Group Considers Re-Routing Pennsylvania Ave. on Capitol Hill
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The Eastern Market Metro Plaza doesn't feel like part of a square. From above, it appears to be one (or, you know, a rectangle). But on the street, it looks like a jagged, mostly paved-over triangle of land with some trees and shrubbery, where people meet up after work before heading over to Hawk and Dove or some place on 8th Street.
The plaza sits directly between Barracks Row and Eastern Market—and soon enough, some fancy new development on the Hine Junior High School site.
For more than a year, Barracks Row Main Street has been coordinating an effort to re-design the square to fluidly join the two areas on both sides of Pennsylvania Ave.
"The point is to make both 8th Street and Eastern Market—7th street, the shopping area—easier to connect to each other, so that people coming to the restaurants on 8th Street can very easily make it a part of their evening just to stroll up 7th Street," says Sharon Bosworth with Barracks Row Main Street. "Right now, you struggle on one side or the other.You definitely have that great divide."
Sounds innocuous enough, right?
Not to some people:
"SHOCK SHOCK SHOCK News from Barracks Row Main Street," read a neighborhood listserv e-mail regarding an upcoming meeting on the plan.The first line: "UNBELIEVABLY, TOWN SQUARE IS REARING ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN."
(This particular note appeared on the Eastern Market Metro Community Association EMMCA yahoogroup.)
Here's what the "ugly head" entails, according to Bosworth, who would obviously not describe it that way. For more than a year, architect Amy Weinstein and local landscaping firm Oehme, van Sweden & Associates have been devising new design schemes for the plaza possibly narrowing or re-routing part of Pennsylvania Ave. there to provide more space on one side. The design team presented 12 plans last year and have been working with a task force of neighbors and local business owners to eliminate some proposals and perfect what remains.
On July 1, the team will present these options to the community to decide whether to devise a "true redevelopment proposal" that would eventually need government approval. Depending on how things go at the gathering, the task force will either recommend yea or nay on moving forward to the Barracks Row Main Street board.
"They’re looking for consensus," Bosworth said about the task force—though she couldn't define what consensus meant exactly. A vote? A general happy feeling with smiles and applause and excited chatter from the community?
Thomas Riehle, one of the EMMCA founders, says the community has already reached consensus...several times. Their feelings are unchanging: Don't re-route Penn Ave. Spruce up the triangles. Call it a day.
Riehle lives on D Street S.E., the northern side. He says past proposals have shown Penn. Ave moving north, right beyond his front door. Throughout last summer and fall, the Barracks Row task force kept inviting community members to look at various iterations of this plan.
"There was just overwhelming, unanimous opposition to reconfiguring Penn Ave.," he says.
The meeting will be held at 7 pm on July 1 at St. Peter’s Church Parish Hall, located at 313 2nd St. SE- enter on C Street.
4:10 pm
it's too bad that people are opposed to making the area there a true square. look a few blocks to the north...you have somewhat of an analogue in stanton park.
it wouldn't be that bad of a thing, people. really.
5:21 pm
Isn't the whole point of Pennsylvania Avenue SE to provide a vista of the Capitol to those arriving from the east by car or on foot? Why eliminate that inspiring vista?
Isn't the reservation on the north side of Pennsylvania, the triangle park, fulfilling the role of protecting the residential neighborhood there and beyond from the traffic and commercial activity of PA Ave and 8th Street?
Isn't the (unfulfilled) role of the triangle on the south side of Pennsylvania, where the Metro station is located, to direct bus and Metro riders to Eastern Market to the north and Barrack's Row to the south?
Wouldn't a big, traffic-bound dead spot do a MUCH WORSE job than the status quo at acheiving those two disparate goals?
Shouldn't the different goals of the triangle park and the Metro plaza be recognized and accentuated by keeping them separate? Wouldn't simply fixing the look and signage of the Metro plaza do more to improve the neighborhood than cutting off Barrack's Row from 8th Street north of Pennsylvania, as the Town Square plan does?
Wouldn't the current configuration of 8th and Pennsylvania, PLUS the addition of some really appealing retail along the north side of Pennsylvania where Hine Jr. High is now located, do more to link Eastern Market and Barrack's Row than a traffic rectangle?
Just askin'
10:35 pm
The local community really has spoken out quite often and with a fair amount of agreement against the idea re-routing PA Ave. It reflects quite poorly on the architects (some of whom are bidding to take on the Hine school site under the assumption that they are a trusted friend of the community) and the 8th Street businesses who want to bring more traffic to their strip but have not presented any evidence as to why a re-route of traffic helps that.
Plenty of ideas have been offered for how to help the 8th street businesses without creating more traffic and resident parking problems, without taking on federal evacuation routes, without spending millions of dollars and disrupting businesses along the south side of the metro area.
