These three snapshots show the recently opened Air Force Memorial which stands at the east end of the old Navy Annex uphill west of the Pentagon (lower) in Arlington County. It's full grace is shown from its parking lot just across the eastern terminus of Columbia Pike (upper right), the straight arterial used by the 9/11 pilot/terrorists to line up for their suicide attack on the Pentagon. Upper left shows the 8-10 foot tall honor guard at the base of the structure, facing Arlington Cemetery (off camera left), with the Washington Monument on the horizon just to the right, and the capital dome to the left, across the Potomac.. This is just the latest reminder that DC is the national capital city of the USA, and has special obligations to become "the world's greatest city". NARPAC's comments to Mayor-elect Fenty's transition team are yet another attempt to help the city move in that direction.

The nondescript picture at right shows the current South Capitol Street overpass above Potomac Avenue looking east towards the Navy Yard and the rapidly developing Southeast Federal Center, with its large new (brick) headquarters for the US Department of Transportation. Just to the left beyond the underpass, construction cranes and work can be seen making progress (on time) for DC's new baseball stadium which will front south and east on a rebuilt and extended Potomac Ave. Why on earth would DC's DDoT plan to replace this elevated approach to a new South Capitol Street bridge with an at-grade traffic circle mixing major truck, commuter, and emergency traffic with pedestrian and bike traffic, plus stadium foot and vehicular fan traffic? Does DDoT really expect USDoT to pick up the bill for this accident-prone, traffic-jamming, backward-looking, 19th Century device for mixing low-volume horse-and-carriage flow? NARPAC thinks it's a disaster in the making .

The pictures to the left show the brand new Swiss Embassy building facing the Potomac River (and a muddy Rock Creek) between the Washington Harbor complex and Thompson's Boat House. The northern half of this several acre lot is now occupied by a complementary office building. Its northern face abuts on K Street at ground level, under the heavily traveled elevated Whitehurst Freeway. That 50-yr old freeway by-passes cluttered Georgetown and connects thousands of residents in NW Washington and the wealthy Maryland suburbs with downtown, the Kennedy Center and the Mall. The freeway is shown by black arrows. Clearly these buildings have been designed to minimize the impact of this utilitarian structure. Why on earth would DC's DDoT plan to "deconstruct" this freeway, and try to replace it with a grade-level "boulevard". NARPAC thinks its another potential disaster for capital city traffic in the 21st Century.

Shown here is one of DC's thousands of police vehicles used to patrol the streets in the crime-prone sections of our nation's capital. The high-volume, service-oriented South Capital Street is just behind the fence. This section of this major artery, about four blocks north of the new baseball stadium, is not scheduled for major "boulevardization". NARPAC has just completed an update of DC's crime statistics through 2005 . The good news is that crime levels in DC are now about average for large American cities. The bad news is that DC and other government agencies employ somewhere between 50% and 100% more law enforcement personnel than those other cities.

NARPAC is very pleased with the results of the recent primary elections in DC, and congratulates DC voters for heeding NARPAC's advice. Now we turn to the most likely leaders of the next DC administration to occupy the Wilson Building (center) and offer them some advice too. Councilman Adrian Fenty (above left) will almost certainly become the new mayor of our capital city, having defeated Linda Cropp (above right) who will shortly step down from the chairmanship of the DC Council, to be replaced by Councilman Vincent Gray. We congratulate both Chairman Cropp and Mayor Williams for their long service and successful efforts in improving the stature of our nation's capital.

One of the cross-over issues facing the old and new administrations is what to do about signing off on the city's long-awaited update to its "Comprehensive Plan". NARPAC is urging the present Council to defer final approval of this very disappointing effort until the new administration has the opportunity to answer several questions about major long-range considerations missing from the draft. The photo above shows the wasted very high-value space between Georgetown (off right) and Foggy Bottom (off left) at the northern end of I66. The K Street bridge is in foreground, Watergate and its infamous Howard Johnson motel (now owned by GWU) are in the background. There are more than 20 acres here that could benefit from new (sunken) road design, added Metrorail access, and "3-D" residential and commercial development facing Rock Creek and the Potomac. As written, the Comprehensive Plan does little to encourage such higher density land use.

Reluctance to increasing urban density, even downtown, is also reflected in current land use cases about "transit-oriented development" around Metro stations. The photos above show the out- dated, low-density residential zoning around the Foggy Bottom Metro station within the campus of George Washington University. The front entrance (top) is on 23rd Street, next to the new GWU hospital. GWU wants increased density, while the local NIMBYs from the 'historic area" (lower right) would probably prefer to eliminate the subway station entirely. In fact, there is no "Metro" signpost at the back entrance (lower left) on 24th Street. NARPAC will tell the Zoning Commission that GWU is asking for too little growth, and that the city is foolish not to adopt a "4-D" zoning plan that would lay out progressive FAR (floor area ratio) increases for the entire area, including Foggy Bottom, along some future time line, perhaps by decade.

