,017,391,304 each (225,000 commuters at $10/hr for 30 years spending an extra half hour on the beltway). The bargain of the century, in fact, in that you can buy one today (well, one that's remaining, several have been torn down anyway) for about $75,000. Not a bad return!

With only 34 rather the 69 that $1,017, 391, 304 figure is roughly doubled.

With only 11-14, that doubled figure is roughly tripled.

I did not find any discussion on how a longer route via a longer route along a more sensitive watershed area of Northwest Branch Park was necessarily more worthy then a more direct route via the existing railroad-industrial corridor, nor consideration of tunnel segments. Nor did I find anywhere near the amount of consideration that lead to the B&O NCF route concept in 1962, regarding whatever they gave to the Craig-Committee of 100 flip, against the B&O North Central Freeway by 1966 reportedly in response to Sam Abbott shaming him into eventually opposing any proposed freeway, never-mind the actual designs and consequences, all based upon the B&O North Central Freeway’s bastardization which lead to the rush of popular opposition.

Indeed, the idea of “white mans roads through black mans homes” a great deal of sense for a NCF that would displace 720/590 with options going as high as 2770/--- on the heels of cancelling a NWF that would have taken fewer then 100 dwellings to the west of Rock Creek Park, as opposed to simply the 1962 Kennedy Administration B&O Route NCF that as per the 1966 supplementary study would have displaced 372 within DC, of these 69 for the I-95 segment. That slogan made far less sense against the B&O concept due to its central location and status as an industrial corridor providing a swath of lightly developed properties.

Perhaps this was because such a mangling, such as that seen in 1964, was required to stoke the opposition, hence the political need to use the righteous opposition to the 1964 plan to inflame the passions against any NCF, and for purely selfish reasons.

Such appears to be the case, even after the release of the 1966 plan with officials waffling on the earlier plan through 1967 and as late as 1968. From a June 1, 1967 letter from Takoma Park, Maryland resident Duncan Wall:

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 jurisdiction cons (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 Governor of our State, you are in position better than we as private citizens to require straightforward answers from the Bureau of Public Roads.

You can also insure that the Maryland State Roads Commission refuses to go along with divisive proposals which these communities will regard as cause for new protests.

Such was sufficient time to stoke the opposition to get the DC City Council and the U.S. NCPC to flip their support to opposition.

Quote USNCPC 1968

Such fit with the pursued legal strategy, of declaring the freeway illegal for lacking support of the legally required government entities for approving additions and subtractions to the Washington, D.C. road network.- even as this was untrue as the Council voted to approve .--- and USNCPC had voted … supporting the NCF and East Leg – positions they would only change after much colorful protest by ECTC – the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis disproportionately centered upon the 69 WW1 era houses in westernmost Brookland nearest to the B&O railroad this one portion of the I-95 NCF displacing houses – in comparison to the 600+ late 1800s houses as per the 1971 plans for its connecting segment to the built portion of the I-95 (now I-395) Center Leg (3rd Street Tunnel) that was also required for the Route 50/logical I-66 east extension, and which remained on planning books for about a decade after the B&O NCF’s abandonment.

Indeed it was the 69 – reduced by a 1970 DCDPW revision to 34 – where Brookland meets the B&O railroad immediately across from Catholic University of America, and at the site of the officially proposed I-266 Three Sisters Bridge practically pointing at Georgetown University that marked the two hot spots of latter 1960s-early 1970s anti-freeway protests. Such strategy by the anti-freeway forces would be matched by such ostensibly pro-freeway forces as the Federal City Council – founded in 1954 as a sort of rival to the Committee of 100 – which in 1966 issued a report on the DC freeway system with a sufficiently heavy emphasis upon opposing delays sufficient to have it endorse building the NCF via the 1964 plan - good for saving perhaps a few weeks on the construction and perhaps cheaper if eminent domain is sufficiently abused by underpaying for properties then the additional retaining walls and tunnel roof segments of something true to the 1962 Kennedy Administration NCF – at the expense of literally splitting the town of Takoma Park Maryland.

