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Awaken the sleeping activist for just a brief moment to eulogize the latest inanimate, yet long aged victim in our historic semi blighted hood. 1211 4th street NW was known to many of us as one of the crappy 3rd Street Church of God properties for decades. There she stood in her decrepitude, deemed too dangerous to approach:
Then, one glorious day, a developer swooped in and bought 1211! And her neighbors! In a show of good faith he gussied her funky fractured facade up while beginning the arduous journey of gaining permissions to make her and her neighbors whole again. Oh she looked so ever so pretty!:
And so time went on...and on. Mr. developer sought the approvals of the community and the ANC and they were given swiftly. The neighbors were eager to see the project come to fruition after living with neglected dumps for so very long. He then went to the city for his Historic Preservation approval and permits. And so time went on...and on...and on. And then the snows came.
And on one frigid winter day, 1211 was no more:
Comments
Wow! What makes a building fall so completely despite what looks to be new floor supports and pointing, etc?
Posted By Greg (NJ Ave) / At 1/5/10 11:46 AM
Posted By Greg (NJ Ave) / At 1/5/10 11:46 AM
One less dwelling in the path of what the area needs:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-395-extension-superior-option.html
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/5/10 3:13 PM
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-395-extension-superior-option.html
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/5/10 3:13 PM
(shudder) ever wonder why 395 shimmies to the side of a certain church? i would argue that the few remaining mid 19th century wood frame houses are worthy of preservation, mine included. and highways are ugly. and not pedestrian friendly.
Posted By Si Kailian / At 1/7/10 12:05 PM
Posted By Si Kailian / At 1/7/10 12:05 PM
The highway would be a tunnel with replacement housing atop in whatever style desired.
I am aware of the alignment of I-395 behind the Bibleway Church, which is a very good thing for both avoiding that church as well as geometrically work with the placement of Dunbar HS in accommodating the alternative design tunnel which would be far easy to build then the official option beneath New York Avenue or the 1970s design that would have taken 600+, rather then only 34 or 33. Whoever designed Dunbar HS had to be aware of this.
A tunnel highway would be infinitely more pedestrian friendly than the status quo any way you look at it.
In case you did not notice, the alternative tunnel would not displace the dwellings on M Street nearest to New Jersey Avenue and is compatible with the 3rd Street Church's proposed project, though the rear of the church would be supported to accommodate the tunnel construction beneath.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/7/10 2:24 PM
I am aware of the alignment of I-395 behind the Bibleway Church, which is a very good thing for both avoiding that church as well as geometrically work with the placement of Dunbar HS in accommodating the alternative design tunnel which would be far easy to build then the official option beneath New York Avenue or the 1970s design that would have taken 600+, rather then only 34 or 33. Whoever designed Dunbar HS had to be aware of this.
A tunnel highway would be infinitely more pedestrian friendly than the status quo any way you look at it.
In case you did not notice, the alternative tunnel would not displace the dwellings on M Street nearest to New Jersey Avenue and is compatible with the 3rd Street Church's proposed project, though the rear of the church would be supported to accommodate the tunnel construction beneath.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/7/10 2:24 PM
FYI:
A history of the various plans for extending the road now called I-395:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-395-extension.html
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/7/10 2:40 PM
A history of the various plans for extending the road now called I-395:
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-395-extension.html
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/7/10 2:40 PM
Douglas - so are you saying that the people who live in Mt. Vernon Square need to have their lives disrupted, their property taken, their historic neighborhood potentially destroyed so that it is easier for people from Virginia to get into Maryland? This happened in NYC in the 1950s-60s (thank you Robert Moses) and it ripped apart long standing communities. As a resident of the neighborhood, I am happier with the status quo.
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 8:35 AM
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 8:35 AM
Your comparisons with Moses are strange given his disdain for tunnels, and his generous use of clearing new swaths via eminent domain. No neighborhood would be destroyed under the new plan, only 34, excuse me 33 dwellings displaced, and all replaced with new replica housing. What has happened instead with all of that approach traffic on the surface done for the area? The tunnel would not rip apart communities, but the lack of it certainly does help keep them apart.
Are you saying that NYA should be the highway and all of those people should suffer, plus many more regionally because of a far far smaller number of dwellings including those that are about to collapse?
You feel that your neighbors, and those in SE where your stance will place even more traffic upon an elevated and surface freeway segments that are not tunneled, should suffer? All for a joy of reconstructing a small number of buildings that could be better replicated in place -- which seems to be much the case with some of these buildings anyway -- atop the new tunnel.
Notable how these buildings seem to have received greater interest so recently- when did that happen??? USDOT should pay 3x compensation, finish the job that mother nature started, fit the footings for a lid to support replacement housing, and excavate below.