Metrorail approaches National Airport from Alexandria to the south on clean, attractive, elevated tracks at a fraction of the cost and construction time required for tunneling and underground stations. Current local officials both in the DC Council and in the mayor's cabinet have shown no interest in further expansion of metrorail within DC over the next twenty years!. DC primaries, tantamount to elections in this overwhelmingly Democrat city, will be held on September 12th. This is one of six major areas in which the future of our nation's capital city will be decided. NARPAC's major effort in August is to remind DC voters of the importance of this election in assuring that our national capital city continues to grow in national and global stature.

The two "entrances" to DC that are the farthest apart are the deep water channel in the Potomac at DC's southern tip, and the 16th Street "principal arterial" at its northern tip. These photographs shows the small traffic circle at the "Northern Portal" to the city. 16th St. goes directly south behind the small blue sign (right photo) through a purely residential area. The large buildings in the center of the left photo are "downtown" Silver Spring, MD, an "edge city" not recognized as existing in DC comprehensive planning. DC's Department of Transportation and Gateways plans to make this suburban entrance into DC one of its twenty-seven (27) major vehicular "gateways" into the city. DDoT's real trick will be to try to hide its entrance into Silver Spring! Meanwhile, however, the Washington area's Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) is planning a stunning new southern gateway at its huge Blue Plains Sewage Treatment Plant at the tip of Ward 8 on the Potomac. Join NARPAC in suggesting ways to make these eight 100-ft high aluminum crock pots into the world's most original urban gateway.

This photograph of the Sherman Building shows one of the many "historic" structures at the Armed Forces Retirement Home (AFRH) which is now preparing a master plan for the partial development of its 270-acre site. Like other DC-based non-profit organizations, it has an insufficient revenue stream to keep up with its changing demands. It is currently seeking to develop some "oil wells" (NARPAC terminology) by which to assure its future fiscal viability.

As times change, there are any number of reasons why both the AFRH and the District would be better off if the AFRM moved elsewhere, or "traded in" this extraordinarily valuable property for space on existing Veteran's Administration hospital grounds around the US. But the issue being addressed here is how the property should be laid out for eventual assimilation back into Ward 5 and the future of our nation's capital. As brought out in NARPAC's extensive comments on the AFRH, one of the basis issues will be the need to establish a street layout suitable for full eventual site development. The photograph above shows the terminus of First Street, NW where it runs into Irving Street and the southern boundary of the bucolic AFRH.grounds (and golf course). NARPAC thinks this would be a good place for a major traffic rotary, and the continuation of First St. right on uphill to the Sherman Building.

This standard old Metrobus, seen pulling away from the Petworth bus stop on Georgia Ave, will soon be joined by a (small) fleet of faster, cleaner, natural gas buses that are hoping to dash up and down Georgia Avenue 15-20% faster (!) by eliminating 70% of the 54 stops between Silver Spring, MD and the National Archives/Navy Memorial off Constitution Ave. This is almost surely a more sensible alternative than adding "fixed guideway systems" (trolleys) to this already overcrowded DC "primary arterial". But NARPAC is amazed by how little real systems analysis has been carried out for this Georgia Avenue Rapid Bus Corridor either concerning the dynamics of this particular transit component on this particular street, or in the context of broader plans for markedly improving transportation capacity in DC. We have little confidence that it will make a dent in the real problem.

With DC's New Convention Center up and running without glitches, one active issue among the city's urban planners is what to do with the Old Convention Center, now reduced to a nicely paved and landscaped parking lot. Again, NARPAC is troubled by the apparent tendencies: to look at this site in isolation; to avoid looking at the problems in the immediate surrounds (such as highly congested traffic around the abutting Mt. Vernon Square) and to apply the full litany of planning constraints and foibles whether or not they are relevant to enhancing the city's long- range future. Our extensive comments on the draft master plan suggest the need to look at the old center site and the existing Square as interconnected parts of the same objectives: i.e., to create a world-class landmark city with world-class (and safe) internal mobility.

Wisconsin Avenue in Northwest DC (left) is one of the "major arterial" roadways into DC from Maryland's prosperous Montgomery County through Bethesda, DC's biggest "edge city". River Road, a major Maryland parkway, directly from I-495 (the Capital Beltway), merges as a single moving lane with Wisconsin Avenue's two moving lanes in Tenleytown at "NIMBY Towers" (right). Both roads allow parking on both sides at this crucial clogged intersection. The new DC Comprehensive Plan, heavily criticized in NARPAC testimony, envisions no growth in the thru-put capacity of these key roads over the next 20 years.

In another area of critical disagreement over "guiding principles", the DC CompPlan proposes no expansion of DC's world-class MetroRail infrastructure anywhere in DC over the next 20 years. NARPAC, on the other hand, suggests a continuous expansion of DC's subway system. In particular, we propose an "Inner Circle Line" that would increase flexibility in accessing newly developing areas while circumnavigating downtown bottlenecks. One prominent station on this new line would be in Adams Morgan, one of DC's liveliest entertainment areas. The station might well be below the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road, NW(right, above), a scant half block from the neighborhood's most famous watering hole, Madam's Organ (left, above). Other stations would access Georgetown and improve the approaches to DC's new baseball stadium.