Such useful blundering for increasing popular opposition to freeways in general continued not only via the 1964 reports betrayal of the 1962 Kennedy B&O NCF, and the waffling and support for the 1964 plan at least as late as 1968, but with the addition of new design objections with each subsequent official proposal useful for generating new opposition. The 1966 plan, though following the basic 1962 concept, changes the arcs of the roadway connections to and from the I-95 Northeastern Freeway to increase the footprint within Fort Totten Park- an issue that saw being brought up in 1966 just prior to the release of the supplementary study in November 1966 as a new objection. The 1971 plan does this same basic thing with its reconfiguration of the I-70S segment alongside the northwest edge of Takoma Park; though changing it to a cut and cover tunnel through the Takoma Station area between Piney Branch Avenue and Aspen Street, a definite improvement from the 1966 plan’s tightly aligned elevated segment flanking the existing elevated railroad, the 1971 plan places all 6 lanes of I-70S along the railroad’s eastern side, bringing it into direct conflict to displace the northernmost along the railroad’s east within Washington, D.C. landmark Cady Lee Mansion- something I found no mention within the Peter S. Craig and Committee of 100 papers, though nonetheless certainly a potential flashpoint for generating opposition. Further helping sustain this opposition was the slowness of the DCDPW in adopting the K Street Tunnel alternative for I-66.

Such blundering would be the thesis of the antithesis of the openly opposing ever more doctrinaire anti freeway sentiment that under the guise of opposing “white mans roads through black mans homes” even opposed such things as an I-66 K Street Tunnel via some accompanying sentiment against people outside one’s immediate neighborhood – commuters – sufficiently parochial to have people forget how such an attitude would work against them anywhere they went out of their immediate neighborhood. …

In the middle were some people making an effort to serve the most by making design suggestions. The leader of the Shepard Heights[?] Neighborhood Association for instance questioned the need for a 3 sisters bridge while favoring new bridges connecting D.C.’s Eastern Avenue to SE and another to Virginia, and B&O I-95 which he proposed be redesigned to spare the 69 or 34 houses in Brookland via being elevated directly over the railroad, taking advantage of the area immediately to its west south of and by extension alongside CUA. The Urban Freeways Committee of the National Urban League would propose an alternative plan for the easternmost segment of the I-66 K Street Tunnel, by having it at Mt Vernon Square swing to beneath New York Avenue and continue to and east of the Center Leg (3rd Street Tunnel), this New York Avenue Tunnel intercepting I-95 as well. Yet their voices were eventually drowned out in a environment being dominated by theatrics and threats with ECTC reportedly being to riot by Covington & Burling at DC City Council meetings.

Council and NCPC votes 1969 1970

The NCF was 1st to disappear from official DC planning, though effectively remaining in that of MD until July 16, 1973.

Then I-266.

Then the I-66 K Street Tunnel

Then everything else but the Center Leg to New York Avenue and then the North Leg east tunnel to 1st street NE. then that, and then the leaving only Center Leg to New York Avenue, completed in 1986 with a set of added walls reducing its capacity in half- while not saving a single dwelling. IOW, a message of lets benefit fewer people for the benefit of fewer people.

Cancelled under the name of opposing “white mans roads through black mans homes”, the D.C. freeway system as planned by 1971 would have displaced a small fraction of the earlier designs: 148, 600+, 172 for completing the full Inner Loop, plus 59 for B&O/PEPCO I-95 and 303 for I-70S. Granted this could have been further improved significantly be redesigning the connecting segment along New York Avenue, as with my own redesign that reduces the displacement figure of 600+ residences along New York Avenue between New Jersey Avenue and North Capitol Street to as few as 34 all situated between New Jersey Avenue and 4th Street, south of N Street., via a gentler radii tunnel arcing beneath the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and N Street and ultimately connecting to the Grand Arc Mall Tunnel.

Such would be a far better memorial in honoring the positive side of Craig’s actions in preserving neighborhoods – although I have yet to see an ECTC or the “Committee of 100” mention or protest of the 600+ residences along New York Avenue between New Jersey Avenue and North Capitol Street, nor show any interest in extending Washington, D.C.’s monumental core beauty to the area to the relative ugliness of the area to north of Union Station- as I guess can be expected from the sort of doctrinaire anti-freeway, anti-questioning existing railroad design emanating from an attorney and a law firm well connected to the railroad industry, Covington & Burling.