You are aware that the roads -- including WMATA rail -- required some displacement, are not you?
Clearly, the new design is infinitely superior, with greater safety and a 95% reduction in displacements from the 1971 plan, and I suspect that the architects of Dunbar HS were aware of this when they chose to situate it as they did.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/8/10 10:34 AM
Are you saying that NYA should be the highway and all of those people should suffer, plus many more regionally because of a far far smaller number of dwellings including those that are about to collapse?
You feel that your neighbors, and those in SE where your stance will place even more traffic upon an elevated and surface freeway segments that are not tunneled, should suffer? All for a joy of reconstructing a small number of buildings that could be better replicated in place -- which seems to be much the case with some of these buildings anyway -- atop the new tunnel.
Notable how these buildings seem to have received greater interest so recently- when did that happen??? USDOT should pay 3x compensation, finish the job that mother nature started, fit the footings for a lid to support replacement housing, and excavate below.
You are aware that the roads -- including WMATA rail -- required some displacement, are not you?
Clearly, the new design is infinitely superior, with greater safety and a 95% reduction in displacements from the 1971 plan, and I suspect that the architects of Dunbar HS were aware of this when they chose to situate it as they did.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/8/10 10:34 AM
What I don't think you seem to understand is that a great many people who live in those 33 dwellings enjoy their historic homes that can't be replaced, some of which predate the Civil War, in one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city. What you propose would remove a significant number of historic homes in the Mt. Vernon Square Historic District and replace them with new construction. I agree that buildings falling down are not good, but the right course of action is for the owners of those buildings to redevelop their historic properties, not tear them down. If they want to make the intersection safer for pedestrians, by incorporating a tunnel I am all for that, but they should do it in the current footprint of the intersection of the Third Street Tunnel and New York Avenue.
If people in Maryland want to get to Virginia or vice versa, they should use the Capital Beltway, already there, already being expanded in Virginia, new multi-million dollar bridge over the Potomac. Don't try to jam them through the heart of downtown.
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 12:43 PM
If people in Maryland want to get to Virginia or vice versa, they should use the Capital Beltway, already there, already being expanded in Virginia, new multi-million dollar bridge over the Potomac. Don't try to jam them through the heart of downtown.
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 12:43 PM
The plan to go entirely under New York Avenue has a questionably tight transition radii. Think about line of sight issues in a curved tunnel. My alternative -- and presumably that of the architects of Dunbar HS -- confines the displacement entirely between 4th and New Jersey Avenue, and misses those at the corner of M and NJ, and at 4th and N Street.
None of those homes looks very irreplaceable, it is not Le Droit Park, though at least some of them appear to have already been essentially replaced in the rear, such as those immediately to the north of the 3rd Street Church parking lot. There are some substantially nicer ones, aka on M Street at 4th that unfortunately would have to be replaced -- unless an excavation could be accomplished that leaves alone the soil towards the top as my tunnel profile would dive -- or simply replicated. If you look at the geometry with Dunbar, and compare it to the other plans, you can see the logic of a 95% rather than a 100% reduction of the 1996+ plan with its grossly inferior tight curve.
I do not see why the traffic should all go to the Beltway, or why I-95 should not be completed through DC especially with the 95% reduction from the 1971 plan which would have removed everything in a 200 foot or so swath alongside the north side of New York Avenue, plus the potential benifit of 95 done right as a part of a multi model tunnel with a linear park atop that replaces the esiting elevated RR- please see my posts at my blog A Trip Within The Beltway regarding the "Grand Arc".
Robert Moses if you may recall not only had disdain for tunnels, but he routed the I-95 Cross Bronx Expressway via a segment through East Tremont that displaced some 1,600 dwellings as opposed to a citizens' alternative idea for a route to the south near or through the northern edge of Corona Park displacing only 16 IIRC plus a bus depot.
I do though not only favor placing short segments of the highway system in tunnels that almost entirely avoid buildings, but as well their equipping with filtration systems as done overseas, and as an alternative to the Washington, D.C. status quo.
If there is some building that really should not be removed, then support it during the subway construction and restore it as done at least with one of the buildings at the Green Line WMATA uptown constructed during the 1990s (which was also where some houses were removed for that subway construction.
Though I do not agree with the status quo, I do feel that it was a good thing that the earlier highway designs were not built.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/8/10 5:01 PM
None of those homes looks very irreplaceable, it is not Le Droit Park, though at least some of them appear to have already been essentially replaced in the rear, such as those immediately to the north of the 3rd Street Church parking lot. There are some substantially nicer ones, aka on M Street at 4th that unfortunately would have to be replaced -- unless an excavation could be accomplished that leaves alone the soil towards the top as my tunnel profile would dive -- or simply replicated. If you look at the geometry with Dunbar, and compare it to the other plans, you can see the logic of a 95% rather than a 100% reduction of the 1996+ plan with its grossly inferior tight curve.