DC's most extensive underdeveloped areas lie East of the Anacostia River, approximately the size of Arlington County, Virginia. It is also the area of the nation's capital most poorly served by public transit. Nothing would do more to assure the long-overdue renaissance of Anacostia than to plan for the addition of regionally-connected Metrorail lines across its length and breadth. In fact, this is what generated the extraordinary economic growth of Arlington over the past 20 years. One key part of NARPAC's proposed MetroRail infrastructure expansion plan would be to add MetroRail tracks to the major new Wilson Bridge across the Potomac River. The first of twin spans was opened to traffic heading East from Virginia to Maryland (left, above) in June of 2006, while the second span takes shape (right, above, from under new span). But so far, there are no jurisdictional plans to install the trackage included in the original, forward-looking bridge plan.

One of the never-ending questions in planning DC's future growth is where to put additional residents in a city whose land is almost entirely in use, and whose low building height remains limited by strident advocates for low density. As is discussed in NARPAC's new chapter on the Future of DC's Row Houses , much will depend on the evolution of the city's hundreds of blocks of row houses. Some like these recently refurbished units in Columbia Heights will offer new opportunities in one of DC's fastest growing 'transit-oriented' neighborhoods. Others are more problematic.

Planning problems are made the more difficult by not differentiating the truly exceptional row house units, such as this group of architecturally unique units on East Capitol Street at 9th Street, NE, and the more plentiful, but more mundane, ones. Other problems include resistance to accommodating changes in urban household demographics and lifestyles. These changes will be instrumental in determining whether DC's residential planning guidelines will attract or deter people from living within the metro area's central city.

But it is areas where large numbers of almost identical row houses were hurriedly built to take care of DC's population explosion in the 1940's, in which the greatest changes should be expected. Like many others, this block of tidy but dated lower-income row houses along Gallatin Street in Upper Northwest DC were very definitely on "the outskirts of town" when they were built. But they but are now being overtaken by downtown 'urban sprawl'. Visualizing and quantifying how these neighborhoods will change is basic to understanding how much growth in residential households the city can absorb. NARPAC concludes that major density increases can be accommodated, but only if DC planning restrictions do not inhibit inevitable shifts in urban land and property usage.

Just a reminder that DC, with all its typical urban problems, is still one of the greatest cities in the world, particularly at this time of year.

The JC Nalle Elementary School sits on six and a half acres of high ground at 50th and C Streets, SE in Ward 7's Marshall heights. Distinguished as much as anything by the murals painted by its 380 (or so) kids on the retaining wall facing the athletic field, it was built in 1950, and expanded in 1960 and again in 1969. This was the time when DCPS school enrollment reached 150,000 and its inventory of schools approached 200. Although there are no signs around its not- very-welcoming entrance, it houses the prototype of one of DCPS's most forward-looking concepts. Featured in the newly released Master Education Plan, the superintendent hopes to have nine "Community Schools" by 2010. Fashioned on the approach of the venerable Children's Aid Society of New York, the intent is to have the school provide all kinds of nurturing assistance to needy kids, and sometimes to their even needier parent(s). NARPAC strongly supports this type of effort, and congratulates the Fannie Mae Foundation for funding it, and proving it a success.

Across the Anacostia River, and across M Street from the Navy Yard, sits the 2-acre Van Ness Elementary School. This school is on harder times. The nearby housing development it served has been torn down, and enrollment this year has dropped to 78 students. Even in the best of times, the 49,000 sqft of floor space would barely hold 320 kids, now considered to be the bare bones minimum to support a full academic program. Fortunately, it occupies very valuable land right in the midst of the redevelopment of the Navy Yard, the Southeast Federal Center, and now the coming baseball stadium. There are rumblings that a major downsizing of aging DCPS facilities is about to begin. It is way overdue, and it could involve shuttering, if not selling off, half of DC's public schools, including Van Ness.. NARPAC is very concerned about the complexities of this "four-dimensional game of musical chairs", but is certain that the longer it is put off, the more turbulent it will be. In any case, it is likely to conflict with the ambitious new master education plan discussed above.

In mid-March, 2006, the proponents for building a grandiose full-service National Capital Medical Center (NCMC) held what was billed as a major rally on Freedom Square in support of NCMC. They asked each minister east of the Anacostia to use their vans and buses "to bring as many people as possible, minimum 50." Sure enough, Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler (left above), Senior Minister of the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, and National President of Ministers for Racial, Social, and Economic Justice, led a stirring "prayer;" Council members, like Vincent Gary (center), Kwame Brown, and Council Chair Cropp, herself, exhorted the crowd (of no more than 60). Even City Administrator Bobb (right) gave a rousing argument for by-passing the normal government procedures to get the $400M NCMC built as quickly as possible. They apparently felt that a good ole stem-winding rally would beat preparing an honest Certificate of Need anytime. NARPAC's March editorial takes exception to turning serious local government business into burlesque, particularly when it diverts attention from solving the real health problems of the city's underclass.

There are similar housing-related numerical problems in trying to decide how many units (and how many rooms) it takes to house 100,000 people; and where in the city the increased density should be focused. Some better developed parts of town, like Observatory Circle's 300-odd half-million dollar condos in the Colonnade may be "dense enough". But what should be done about the city's very large poor population, many of whom are clustered in blighted communities? Is it the 20-year objective to ease their plight "in situ", or to provide better education and job opportunities and encourage those households to start up the economic ladder?