The Washington Post Continues Lying About D.C. Freeways

From The Washington Post obituary of Peter S. Craig:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

For more than two decades, Mr. Craig battled business interests, developers and members of Congress who wanted to build a bridge over the Potomac River to carry Interstate 66 into Georgetown and seven multilane highways, which would have destroyed more than 200,000 housing units, many in historically black sections of the city.

This 200,000 dwellings figure is something the Post repeats from its error ridden November 2000 article, which was refuted in the newsnet group misc.transport.road, by participants including Scott M. Kozel, and in a Post forum since made unavailable. It is something that the Post has simply ignored any requests for them to publish a correction, and something they grossly misreported with that November 2000 article's map with the false depiction of the I-95 Northeastern Freeway route.

The Posts' characterization is misleading not only in the number, but in presenting it as static, when in fact the proposed freeways underwent significant routing and design revisions to reduce impacts via the greater use of existing right of ways and of tunnels for pollution containment and land reclaimation. It mentions for instance a North Central Freeway routed via a new swath paralleling the Georgia Avenue corridor, displacing some 4,000 dwellings- in fact the variant of this 1959 proposal appearing within the initial North Central Freeway engineering report in 1964 with the most residential displacement was option #4 "Sherman, 8th Street, Ritchie, Sligo" with figures of 2,770 within D.C., and 440 within Maryland.

But it fails to tell the readers that such a concept was explicitly rejected by the Kennedy Administration, which instead proposed for that highway a tight alignment along the B&O Metropolitan Branch Railroad, which is Washington, D.C.'s sole north-south transport and industrial corridor located roughly mid way between the Potomac River and the eastern north-south portion of the I-494 Capital Beltway.

It fails to mention the 1962 Kennedy initiative, and blurs the history by failing to go into the history of the design evolution of the B&O Route North Central Freeway- for instance not mentioning how the North Central Freeway was effectively sabotaged via the initial engineering report -- dated October 1964 -- disregarding the Kennedy administration idea of the North Central Freeway strictly hugging the B&O railroad together by this report excluding it while presenting an upwards of 37 preliminary and alternative routes[- see plates] mainly nowhere near the railroad, with a recommended route that deviated sharply from the railroad through Takoma Park, Maryland, taking 471 houses in 1 mile where strictly following the railroad would be a fraction of that, that followed the railroad elsewhere just enough to help derail the highway altogether. It fails to mention that it took another two years for the supplementary report to appear that essentially followed the Kennedy idea, yet which was continually sabotaged by officials refusing to commit to it, and such highway "advocacy" as that of the Federal City Council, which only weeks earlier issued a report calling for the North Central Freeway's construction via the earlier 1964 design simply to save some time and money. According to a letter to Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew from Takoma Park resident Duncan Wall dated June 1, 1967- excerpt:

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 jurisdiction cons (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 Governor of our State, you are in position better than we as private citizens to require straightforward answers from the Bureau of Public Roads.

You can also insure that the Maryland State Roads Commission refuses to go along with divisive proposals which these communities will regard as cause for new protests.

It furthermore fails to discuss the evolution of the I-95 Northeastern Freeway connection from the B&O Route to the I-95 'stumps' at the Beltway via the 195os decision to route it via the more sensitive closer watershed area of Northwest Branch Park in Maryland then that existing 250 foot wide right of way that conveniently parallels I-95 at and beyond the Beltway that would be ignored by official highway planning -- and apparently even the opposition -- until about 1971.

By so blurring the history, it increases the likelihood of confusion between say, 1,095, the figure for completing I-95 from the Maryland line to roughly along the B&O corridor though veering significantly into Brookland along 12th Street as per the 1960 proposal, with that of 1,166 for completing the entire system via the 1971 design, with figures of 148, 600+*, and 172 for the three areas along the downtown Inner Loop segment with displacement, and with a figure of 59 for completing I-95 from the Capital Beltway to just north of New York Avenue via the B&O-PEPCO combination. That figure of 59 includes the cluster of about 24 and about 5 along the northern side of New Hampshire Avenue flanking that large open field of the Masonic Eastern Star Home, just inside D.C., and the 34** at the western edge of Brookland. The I-70S portion of the B&O Route North Central Freeway as per the 1966 supplementary study would have displaced 303 dwellings [372 total NCF - 69 of I-95 segment] within D.C., and 163 *** in Maryland, a reduction from the figures of 720 and 590 for the infamous 1964 "recommended alternative" #11 "Railroad-Sligo East" proposal.