I do not see why the traffic should all go to the Beltway, or why I-95 should not be completed through DC especially with the 95% reduction from the 1971 plan which would have removed everything in a 200 foot or so swath alongside the north side of New York Avenue, plus the potential benifit of 95 done right as a part of a multi model tunnel with a linear park atop that replaces the esiting elevated RR- please see my posts at my blog A Trip Within The Beltway regarding the "Grand Arc".
Robert Moses if you may recall not only had disdain for tunnels, but he routed the I-95 Cross Bronx Expressway via a segment through East Tremont that displaced some 1,600 dwellings as opposed to a citizens' alternative idea for a route to the south near or through the northern edge of Corona Park displacing only 16 IIRC plus a bus depot.
I do though not only favor placing short segments of the highway system in tunnels that almost entirely avoid buildings, but as well their equipping with filtration systems as done overseas, and as an alternative to the Washington, D.C. status quo.
If there is some building that really should not be removed, then support it during the subway construction and restore it as done at least with one of the buildings at the Green Line WMATA uptown constructed during the 1990s (which was also where some houses were removed for that subway construction.
Though I do not agree with the status quo, I do feel that it was a good thing that the earlier highway designs were not built.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/8/10 5:01 PM
In your humble opinion none of the homes look irreplaceable? It is not like LeDroit? So we have to have fancy victorians versus the simple working class homes along 4th and Ridge Streets to be worthy of not having our neighborhood demolished so that suburbanites can have an easier commute? Houses which are actually older, some of the rare pre-civil war homes left in the city? Just because they don't look irreplaceable it is ok to tear them down to build a highway we don't even need? These opinions are really easy to throw out there when you don't even live in the neighborhood. Cities across the country are looking at removing the highways that were jammed through their downtown areas and you want to build an entire new one? This is the 2000's, not the 1950s. Also, if you haven't heard DCPS is currently hosting a redesign contest to rebuild Dunbar so your theory around that design appear to not be true.
I agree that I am glad that the original designs weren't built. DC would have lost all of its charm and the resurrgence that the city has seen happening over the last decade plus would never have happened in neighborhoods criss-crossed by highways.
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 5:37 PM
I agree that I am glad that the original designs weren't built. DC would have lost all of its charm and the resurrgence that the city has seen happening over the last decade plus would never have happened in neighborhoods criss-crossed by highways.
Posted By JohnD / At 1/8/10 5:37 PM
Why rebuild Dunbar after only 25 years- are they planning a refurbuiish or demolition-replacement to block the plan?
Dunbar was certainly looks like it was positioned with the idea in mind. A plan to change it now has no bearing on what was on the minds of its architects during the 1970s when it was designed.
Now you change your position on the need for the highway or tunnel based upon ownership of the houses- most interesting.
Why save a small number of houses, many-most? on the verge of total collapse and largely replaced with new construction save for the facades? These can be rebuilt, atop a tunnel that would have a significently better safety record then the 1996+ design. Again, think of line of sight distances in curved tunnels. Are not people worth more then brick and morter which is replaceable/r3eplicatable?!
But no, some people make purchase without looking around the map, or without a care for the broader picture- why not instead restore those in the area between NJ Avenue and NC, O and NYA? These would have been destroyed by the 1971 plan, which is the default plan if the 1996 plan is abandoned DUE TO THE SAFTY AND CONSTRUCTABILITY ISSUES. My plan reduces that by 95% while increasing safety. Yet some people would rather leave their largely already replicated buildings undesturbed, and go with a far more disruptive to traffic plan to construct and a far more dangerious design with the sharp tunnel curve when complete and foreever. If they go with the 1996 plan and there are collisions as a result, I hope someone can sue the government for its unrealistic zero displacement highway policy. (Maybe such would uncover any relationships between real estate speculators and government officials in subverting the transporation network- with much of this speculation occurring after I have posted these properties' transporation corridor signficence.)
Alas, instead the government will adopt the unrealistic policy of zero dwelling displacement for highway (even as tunnels- not 95% or 995 reductions) but nothing else, aka WMATA and real estate development.
That places the few over the many, which is how Washington, D.C. really works.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/11/10 12:12 PM
Dunbar was certainly looks like it was positioned with the idea in mind. A plan to change it now has no bearing on what was on the minds of its architects during the 1970s when it was designed.
Now you change your position on the need for the highway or tunnel based upon ownership of the houses- most interesting.
Why save a small number of houses, many-most? on the verge of total collapse and largely replaced with new construction save for the facades? These can be rebuilt, atop a tunnel that would have a significently better safety record then the 1996+ design. Again, think of line of sight distances in curved tunnels. Are not people worth more then brick and morter which is replaceable/r3eplicatable?!