The Prince George's Hospital Center in nearby Cheverly, Maryland, is the only hospital outside DC where DC residents needing emergency care are routinely taken. Only two miles outside DC's eastern borders, and directly adjacent to two high speed 6-lane highways (I-295 and Rte 50), it is often a much quicker ambulance run than to the DC General Emergency Room. The ambitious, but ill-advised, new proposal for a National Capital Medical Center on the site of the sprawling old DC General hospital facility, barely mentions the existence of this modern Maryland hospital. This is particularly surprising since almost 40% of the inpatients in DC hospitals come from Maryland's Montgomery and Prince George's County, greatly magnifying the inflated future demands for DC hospital beds;

Most serious DC healthcare advocates argue that one of the main reasons so many DC residents end up in DC hospitals is because they lack early access to well-staffed primary healthcare clinics in their own "underserved" neighborhoods. There is no question but that most of the city's healthcare facilities are in the more 'upscale' parts of town. Nevertheless, there is a modern Congress Heights Clinic (above left) in southern Ward 8 (where South Capital Street merges with Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue), and another one where Stanton Road joins Alabama Ave. The Stanton Road Clinic is right in the center of a major redevelopment effort, where thousands of affordable homes are replacing many of the city's worst public housing units. One of NARPAC's major criticisms of the NCMC proposal is that it fails to provide serious analysis of future trends in city growth;

On the other hand, there are good arguments that more hospital ER facilities will be needed at more than one location in the lower incomes parts of the city. Focusing too many resources in a single NCMC in the wrong place will present serious risks of under-funding additional clinics, and could, in fact, threaten the collapse of the only hospital still operating East of the Anacostia. The two health clinics in Historic Anacostia (left: Good Hope Road; right: the Anacostia Community Health Clinic on W Street, a block from the historic Frederick Douglass Home) are examples of sub-standard facilities that are an insult to the residents, and an embarrassment to the national capital city. The DC Primary Care Association estimates that the city is short by between 15,000 and 400,000 square feet of high-quality clinical space.

This photo shows the only major, up-to-date building on the 110 acre Walter Reed Army Hospital campus in far Northwest DC. It has been selected for closing under the recently completed 2005 Base Realignment and Closing Commission, and that will probably make it eligible for transfer to DC control within a few years. NARPAC hopes DC officials will pay more attention to what they do with the property than they did to the process of getting it. It should be made a part of DC's progressive future, and not crippled by neighborhood nostalgia for the past. Even more defense properties are likely to become available in the next, "post-Iraq BRAC Round" if DC gets its act together.

This snapshot looks north up Upper Georgia Avenue just across the street from the Walter Reed campus (above) on a Sunday morning. The Wizards of DDoT could well pick this segment of this major commuter and heavy truck artery as an appropriate target for both a) their "Great Streets Initiative" to "gussy up" the "streetscape" with new arboreal center medians, new sidewalks and associated pedestrian and biker fixtures, and b) major "Premium surface transit upgrades" with either dedicated lanes for buses, or new tracks for a surface trolley. The multiple aims of these projects, according to DDoT's fixed mindset, , would include: expanding local economic development; increasing "connectivity" of the neighborhoods along this utilitarian artery; and (implicitly) avoiding extending Metrorail underground to locations like this.

These clearly amateur photos show downtown Silver Spring, MD, one of the rapidly expanding "edge cities" that enjoy better public surface transit and (elevated) Metrorail than many parts of DC. It is perhaps 15 blocks (as the bird flies) from the Walter Reed campus (above). Why would developers prefer to focus on creating a congested Georgia Ave 'boulevard' than continuing the higher density growth in Silver Spring? And for that matter, with the rapidly rising costs of living for family households , why would a single mom with two kids, say, elect to live in the poorer areas of DC rather than in the bustling, more prosperous, job-rich areas of Montgomery County?

This recent snapshot of the 100-odd year old Glen Echo Amusement Park is one trolley stop short of the end of the old Cabin John Line starting from the Georgetown car barn at the end of M Street. The famous Glen Echo carousel is at the very left edge of the photo beyond/below the entrance. NARPAC sees this as the archetypical fun-loving, memorable, leisurely, people- oriented, local "destination" which DC's Department of Transportation seems determined to facilitate with transportation funds. NARPAC has significantly different views, in which DDoT would pay more attention to accommodating essential transportation growth in the nation's capital city, leaving land use issues to DC's Offices of Economic Development and Long-Range Planning.

This snapshot looks north up Upper Georgia Avenue just across the street from the Walter Reed campus (above) on a Sunday morning. The Wizards of DDoT could well pick this segment of this major commuter and heavy truck artery as an appropriate target for both a) their "Great Streets Initiative" to "gussy up" the "streetscape" with new arboreal center medians, new sidewalks and associated pedestrian and biker fixtures, and b) major "Premium surface transit upgrades" with either dedicated lanes for buses, or new tracks for a surface trolley. The multiple aims of these projects, according to DDoT's fixed mindset, , would include: expanding local economic development; increasing "connectivity" of the neighborhoods along this utilitarian artery; and (implicitly) avoiding extending Metrorail underground to locations like this.