The stubborn disregard for community opinion and input however is probably best demonstrated by the stedfast refusal to think about how all the various projects (Hine, Waterfront, Old Naval Hospital) all connect to each other and how they will have to be integrated to really benefit all parts of the community.
The proposal to re-route traffic will likely fail on the merits, but this is one of those situations where the process has been quite instructive. There are a thousand decisions that go in to executing a development project and if they can listen to the community on the big things, how can we trust them on the little things.
11:28 pm
Put me down as +1 for Neighbor West's comments.
We can scream and shout and dance about on what we want at Hine, but if the developer won't listen to the neighbors, it won't matter.
A partner in Stanton Development is on the board of the Town Square Task Force, and the Town Square designer is also the designer for Stanton Development. Town Square has been confronted with a solid wall of neighborhood opposition, but continues to bulldoze through. Wouldn't you expect Stanton Development act the same way if the Mayor chooses them to develop the former Hine lot?
The chairman of the Town Square Task Force is also the neighborhood outreach officer for Bozzutto. Is Bozzutto saying they will replicate in their development for Hine the same contempt for neighborhood views that the Task Force Chairman has demonstrated so clearly?
Thank goodness the Mayor has two other developers to choose from, and lets hope he picks one of them. Stanton Development ("The Fix is In") and Bozzutto ("We've Got an In with the Mayor's Team") have disqualified themselves as Hine Developers because of the performance of their principals in dealing with community opposition to their Town Square plans to re-route Pennsylvania Avenue.
See you all July 1, at 7 PM in the St. Peter's Church Basement--313 Second Street, SE, on the corner of Second and C Streets for the Town Square presentation. I know they don't listen, but if enough people show up (again) to say NO to re-routing Pennsylvania Avenue, maybe we will be heard--if not by the Town Square Task Force, then certainly by Mayor Fenty as he deliberates on Hine.
11:47 pm
trulee pist: what if i can get enough people to show up that would be in favor to creating a square there? would you say that the square idea would be legitimate then?
12:24 am
IMGoph, you are goofy. Bring as many people as you want. They tried to pull the wool over our eyes on this Town Square scheme last May, asking us to a meeting about "beautifying the park" then showing us pictures of Town Square. When we said, "Before we talk about beautifying this park, can you tell us more about this Town Square you are planning?" they all told us lies about it--Dick Wolf, President of Capitol Hill Restoration Society, and Amy Weinstein, the arcitect, and Tip Tipton, Chairman of Town Square Task Force, ALL either denied there was any such thing as Town Square Task Force, or said there was no information or discussions about Town Square they could share with us, or just ignored us.
Then in July, wow, there's a Town Square Task Force website, and One Term Tommy Wells announces that the meeting he's called about "The Future of Hine" will actually be an unveiling of the Town Square Plan.
Do they think we are dopes? Do we look that stooopid?
100 people, attending "Drive-able, Park-able" Tommy's meeting under false (Hine) pretenses had the Town Square Plan sprung on them by surprise, and reacted in the negative. Remember, they had studied the plans for 15 minutes in a PowerPoint presentation, so they knew more about the plan than you do. Will you consider the judgment of 100 people legitimate?
After that mess, the Town Square Task Force tried everything--two more meetings with neighbors, another "community-wide meeting," and never came up with any resident not connected with Dick Wolf, Tip Tipton or Amy Weinstein who said they were in favor of it, and hundreds opposed.
After all that, doesn't it behoove the Town Square Task Force to honestly say, "People don't want this?"
See you July 1. Be there or be Town Square.
12:48 pm
I agree with trulee pist, Neighbor West and Mr. Riehle. Enough is enough. But the one positive thing I can say is that at least the community is involved, albeit the developers keep shoving the same plan down your throats thinking you'll forget. Connecting the areas for aesthetic reasons doesn't supercede traffic, evacuation, parking, and vista concerns. The only way to make everyone happy is to "create" a circle with a tunnel underneath...ala Thomas or Barney Circle. 8th Street is cool and Eastern Market is viable, but for folks who want the best of both worlds, they JUST CROSS THE STREET. I don't think any of the patrons who do this find the current scenario that difficult.
Making Pennsylvania Avenue dog-leg in either direction will only cause MORE traffic elsewhere.
1:25 pm
Everyone knows the current configuration is dreadful. You have to cross six lanes of traffic to get from metro to EM, more if you want to go from EM to 8th st. The stop light lasts less than twenty seconds; most people either jaywalk or sprint (if they can). Reconstituting the square is one option that should be considered. I understand that the eight or so houses on the north side of D st SE don't want the traffic. But they really don't represent the community as a whole, despite what they are trying to assert. It is just (quite understandable) NIMBYism by Riehle and his D st SE friends (or are they really the same person posting under different names?)