*the 600+ figure is reducible to as few as 34 via my superior alternative employing a some 1,400 radii transition cut and cover tunnel passing beneath the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and N Street, taking advantage of the convenient placement of the Dunbar HS building that seems to me as if it was situated for this very purpose, and transitioning to a multilevel tunnel beneath O Street to its junction with New York Avenue. This alternative entirely bypasses the stand of Victorian development extending from the southwest quadrant of New York Avenue and North Capital Street to New Jersey Avenue, minimally requiring displacement only within the area immediately west to the east side of 4th Street NW between N and M Streets, while sparing those prettier dwellings along M Street nearest to New Jersey Avenue, while providing a greater -- gentler -- tunneled turning transition radi then the 1971 design that had a 50 mph design speed.

**the 34 figure is reducible to about 11 if a portion of the highway is shifted to the railroad's immediate west side which has a generous amount of underutilized industrialized space. (However a development project just approved for this area includes a structure that is directly in the way -- IOW a 'demolition special' -- named the "Arts Walk". Meanwhile, further development along the railroad-industrial corridor promises to place 100s of new 'demolition special' dwellings, with official planning abandoning the idea of at least decking over a short stretch of the railroad.)

***the 163 figure is reducible qualitatively by a redesign that extends the idea of cut and cover tunnels that the 1966 supplementary study report shows alongside Montogomery Community College, further south beneath Takoma Avenue preserving the entire row of Victorian houses that face the railroad that both the 1966 and 1971 plans would have destroyed, along with preserving the sanctity of the landmark Cady Lee Mansion that the 1971 design displaced via replacing the 1966 plans configuration of 3 lanes in each direction flanking the railroad, with that instead placing both directions along the railroad's east side. (The 1966 plan's mainline would miss the houses to the north along Takoma Avenue but the open depressed design would push the replacement Takoma Avenue into the houses). However, the cir. 1966 construction of the Montgomery Gardens apartment complex -- located all the way up to the very edge of the RR's western side created a right of way chock at the expense of the Victorian structures that were built a century earlier with a sensible amount of set back allowing cut and cover highway tunnels.

Hence, if right of ways are preserved, and the designs are so further developed, completing I-95 through Washington, D.C. and all the way to the Capital Beltway in Maryland would displace as few as 74 dwellings- which was about the number that would have been taken for the D.C. Wisconsin Avenue corridor portion of the late 1950s NW Freeway.

The Washington Post Lies Again

Completely misrepresents Washington, D.C. area transportation situation by implying that WMATA is severed by highways when in fact the highways were largely un-built to sped WMATA construction by a few months.

The Washington Post gets it wrong again (in Raw Fisher)

The Whale Has No Famous Author

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2006/12/the_whale_has_no_famous_author.html

Hunt dares to wonder how the city might have developed had the Three Sisters Bridge been built from Spout Run in Arlington into Georgetown over the objections of preservationists in the 1960s. The I-266 highway that was never built would have involved a tunnel beginning at the western end of K Street and continuing under the State Department, Federal Reserve, White House and much of downtown. While that project would obviously have obliterated some lovely bits of Washington, Hunt asks whether the stunted bits of highway that we're left with in various spots around the city have turned out to be more damaging than if the interstate system had been built as originally proposed.

"The I-266 highway that was never built would have involved a tunnel beginning at the western end of K Street and continuing under the State Department, Federal Reserve, White House and much of downtown. While that project would obviously have obliterated some lovely bits of Washington, Hunt asks whether the stunted bits of highway that we're left with in various spots around the city have turned out to be more damaging than if the interstate system had been built as originally proposed."

There was never a tunnel planned to go under the State Department or the White House, etc.

There was a tunnel to be under K Street to turn along New York Avenue; the K Street tunnel itself would have taken zero buildings.

The Washington Post needs to get a fact checker.