But no, some people make purchase without looking around the map, or without a care for the broader picture- why not instead restore those in the area between NJ Avenue and NC, O and NYA? These would have been destroyed by the 1971 plan, which is the default plan if the 1996 plan is abandoned DUE TO THE SAFTY AND CONSTRUCTABILITY ISSUES. My plan reduces that by 95% while increasing safety. Yet some people would rather leave their largely already replicated buildings undesturbed, and go with a far more disruptive to traffic plan to construct and a far more dangerious design with the sharp tunnel curve when complete and foreever. If they go with the 1996 plan and there are collisions as a result, I hope someone can sue the government for its unrealistic zero displacement highway policy. (Maybe such would uncover any relationships between real estate speculators and government officials in subverting the transporation network- with much of this speculation occurring after I have posted these properties' transporation corridor signficence.)
Alas, instead the government will adopt the unrealistic policy of zero dwelling displacement for highway (even as tunnels- not 95% or 995 reductions) but nothing else, aka WMATA and real estate development.
That places the few over the many, which is how Washington, D.C. really works.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/11/10 12:12 PM
All y'all commenting do realize that no counterargument will ever stop Doug Willinger from obsessing over this freeway, yes?
Posted By J.D. Hammond / At 1/11/10 6:49 PM
Posted By J.D. Hammond / At 1/11/10 6:49 PM
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/Bridge/tunnel/pubs/nhi09010/02.cfm
2.2.2 Horizontal and Vertical Curves
Horizontal and vertical curves shall satisfy Green Book's geometrical requirements. The horizontal alignment for a road tunnel should be as short as practical and maintain as much of the tunnel length on tangent as possible, which will limit the numbers of curves, minimize the length and improve operating efficiency. However, slight curves may be required to accommodate ventilation/access shafts location, portal locations, construction staging areas, and other ancillary facilities as discussed in Chapter 1 – Planning. A slight horizontal curve at the exit of the tunnel may be required to allow drivers to adjust gradually to the brightness outside the tunnel.
When horizontal curves are needed, the minimum acceptable horizontal radii should consider traffic speed, sight distances, and the super-elevation provided. In general, for planning purpose, the curve radii should be as large as possible and no less than 850 to 1000-ft radius. A tighter curve may be considered at the detailed design stage based on the selected tunneling method.
Super elevation rate, which is the rise in the roadway surface elevation from the inside to the outside edge of the road, should preferably lie in the range 1% to 6%.
When chorded construction is used for walls where alignments are curved, chord lengths should not exceed 25 feet (7.6 m) for radii below 2,500 feet (762 m), and 50 feet (15 m) elsewhere.
2.2.3 Sight and Braking Distance Requirements
Sight and braking distance requirements cannot be relaxed in tunnels. On horizontal and vertical curves, it may be necessary to widen the tunnel locally to meet these requirements by providing a "sight shelf." When designing a tunnel with extreme curvature, sight distance should be carefully examined, otherwise it may result in limited stopping sight distance.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/17/10 9:13 PM
2.2.2 Horizontal and Vertical Curves
Horizontal and vertical curves shall satisfy Green Book's geometrical requirements. The horizontal alignment for a road tunnel should be as short as practical and maintain as much of the tunnel length on tangent as possible, which will limit the numbers of curves, minimize the length and improve operating efficiency. However, slight curves may be required to accommodate ventilation/access shafts location, portal locations, construction staging areas, and other ancillary facilities as discussed in Chapter 1 – Planning. A slight horizontal curve at the exit of the tunnel may be required to allow drivers to adjust gradually to the brightness outside the tunnel.
When horizontal curves are needed, the minimum acceptable horizontal radii should consider traffic speed, sight distances, and the super-elevation provided. In general, for planning purpose, the curve radii should be as large as possible and no less than 850 to 1000-ft radius. A tighter curve may be considered at the detailed design stage based on the selected tunneling method.
Super elevation rate, which is the rise in the roadway surface elevation from the inside to the outside edge of the road, should preferably lie in the range 1% to 6%.
When chorded construction is used for walls where alignments are curved, chord lengths should not exceed 25 feet (7.6 m) for radii below 2,500 feet (762 m), and 50 feet (15 m) elsewhere.
2.2.3 Sight and Braking Distance Requirements
Sight and braking distance requirements cannot be relaxed in tunnels. On horizontal and vertical curves, it may be necessary to widen the tunnel locally to meet these requirements by providing a "sight shelf." When designing a tunnel with extreme curvature, sight distance should be carefully examined, otherwise it may result in limited stopping sight distance.
Posted By Douglas A. Willinger / At 1/17/10 9:13 PM