These clearly amateur photos show downtown Silver Spring, MD, one of the rapidly expanding "edge cities" that enjoy better public surface transit and (elevated) Metrorail than many parts of DC. It is perhaps 15 blocks (as the bird flies) from the Walter Reed campus (above). Why would developers prefer to focus on creating a congested Georgia Ave 'boulevard' than continuing the higher density growth in Silver Spring? And for that matter, with the rapidly rising costs of living for family households , why would a single mom with two kids, say, elect to live in the poorer areas of DC rather than in the bustling, more prosperous, job-rich areas of Montgomery County?

This recent snapshot of the 100-odd year old Glen Echo Amusement Park is one trolley stop short of the end of the old Cabin John Line starting from the Georgetown car barn at the end of M Street. The famous Glen Echo carousel is at the very left edge of the photo beyond/below the entrance. NARPAC sees this as the archetypical fun-loving, memorable, leisurely, people- oriented, local "destination" which DC's Department of Transportation seems determined to facilitate with transportation funds. NARPAC has significantly different views, in which DDoT would pay more attention to accommodating essential transportation growth in the nation's capital city, leaving land use issues to DC's Offices of Economic Development and Long-Range Planning.

This brand new Downtown DC 'Circulator Bus', poised under the Whitehurst Freeway to begin its loop between Georgetown and Union Station, is heralded as a key element in "enhanced people-moving capacity along existing transportation corridors" in the COG's latest "(Budget) Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan." In fact, it is too minor an element to reflect in the regional travel forecasting model (above), as is the

"Take me out to the ball game, baseball is back in DC!" This supportive banner, sponsored by the activist group "DCVote", now hangs permanently outside RFK stadium, where the Nationals will play until their new stadium is built. The design for the new stadium is still up for grabs, and DC still has note vote in Congress.

The city has hired a prominent stadium architect to design a structure unlike any he has designed to date. And they have asked him to make it a "signature" stadium, even though he knows little about DC. NARPAC cannot resist the temptation to kibitz, and offers 20 different motifs that could portray DC as different constituencies see our nation's capital city.

The homeowner here at 21 N Street, SE was one of three property holdouts who petitioned the courts to get more for their properties than they were offered. This 5 bedroom "townhouse" stands alone with its walled garden on 2000 sqft of property, perhaps half a block from the planned centerfield fence. Bought five years ago for surely less than $100K, the 2006 total assessed value in $176K, but its "taxable assessment" is set at $87K after the Homestead Credit and other tax caps. DC's CFO has estimated its "seizure value" $696K. The courts have rejected the petition, and virtually all impediments have been removed for proceeding with the land purchase for the Nats' new stadium whatever its signature design may be.

Right smack in the middle of Ward 7, on the southern edge of Fort Chaplin Park, the $26M campus of the SEED School of Washington sits on four acres of land once home to DCPS's Weatherless Elementary School. It is DC's first "college preparatory boarding school for disadvantaged kids". With some 310 all-minority kids living on campus from Sunday night to Friday night, the school is living proof that kids can learn if given a positive environment, and, equally important, secluded from a seriously destructive environment at home. 85% are from single- or no-parent households, and 75% are below the poverty level. Running from 7th through 12th Grade, all 34 kids in the first two graduating classes were accepted in four-year colleges! The Schools for Educational Evolution and Development (SEED) Foundation now hopes to develop a new $80M campus for 600 more deserving kids. Powerful members of the DC subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee are now pre-empting DC prerogatives by requiring that the city put that new campus on 15 prime acres of federal land being transferred for DC for economic development. NARPAC's August editorial wonders whether DC is working with Congress to more sensibly exercise its "signature" oversight role over the national capital city.

NARPAC's latest Law of Urban Development declares that virtually all urban enterprises require a front door and a back door. The former invites the wanted in, while the latter provides all the functions that make the enterprise successful. The two snapshots above show how this law applies to the posh Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest Washington. The main entrance draws in the guests (left), while the service entrance provides for the guests' needs. NARPAC has just finished reviewing the draft study plan for Reinventing New York Avenue and concludes that this law is being violated. The planners divide this heavily-trafficked five miles of muti-lane roadway into six different zones and essentially redecorate each one in a different way. It seems like a fool's errand. They seem to be suggesting that the role of NY Avenue as the city's "service entrance" should be replaced as some rollicking, tree-lined, beckoning linear park for pedestrians and cyclists, with no additional moving traffic lanes.

These attractive, recently refurbished single family homes adorn the first block of New York Ave, Northwest, and apparently provide the basis for converting a short section of New York Avenue into a "neighborhood avenue", just before it turns into an "urban street". Virtually all the rest of NYAve is zoned commercial, industrial, or mixed. Are the planners and their consultants correct in visualizing that these aging structures (now selling for well over $300,000) will remain here for another 30-50 years? NARPAC suggests more functional alternatives that exploit the unique and practical aspects of this truck-heavy route. In fact, NARPAC opines that new technologies now permit New York Avenue to become a fully-automatic toll road, easily capable of raising the monies needed to expand and sustain itself. We'd like to make it America's best urban service entrance.