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

Bob and Jane Levey Refuted

The November 2000 article in The Washington Post Magazine got publicly discussed in the newsgroup misc.transport.road

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: "Scott M. Kozel" ...@mediaone.net>

Date: 2000/11/27

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

Scott Kozel

> From the Washington Post Magazine:

The _Washington Post MAGAZINE_ is a Sunday magazine supplement with
opinion pieces, delivered with the _Washington Post_ newspaper.

> Instead, the Washington area got Metro-all $5 billion and 103 miles of
> it. Much of the money had been earmarked for interstate highways It was
> diverted to subways.

The final cost to construct Metrorail has reached $11 billion. It would
be remiss not to mention that 60 miles was placed under contract
1969-1980, including the bulk of the underground mileage, and that the
cost in 2000 adjusted dollars would be $22 billion or more.

The D.C. Interstate highway money transferred from canceled highways to
Metrorail construction was $2 billion, and the transfer took place in
the late 1970s, using the then-estimated costs of the canceled D.C.
Interstate highways and Maryland and Virginia connections.

> Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any
> other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were
> saved from destruction.

That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. Washington (the District
of Columbia) had about 750 thousand population in the 1960s and 1970s
(less now), so "more than 200,000" would be over two-thirds of all
housing units in the city. Baloney, any way you slice it.

> So were more than 100 square miles of parkland around
> the metropolitan area.

That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. That would be equal to a
10-mile by 10-mile square, or about the entire area of D.C. and
Arlington. There is nowhere near that much parkland in the metropolitan
area.

The cost estimate to complete the full District of Columbia Interstate
system (I-66, I-95, I-266, I-70S, I-295, I-695) was under $2 billion if
it had been built in the 1970s. This cost included the portions of I-95
and I-70S (today's I-270) from the D.C. border to the I-495 Capital
Beltway in Maryland, and the portion of I-266 in Virginia.

This included 3,650 job displacements, and 1,166 occupied dwelling unit
displacements, with extensive construction of (perhaps total)
replacement housing. The 1971 study book shows plan views of many
nearby places with proposed replacement housing, replacement local
shops, new community centers, new commercial centers, new industrial
parks, and replacement recreational parks. It looks like a good plan
was in place to replace the residences, businesses and parkland that
would have been displaced by the new freeways.

Sources: The design study, _District of Columbia Interstate System_, by
DeLeuw, Cather Associates and Harry Wesse & Associates, LTD, 1971,
prepared for the District of Columbia Department of Highways and
Traffic, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation,
Federal Highway Administration. This was the last official preliminary
design for the D.C. Interstate system. Several copies are at the Martin
Luther King, Jr. Library (the D.C. city library), which is near the
Gallery Place Metrorail station.

See --

Washington D.C. Interstates and Freeways
http://www.roadstothefuture.com/DC_Interstate_Fwy.html

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

e

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: "Scott M. Kozel" ...@mediaone.net>

Date: 2000/11/27

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

"Kenneth Dancy" wrote:

> "Douglas A. Willinger" ...@idt.net> wrote:

> > Maybe if you add up all of the alternative alignments studied for a
> > road; for instance, the early study (1963-64) for the North Central
> > Freeway considered about 30 different though overlapping routes, thoe
> > worst of which would have taken about 4,100 homes in the District.

> > But only one of them would have been built, so I am at a loss to explain
> > the 200,000 number. (Outside the District is less built up, so again, I
> > can not explain this, especially considering that the article was about
> > D.C.)

> Lost Highways Article in Washington Post Magazine dated
> 11-26-2000)>:
> Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any
> other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were
> saved from destruction. So were more than 100 square miles of parkland
> around the metropolitan area.

I already specifically replied to that quote, and refuted it. Those
figures are absurd by over two orders of magnitude.

> The city was spared from freeways bored under
> the Mall, freeways punched through stable middle-class black neighborhoods,
> freeways tunneled under K Street, freeways that would have obliterated the
> Georgetown waterfront and the Maryland bank of the Potomac.
>

Those quotes are mostly wrong too.

The only planned freeway tunneled under the Mall was built by 1973, the
3rd Street Tunnel (I-95 then, I-395 now).