The tunnel is another option. A pedestrian bridge?
2:23 pm
S P is so right on target. That's why our first suggestion over a year ago was to change the timing of the lights. That would cost, ummmm, a thousand bucks?
The alternative, as the Town Square Task Force and S P suggest, would be to rip up Pennsylvania Avenue, put in a square or a circle of a rectangle or an oval, create dozens of new, potentially dangerous pedestrian crossings, at a cost of ummmm, just guessing here, 20,000 times more than the cost of changing the timing of the lights.
Or a tunnel. Or a pedestrian bridget. Yikes, just retime the lights and honest, we'll all be safe and sound.
Please read the Official Minutes of the Town Square Task Force meetings with the community, and you will see that hundreds of residents have nicely asked those who want to reconfigure Pennsylvania Avenue SE to go away.
http://www.capitolhilltownsquare.org/public.html , look for minutes of all the previous meetings under "Downloads" in the bottom right-hand column
7:59 pm
Last year, I attended, by happenstance, councilman Wells' post-hoc justification for the PA ave town square project at the initial Hines school neighborhood renovation project, as if one had anything to do with the other. The attempt by councilman Wells at that time was disingenuous and an insult to the residents who have lived in the area for decades. Any attempt by the councilman to try to sell the idea at this point needs to be carefully scrutinized. The councilman had the hubris to assume the residents who have lived in the area for decades would not pay attention. He was wrong, and should be reminded of that on July 1.
5:00 pm
I don't get you people who like having a major arterial road slicing right through your community. Having to dodge across 10 lanes of traffic, like you have to do if you're at 8th St and want to get from one side of D/Penn to the other, is just not safe.
5:38 pm
Any evidence, Tom Veil?
DDOT keeps very complete statistics about "pedestrian crashes"--you could look it up. About one or two pedestrian crashes at 8th and PA every five years.
Also, if you divert PA Ave around a Town Square, you still have "10 lanes of traffic"--only now all that traffic is a moat that protects the park. Now the park protects us from the traffic. We like that better.
Finally, what if we just extended the time the pedestrian lights gave us to cross the "10 lanes of traffic"? That would cost little or nothing. Re-routing PA Ave would cost approximately 10,000 to 20,000 more. Why do that?
Right now, the worst that can happen is you get halfway across PA when the light changes. You are left standing on a beautiful boulevard strip, covered with flowering shrubs and trees, enjoying the vista of the U.S. Capitol. Why destroy the vista created by PA Ave?
Leave Pennsylviania Ave SE alone, please.
10:36 am
I am a resident of the area and I very much dislike the Pennsylvania Avenue high-speed, straight shot approach to helping out the commuters. And no reference to..."that is the way L'Enfant wanted it" will change my mind. LEnfant did not have commuters barreling down the road at 60 miles per hour. As a reasident, the commuters are certainly not my highest priority. It would not bother me a bit if traffic was slowed-down with a couple of turns. I disagree with statements like "the community has spoken." Some loud community members have made their points clear, but I am completely open minded to moving Pennsylvania Avenue.
10:47 am
the fact is, mr. riehle, that if a square is created there, there won't be "10 lanes of traffic" going anywhere. since traffic would be one-way around the square, you'd most likely see 3 lanes of traffic on each side, like you see around stanton square.
1:29 pm
???? IM Goph, I was just quoting tom veil, who says there are "10 lanes of traffic." There are not, of course. There are, as you say, about 3 lanes of traffic on either side of a broad, pretty boulevard that points to the Capitol Building. Your plan expands that boulevard into a big, fat park. Same number of lanes of traffic on each side, whether on either side of an appropriate boulevard or a big fat park. Did you think they were proposing to REDUCE the number of lanes of traffic on PA? No, they are just re-routing the same number of lanes through the neighborhood.
But here's the point. I have been crossing the street for 53 years now, and I have not had to hold my mommy's hand while crossing for at least the last 48 years. This is not a dangerous crosswalk.
You makes it sound like people are dodging through moving, racing vehicles on PA Ave like this is the Frogger arcade game. This is an intersection with traffic lights. Light turns red for the cars, the "Walk" sign lights up for the pedestrians (we've even got them new-fangled "countdown clocks" so pedestrians know how many more seconds they have to cross). People cross. Nobody gets hurt.
And Shane, if you did not attend the four different neighborhood and community meetings where nice, polite neighbors of yours were asked what they thought of re-routing PA Avenue, why don't you take a minute and go read the Official Townsquare Task Force minutes of those meetings and see for yourself, before tossing out insults ("some loud community members...")