These young DCPS students were photographed by Rick Reinhard, an outstanding Washington-based freelance photographer. The picture adorns the cover of "Establishing a Baseline", a report generated in 2004 by DC's State Education Office and published by the DC Education Compact (DCEC) as part of their key support in developing DC's new strategic plan for its public schools. This report serves as "research" and analytical background for this recently published DCPS Strategic Plan.. The DCPS superintendent, Dr. Janey, clams that he is "proposing a fundamental redesign of this school system...to transform DCPS into a world-class school system". Are the kids in this picture listening to Janey? Are they wondering who will give them supper? Where their dad is? Who will drop out or get shot first? Go to jail first? Have a baby alone first? Do those kids have a workable strategic plan for a normal productive life? Does Janey really have one for them?

This is the entrance to Alexandria's finest T C Williams high school. An earlier student here won NARPAC's 2001 essay contest. Alexandria is one of the few jurisdictions in the DC metro area that spends as much on each student as DC does, but at a much lower per-household burden. Its households have significantly higher mean income, only half as many are led by single parents, and the adults are significantly better educated. They have a much smaller share of black students, a higher share of kids with disabilities, but higher math and reading proficiency scores, and a higher overall graduation rate. Clearly, many of the interrelated outside-the-school parameters impact on their inside-the-school performance. On what grounds, then, does the new DCPS Strategic Plan set higher short-range ('09) quantitative test score goals than are achieved by equivalent sets of kids across Maryland and Virginia schools? Why doesn't the plan call for closer educational exchanges within our own metro area?

This photo shows the unassuming entrance to Escuele Key, a Spanish language immersion elementary school,. It is located at Courthouse Square amidst the new high rises of the completely redeveloped, transit-oriented, Ballston Corridor through Arlington, VA. (It started life as the Francis Scott Key Elementary School.) The 20,000 students in the Arlington school system are as diverse racially and nationality-wise as any in the US. NARPAC believes there are more than100 languages spoken among Arlington's 70,000 households. Yet their parents are better educated and higher paid, with even fewer single moms than Alexandria. Test scores are also higher, schools hold somewhat more kids than do DC's, and they have almost twice as many teachers per kid. How come their total operational costs per student are virtually identical to DC's? What is DC planning to do that could provide DC kids with higher test scores than Arlington's within five years? NARPAC's commentary on the DCPS Plan suggests that DC's goals are far too ambitious, cluttered with secondary objectives, and very unlikely to be realized.

This early Sunday morning view eastward down Georgetown's Whitehurst Freeway from the Key Bridge above it does not give full credit to either its essential weekday functions as the only M Street bypass, or to the full ugliness of its spindly mid-1900's exposed-girder structure. "Tear it down!" cry DC's vocal aesthetes, "Let cars and commuters be damned". "Restyle its exterior, and hide it behind a functional, multi-level, inter-modal, urban deck," respond NARPAC's economic development analysts "with a terraced park planted on top". DC planners and their ubiquitous consultants are conducting a half-million (federal) dollar study to find equivalent traffic routes from DC's prosperous suburbs to DC's prosperous downtown. They are euphemistically considering "deconstructing" the 3/4 mile "freeway", but they are not considering: a) future arterial traffic growth demands; b) related expansion along Canal Road to the northwest, or c) streamlined access to K Street and I-66 to the southeast.

The one historic jewel worth preserving at the western terminus of the Whitehurst Freeway are the remnants of the C&O canal bridge which allowed barges to be towed across the Potomac River (without touching it!) to the Virginia port of Alexandria in the 1700's. NARPAC is convinced there should now be a direct connection between Alexandria (as well as National Airport, the Pentagon, and Arlington) and Georgetown by a new Metrorail bridge just about the same height above Potomac's waters. It would be substantially lower than the Key Bridge pictured in the background, but it would no more "divide the upper Potomac from the lower Potomac", than detractors now claim that the Whitefurst Freeway now "divides Georgetown from its waterfront". Any such new developments would certainly maintain the current bikers' trail that skirts the river's edge. NARPAC's comments on this overly-constrained Freeway study suggest that DC's transportation planners still have a lot to learn about using the urban landscape's third dimension as population densities necessarily increase, but their demands for open space remain.

Tell people you're from Washington, DC, and they'll ask how the cherry blossoms are blooming this year. Chances are, however, they'll be thinking about those magnificent trees around the Tidal Basin that contribute so much to the capital city's unique springtime aura.. In fact, however, there are cherry trees all over the city, and they can make even the most seriously troubled neighborhoods seem benign. These trees shade the central court of some of the subsidized units in "Sursum Corda", a little-known public housing project a few blocks northeast of Union Station. It became infamous lastyear when a young girl was shot dead during an altercation between warring drug dealers. It has become a symbol of the need to redevelop some of these concentrated housing developments that have fallen victim to "The Unintended Consequences" of earlier public housing policies. This is the subject of a new book by two Washingtonians who warn that "the poorest of the poor" will continue to destroy high-density "working poor" neighborhoods unless they are sprinkled more thinly amongst mixing housing communities.