The final 1971 plan did not "punch" though any neighborhoods, unless in
one case the New York Avenue area would be considered, but that was a
very dilapidated area then, and was designated a redevelopment
district. It is still mostly empty today.

I-66 in the final plan was planned to be tunneled under the 147-foot-wide K Street, a wise plan.

The comment about the Georgetown waterfront really was not true, since
the existing elevated Whitehurst Freeway there would have been widened.

The George Washington Parkway was built on the Maryland bank of the
Potomac by 1970, and no further highways were planned there.

> My interpretation is that the 200,000 is DC only, based on previous sentence
> referring to city borders. 100 sq miles refers to metropolitan area.

I think that both quotes were clearly as you say.

> It would be great if someone from mtr wrote about this to Letters of Washington
> Post magazine, preferably Douglas or Scott.

I think we should. As I pointed out in my first post, I clearly
differentiated the _Washington Post MAGAZINE_ from the _Washington Post_
NEWSPAPER. The magazine is essentially opinion pieces.

Actually a lot of the people, events and stages seemed accurate in the
article. It is a shame that they posted some key "facts" that seem so
obviously wrong in favor of smearing the D.C. Interstate system.

> My take is this: That the issue of racism playing a part of the DC freeway
> building would have been less of an issue if they had built I-70S in the
> original NW DC Bethesda corridor instead of moving it to NE DC. They also
> lost a big opportunity to build when it would have been a lot cheaper to do
> so. Now the 2 billion dollar figure seems tame compared to projects that
> are done now, such as Springfield interchange and Wilson Bridge.

With increases in the heavy construction consumer price index, triple
that to $6 billion in 2000 dollars.

> Douglas make a good point that cancelling I-95 through DC and MD, led to
> overuse of Springfield interchange and Wilson Bridge. Those structures
> would have lasted longer with I-95 through DC.

Still, the $2 billion was available in the 1970s, and even building just
I-95 alone for about half that price, would have perhaps obviated or
greatly reduced the needed improvements at the Springfield Interchange
and Wilson Bridge. The Wilson Bridge improvements needed today might be
limited to adding one lane each way to the WWB to make it 8 lanes, with
little or no needed improvements to the nearby interchanges and approach
highway. IOW, we might be spending $400 million today instead of $2
billion at the WWB.

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: "Kenneth Dancy"

Date: 2000/11/27

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

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"Douglas A. Willinger" ...@idt.net> wrote in message
news:3A229B01.38B354F3@idt.net...

- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

> Ron Newman wrote:

> > In article <3a219f95.d2143...@mediaone.net>, "Scott M. Kozel"
> > ...@mediaone.net> wrote:

> > > > Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders
than any
> > > > other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units
were
> > > > saved from destruction.

> > > That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. Washington (the
District
> > > of Columbia) had about 750 thousand population in the 1960s and 1970s
> > > (less now), so "more than 200,000" would be over two-thirds of all
> > > housing units in the city. Baloney, any way you slice it.

> > Is it possible that 200,000 is the number of housing units saved
throughout
> > the metropolitan area, not just within the District?

> Maybe if you add up all of the alternative alignments studied for a
> road; for instance, the early study (1963-64) for the North Central
> Freeway considered about 30 different though overlapping routes, thoe
> worst of which would have taken about 4,100 homes in the District.

> But only one of them would have been built, so I am at a loss to explain
> the 200,000 number. (Outside the District is less built up, so again, I
> can not explain this, especially considering that the article was about
> D.C.)

Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any
other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were
saved from destruction. So were more than 100 square miles of parkland
around the metropolitan area. The city was spared from freeways bored under
the Mall, freeways punched through stable middle-class black neighborhoods,
freeways tunneled under K Street, freeways that would have obliterated the
Georgetown waterfront and the Maryland bank of the Potomac.

My interpretation is that the 200,000 is DC only, based on previous sentence
referring to city borders. 100 sq miles refers to metropolitan area. It would be great if someone from mtr wrote about this to Letters of Washington Post magazine, preferably Douglas or Scott.