It's all here: http://www.capitolhilltownsquare.org/public.html
Just one taste, from one of the September meetings:
"Linda Elliot asked if the Task Force will announce at the community meeting in October
that the unanimous vote of the people attending this meeting was to not make any
changes to the current roadbed configuration.
The answer was that the Task Force would consider whether such an announcement
should be made. (the notetaker did not count a unanimous vote, we would characterize it
as a significant majority)."
3:02 pm
trulee pist: i'm sorry, i hadn't even noticed you had said something about the lanes of traffic. i was replying to mr. riehle. he was using the phrase, so i just wanted to point out that perpetuating that meme wasn't productive, that's all.
of course there won't be a change in number of lanes. removing the straight shot might slow down traffic, though.
3:59 pm
IM Goph, I am an idiot. I noticed when S P pointed it out that I show up as trulee pist if I don't remember to type in Thomas Riehle. But that's me. Sorry for the confusion.
I like the straight shot. I don't like people from PG County tear-assin' through the neighborhood, of course, but I like the fact that when I enter the neighborhood from the east, I get the vista of the Capitol over PA Ave. Some of the same people who want to destroy that vista here were at the ANC-6B meeting this month denouncing plans for putting a traffic oval at PA Ave and Potomac, 6 blocks away, because, guess why? "It would destroy the vista of the Capitol."
4:01 pm
And I just did it again.
5:29 pm
ah, gotcha.
anyway, i don't see why you can't preserve that vista through a park. all you have to do is make sure you're planting trees in the right places, right?
6:54 pm
Look at Stanton Park. It not only cuts off the view BEYOND the park, it cuts off the view WITHIN the park--at the first community meeting on this scheme, one of the first comments made was by a woman who lives at 9th and South Carolina, and says she doesn't worry about walking through this park, because she feels she can be seen throughout her stroll and therefore safe--whereas a few dozen yards on a stroll into Stanton Park she feels she can't be seen for the trees.
I suppose you could carefully design the trees to let people APPROACHING the park see the dome over the trees (but you'd have to figure out how to do that, I can't)...but even then, as you hit this park, you'd be sent off in other directions, no longer heading straight to the Dome.
Even pedestrians would be affected, because they will severely restrict where you could cross into this new Town Square Park with walls and things....now you just kinda wander into the triangle park as the spirit moves you.
Whatever...I'm not anti park, just anti THIS Town Square Park. It would cost $50 million, easy, for what? What's wrong with what we've got?
8:04 pm
well, what you have is some fugly triangles (especially the one south of pennsylvania ave—it needs a wholesale redo), so i'd say that's something that's wrong.
couldn't the trees in the median of pennsylvania grow large enough to alter the viewshed?
if the triangles need to be redone (which i argue they do), why not look at carrying that change out further? can't hurt in the long run.
9:04 pm
This is where we get to the religious divide--same as the argument about whether to re-open 7th Street to weekend traffic now that Eastern Market is ready to open. Some say yes, some say no.
I feel like the Metro triangle needs massive renovation. The triangle park also needs a little work, but over the years the worst damage done to the triangle park has been Acts of Official Vandalism--Councilmember Tommy Wells and his predecessor, Sharon Ambrose, go in the dark of night and remove all the park benches. I feel that if the Mayor's put benches in a park, it behooves elected officials to leave the benches alone!
At our urging, the Task Force design team has put as much creativity and effort into the design called "Improved Existing" as they have into the other two designs that re-route PA Ave. When the drawings are unveiled July 1, I think you'll agree it's all you could want, or more...
....or we may find ourselves across that religious divide, as you keep pressing to re-route the street. We'll see. I hope you come out July 1 and express your opinion.
10:40 am
It is clear that Mr Riehle does not want Pennsylvania Avenue rerouted because it will be rerouted near his house. I can certainly understand why he is passionate about the subject. It does, however, smack of NIMBY. He seems to be reaching with some of his arguments, desperate to keep his buffer zone. I did attend the meetings and heard "Loud" voices from the audience. I also spoke with many of the audience members who were quite open minded about moving Pennsylvania Avenue. They didn't shout down the panel as some who oppose the move did. They wanted to see the proposal before making a decision on the subject.
I can't believe that people think the straight shot approach to Pennsylvania Avenue enhances the neighborhood. It is like having a highway run through your neighborhood. It is noisy, fast, and absolutely separates Barracks Row from Eastern market, much like 395 separates The Navy Yard from Barracks Row. Just like the meetings I have attended, there are a few loud voices on this blog, trying to scare the neighborhood and force their opinions. Lets wait and see the proposals.