Another lone cherry tree brightens the 1600 block of Trinidad Avenue,, including a vintage Chevy pick-up truck. Trinidad/Ivy is another of DC's poorer neighborhoods that is trying to pull itself back from the ravages of deep poverty. The Mayor's 2005 "State of the District Address" proposes three new priorities for this year: "reviving our most neglected neighborhoods" (without, in fact, deconcentrating the poor); "rebuilding the infrastructure of the city" (mainly through upgrading major city arteries) to increase business and reduce crime; and "reducing taxes for all DC residents, especially the most vulnerable among us". He points to Barracks Row Main Street as one of the city's recently completed and so far, successful street upgrades.

What the mayor doesn't talk about is where the revenues are coming from to make possible more spending on, and less taxes from, the city's many disadvantaged residents. But the fact is that the city is bursting out with attractive new downtown buildings like this new blue glass headquarters for the National Association of Realtors, squeezed onto a fifth of an acre triangular lot where 1st Street, NW merges with New Jersey Avenue, NW, four blocks north of the US Capitol. This striking 12-story building will generate over half a million dollars annually just in property taxes even if all its occupants commute. This alone will allow over 1000 single moms with three kids, making $24,000 a year, to stop paying any income taxes at all, for whatever that's worth. But the basic issue will remain: is DC making real progress alleviating the misery of the "poorest of the poor", and can the city by itself ever do so? NARPAC thinks it will take the whole region to raise all DC's badly leaking boats.

Visit our latest addition to our Art Gallery to sample professional photos by Washington's own Stephen R. Brown from his new book celebrating the WWII Memorial. In addition, the gallery on Raymond Kaskey has been updated with some additional photographs by Brown to illustrate Kaskey's major sculptural contribution to the WWII memorial. In contrast, NARPAC's more informal snapshots of the memorial accompanied our mid-2004 report on potentially surplus federal properties (not including the Mall!).

On the west edge of John Marshall Park at the intersection of Constitution Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue (just across the street from the National Gallery of Art) stands the impressive modern Canadian Embassy. Some Washingtonians, including some DC officials, think the city is disadvantaged because this property generates no property taxes. Who's kidding whom? Would this building be here if the Federal Government wasn't? There are other under-utilized federal properties that can be transferred to DC for economic development. NARPAC's March editorial strongly supports such land transfers, but only if DC doesn't use it to avoid improving the productivity of its present under-utilized land.

Across the park from the Canadian Embassy sits the US District Court House for DC, with its permanent chess players. As a result of a February Supreme Court decision, all future class action suits will now have to be filed in federal courts like this, and hopefully fewer frivolous ones will be generated. On the other hand, NARPAC thinks that the citizens of DC and its metro area should develop a major class action suit against DC and its Congressional Overseers to recall and recycle DC public school dropouts that threaten to perpetuate the city's disgraceful cycle of poverty.
In January, 2005, the Ford Motor Company announced, as prescribed by law, that a recall of 728,000 (!) Ford F150 trucks and Expeditions (shown here) is now underway. According to their Defect Information Report to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, there have been a total of 63 minor vehicle fires and one injury. NARPAC has drawn up an imaginary Educational Deficit Report to be submitted to the equally imaginary Education Deficit Remediation Agency at the Department of Education. It announces the recall of some 45-60,000 DCPS dropouts with life-long educational deficiencies likely to be passed on to their progeny.

 

NARPAC cannot understand why the federal government strictly enforces public safety issues for equipment that last about a decade, but allows educational shortcomings in far more valuable and vulnerable humans to go uncorrected. Why don't we try again to provide the basics to local residents that impact their communities for fifty years? NARPAC has conjured up a "New Hope" group home to provide "adult" education opportunities for teen moms; their kids; and other poverty-stricken adults and homeless. These unit would be built on existing school properties with funds derived primarily by selling off surplus school properties, and operated as self-supporting entities. The retouched photo to the right shows  Montgomery County's new recycling bins (not garbage cans): it is intended to startle, but not offend.

This clear winter's day photo of Rock Creek Park was taken from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge near DC's only mosque. It shows both the creek and the parkway which stretch from the Potomac River at Georgetown up to DC's northern tip. DC's CFO is urging federal authorities to pay DC a sizeable annual stipend because DC is not allowed by Congress to tax this 1755 acre parkway. It is maintained by the National Park Service, has many rustic features, and is free for all DC residents to enjoy. NARPAC thinks the DC Council should exercise more foresight and find ways to cooperate more with the Federal Government instead of demanding hand-outs that will forever compromise DC's quest for autonomy.

 

The homes along the one-block long Hopkins Street, NW is only two short blocks from DuPont Circle, one of the westernmost corners of DC's high density "Downtown" area. Unless the DC Council works to find new properties for high-density development or additional ways to alleviate DC's high levels of residential poverty, properties like these may have to be redeveloped to generate higher revenues.