My take is this: That the issue of racism playing a part of the DC freeway building would have been less of an issue if they had built I-70S in the original NW DC Bethesda corridor instead of moving it to NE DC. They also lost a big opportunity to build when it would have been a lot cheaper to do so. Now the 2 billion dollar figure seems tame compared to projects that are done now, such as Springfield interchange and Wilson Bridge. Douglas make a good point that cancelling I-95 through DC and MD, led to overuse of Springfield interchange and Wilson Bridge. Those structures would have lasted longer with I-95 through DC.

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: "Scott M. Kozel" ...@mediaone.net>

Date: 2000/11/27

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

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rnew...@thecia.net (Ron Newman) wrote:

> "Scott M. Kozel" ...@mediaone.net> wrote:

> > > "Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any
> > > other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were
> > > saved from destruction".

> > That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. Washington (the District
> > of Columbia) had about 750 thousand population in the 1960s and 1970s
> > (less now), so "more than 200,000" would be over two-thirds of all
> > housing units in the city. Baloney, any way you slice it.

> Is it possible that 200,000 is the number of housing units saved throughout
> the metropolitan area, not just within the District?

No (*), and the article specifically referred to the city of Washington
itself (see above). I quoted the official figure in my last post for
the 1,166 dwelling unit displacements for the canceled D.C. Interstate highways, and that included the canceled connecting segments of those
highways in Maryland and Virginia (I-95, I-70S, I-266).

(*) In 1970 the metropolitan area had about 2.5 million people, so "more
than 200,000" would still be about 25% of all dwelling units in the
metropolitan area. I was being nice when I called it "baloney".

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C.http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

(Ron Newman) wrote:

> Robert Cote ...@gte.net> wrote:

> > > I didn't know that. Can you provide a pointer to this other
> > > forum?

> > Yes.

> > http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/00/levey1127.htm

> I don't see a retraction there. I see a statement that the
> 200,000 applies to the entire metro area, not just the District
> (pretty much what I asked in the first place).

1970 metropolitan population - 2.4 million.

That is about 25% of all dwelling units in the metropolitan area.

Impossible

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: Robert Cote ...@gte.net>

Date: 2000/11/29

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

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In article <903jnh$j2...@news1.Radix.Net>, "Kenneth Dancy"

- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

wrote:
> "David Jensen" ...@dajensen-family.com> wrote in message
> news:s7ja2tc3djsen2478u4ibtapnc3faov87j@4ax.com...
> > On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 08:49:29 -0800, in misc.transport.road Ross
> > Williams ...@iname.com> wrote in
> > ...@4ax.com>:

> > >On Tue, 28 Nov 2000 18:22:32 -0500, rnew...@thecia.net (Ron
> > >Newman) wrote:

> > >>In article ...@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net>,
> > >>Robert Cote ...@gte.net> wrote:

> > >>> > >Is it possible that 200,000 is the number of housing
> > >>> > >units saved throughout the metropolitan area, not just
> > >>> > >within the District?

> > >>> > Likely in fact since I don't see any reason that someone
> > >>> > would evaluate a regional decision based on its impact
> > >>> > within a narrow political boundary.

> > >>> Amazing since the author has already retracted the specific
> > >>> claim in another forum.

> > >>I didn't know that. Can you provide a pointer to this other
> > >>forum?

> > >If anyone wonders why I no longer read Cote, here is the
> > >"retraction":

> > >"Silver Spring, Md.: Was there a typographical error in your
> > >statement "More than 200,000 housing units were saved from
> > >destruction."? In a city of roughly 600,000, that would mean
> > >that one of every three residents would have had their
> > >"housing unit" destroyed by highway construction. I find that
> > >very hard to believe.

> > >Bob Levey and Jane Freundel Levey: That figure referred to
> > >housing units across the metropolitan area, not just in the
> > >city.--Bob "

> > But they still pulled it out of thin air and, because of that,
> > have not been able to provide references to either the 200,000
> > housing units or the 100 sq. miles of parkland.

> > At what point do ignorant exaggerations become lies in your
> > book?

> They should just admit that the numbers are incorrect. The fact
> that they apply the 200K to the larger metro area does not make
> it correct. There have been other posts that imply that this
> figure is also preposterous.

