December 6, 2004
Beef on both ends
Online Citypaper columnist Mark Jenkins rolls with the hate DCSOB style this week, laying out the beef with The New Yorker's David Owen for praising New York City for its green tendencies (all while living in Connecticut with three cars) and dissing D.C. for being badly zoned and hard to walk around.
While some people may find New York nearly as forboding, I could search long and hard to find an intersection as anti-pedestrian as Columbus Circle, right outside Union Station. Why here, at this center of non-driving commuter traffic is it so dangerous to get between the station and any intersection street other than the ones directly connected with a crosswalk. Want to get to Louisiana Ave.? Either you swing around the side of the circle through three intersections or you dart through traffic like a roadside newspaper salesman. It might be worth it to make Massachusetts Avenue go underground for thru traffic in front of the station and to erect crosswalks to all the intersecting streets instead of just a few.
So yes, Washington is harder to walk around.
And as for zoning and commercial access -- is there a CVS between Eastern Market and Chinatown?
Posted by rj3 at December 6, 2004 9:23 AM
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Comments
You probably couldn't tunnel under Columbus Circle because of the Red Line tunnel and the First Street tunnel for Amtrak and VRE. If I remember correctly, the city does have a plan to redesign the plaza, but I haven't heard much about that in quite some time.
Posted by: mgrass at December 6, 2004 10:48 AM
And I can't make head nor tails out of DC's designated bike route ("U"). How are you supposed to ride from Delaware or Louisiana to 1st St NW? DC claims this is a bike route.
Posted by: taleswapper at December 6, 2004 12:06 PM
I have no idea what you are talking about. DC is ridiculously easy to walk around. Yes, Columbus circle is a disaster, but really. The city was designed for walking...note all the park-triangles and circles, and we all know that driving here sucks. We have sidewalks and flashy timers. What more do you want? Unless you live in distant upper NW, everything is closeby too.
Posted by: Michael at December 6, 2004 4:15 PM
There's a CVS right at the Eastern Market Metro, and there's one near Federal Center SW, though the hours are limited.
Posted by: Kanishka at December 7, 2004 10:27 AM