Where is the newspapers' fact checking staff on this? Ross is
excused from his leaping to conclusions, his blind hatred of anyone
who dares question his opinions as facts makes his comments
worthless. I'm concerned with this blatant historical revisionism
that neither the authors nor publishers seem interested in
correcting. Is there some sort of Anti-Pulitzer Prize for the worst
examples of published journalism? We could call them Rossies.

I nominate the Washington Post for the first ever Rossy Award.
Their blatant disregard for factual content in the field of
transportation policy and recent historical FAct is a shining
example of agenda masquerading as information.

David Jensen wrote:

- Hide quoted text -

>On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 08:14:42 -0500, rnew...@thecia.net (Ron Newman) wrote:

>>In article <3a219f95.d2143...@mediaone.net>, "Scott M. Kozel"
>>...@mediaone.net> wrote:

>>> > Today, Washington has fewer miles of freeways within its borders than any
>>> > other major city on the East Coast. More than 200,000 housing units were
>>> > saved from destruction.

>>> That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. Washington (the District
>>> of Columbia) had about 750 thousand population in the 1960s and 1970s
>>> (less now), so "more than 200,000" would be over two-thirds of all
>>> housing units in the city. Baloney, any way you slice it.

>>Is it possible that 200,000 is the number of housing units saved throughout
>>the metropolitan area, not just within the District?

>Likely in fact since I don't see any reason that someone would evaluate a
>regional decision based on its impact within a narrow political boundary.
>But Scott's point is he doesn't like what was said - whatever contradicts
>his world view is BALONEY!

- Show quoted text -

This one is worse than baloney. I expect that the Washington Post will
be correcting their error soon.

Let's try a reality check: 100 sq. miles will support more than 2,000
miles of 8-lane freeway. It would take more than 1,000 miles of 8-lane
freeway to destroy 200,000 residences. Most of the miles in the metro
area were built. We know what the impact was.

The authors do not have any evidence to support their assertion. I've
asked for it. They have not provided it yet, because it doesn't exist

.

Newsgroups: misc.transport.road

From: David Jensen ...@dajensen-family.com>

Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2000 01:39:26 GMT

Local: Thurs, Nov 30 2000 8:39 pm

Subject: Re: History of DC Interstates

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On Fri, 01 Dec 2000 00:33:36 GMT, in misc.transport.road
Hank Shirley ...@my-deja.com> wrote in
<906rl0$21...@nnrp1.deja.com>:

- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

>In article ...@paloalto-snr1.gtei.net>,
> Robert Cote ...@gte.net> wrote:

>> In article <906him$pd...@nnrp1.deja.com>, ableami...@my-deja.com
>> wrote:

>> > > That "fact" doesn't even pass the giggle test. That would be
>> > > equal to a 10-mile by 10-mile square, or about the entire area
>> > > of D.C. and Arlington. There is nowhere near that much
>> > > parkland in the metropolitan area.

>> > Then it's OBVIOUS that they're talking about the metro area and
>> > not just DC. This is made painfully clear by the term
>> > "metropolitan area" in the very same sentence, which you
>> > apparently missed.

>> 200,000 dwelling units in metro D.C. does not pass the giggle test
>> either. As to the 100 sq miles of parkland... worse. The authors
>> lied because they wanted to believe. You are enabling. It's time
>> to force the newspaper to disavow the article.

>It does make me guffaw out loud. Is that a giggle test? :)

Guffaws definitely show that the article failed!

"And before you accuse me of "pretending to be a historian," I invite
you to see my history degrees, course work, thesis, and publications
from the last 15 years.

"I readily concede that we used "worst-case" numbers; does that really
make the entire story bad history?" Jane Levey

http://forums.prospero.com/n/mb/discussionFrameset.asp?webtag=wpmetro...

I am thrilled that this woman is an honest-to-goodness historian. Now, I
don't feel bad at all about treating her like one. Yet, despite my
requests, she has failed to produce any documentation of these
"worst-case" numbers.

I'm sure she must have references because an honest historian would
never make such a "worst case" claim without being able to document it.
Otherwise, her work is worse than "bad history", it's not history at
all. It would only be propaganda and the lies that "True Believers" are
willing to say so they can get at a "Greater Truth". That cannot
possibly be what she wanted to do or what the Washington Post wants in
its pages, could it?