This Saturday morning snapshot looking North on Wisconsin Ave in "downtown Bethesda" is already heavily laden with traffic, including heavy trucks that are free to use in "24/7". It is just one of many saturated arteries approaching DC that will soon stifle economic growth in the nation's capital city. It is just one more serious issue that will require the focus of the DC Council if DC is to come up with the needed regional transportation solutions to keep the metro area and its core city healthy and prosperous. NARPAC wants the Council to spend more time exercising its foresight, and less time flexing its oversight functions.

This early midweek afternoon snapshot looking West on M Street in Georgetown shows double parking by delivery trucks in each direction. Each of the six in view is liable for a $50 fine regardless of the time of day, and the duration of lane blockage. The recently released results of the Mayor's Parking Task Force recommends much stronger enforcement of parking violations as well as higher fees and fines. NARPAC is encouraged by several of these relatively new suggestions and hopes they will be implemented.

A second and related Mayoral Task Force was released at the same time, this one dealing with Managing Downtown Congestion. The suggestions from this "commission" seemed to be warmed over from recent DDoT studies on trucks and the proposed K Street "Busway". Nevertheless, these commissions indicate concern for the imminent saturation of DC's streets and avenues, at the same time hoping to add retail business "downtown". In fact, one of the few remaining car dealers in DC is shifting some of his business into the Maryland suburbs instead. His bright blue semi-automated 3-level car-stacking system just west of Little Falls Parkway indicates that it may be later than the planners think: space is disappearing in the suburbs too. NARPAC worries that these commissions have focused on a few of the "trees" and overlooked the impending transportation disaster for the whole "forest."

This pastoral scene shows Northwest's Georgetown Reservoir beside MacArhur Boulevard in the background. Less visible, but in the foreground, are the two white poles and grey pedestal that mark the latest anti-speeding camera installed in Northwest. There is a variety of such emerging technologies that can assist in DC's traffic management problems . DC already collects more in traffic- related revenues than it spends to keep the traffic moving, but these newer technologies and enforcement measures could double those revenues and more than pay DC's annual Metro subsidies. The new "RFIDs" (essentially radio-frequency barcodes) will become an important factor in these innovations.

High-end developments are continuing apace in downtown DC, now reaching to the waterfront. Shown from across the Washington Channel are the posh new Mandarin hotel to the left (400 rooms/suites from $350 to $7,500 per night), and The Portals office buildings to the right (soon to be 3 million sqft), mostly occupied by federal government workers. In the far left rear a brick tower of the Smithsonian museums peeks out over trees from the Mall. Far right foreground is the Washington Yacht Club. Far left foreground in dirty green is one of DC's five most decrepit 3rd-world railroad bridges. In any other mid-sized American city, these major revenue-producing buildings would be at least twice as high, and the bridge would have been modernized. Lack of an authoritative Quantitative Analysis Capability in DC makes it impossible to say just how many bridges and thousands of the city's poor could be sustained on the income from federal workers and visitors occupying those missing floors.

Relatively affordable downtown living is also becoming more available with the completion of the new condominium, 400 Massachusetts Avenue (pictured here) and the "Meridan at Gallery Place", next door, with 462 apartments ranging from $1300 to $3,450 per month. Squeezed into the front (center) of 400 Mass Ave is a renovated historic DC firehouse, which, until recently, housed some of DC's homeless women. It stood alone on this undeveloped block of lower Massachusetts Avenue for years (near Union Station) and is shown in this earlier NARPAC photo as part of a short analysis of DC's disproportionate share of the region's homeless. The lack of 'net productivity' analysis makes it difficult at best for planners to tell decision-makers how much more revenue could have been raised from an office building the same size.

Less than 20 blocks northeast from the US Capitol in the blighted Trinidad neighborhood, residents on Montello Avenue are struggling to either resist or benefit from the onset of "re-gentrification", and the associated risks of de-concentration/re-location for their poorest neighbors. To NARPAC's knowledge, DC city planners have never truly addressed the possible range of mechanisms to solve these fundamental urban problems rather than pushing them under the politicians' rugs. NARPAC has made scores of informal quantitative analyses of many of these issues, but they will not gain credibility unless produced under the city's own imprimatur. We strongly urge DC to develop these needed capabilities in-house.
One of the most embarrassing images presented by Washington, DC is not generated by the District's local government, but by federal authorities who raised the terror threat level to ORANGE during the summer of 2004, and left it there until after the recent national elections were completed. Barricades around the US capitol such as this one two blocks away on South Capitol Street, have made a mockery of the notion that this major street should become a grand gateway to the seat of US Government. Despite the elaborate and cumbersome protection of this symbol of American power, the legislators have done precious little in the three years since 9/11 to enhance the survivability of the city's residents and commuters by improving its emergency transportation systems.

Washington, DC is nevertheless revitalizing its blighted areas within sight of the capitol dome. This new barracks for the US Marine Corps Band is located just south of the Southeast Freeway, replacing a group of dilapidated public housing apartments. It is one small step towards the complete rebuilding of the "Near Southeast" and the creation of a new 'Downtown South' (a NARPAC term). This total area is expected to gain tens of thousands of new workers and thousands of new residents within the next two decades. Nonetheless, there are no plans to enhance DC's primary public transit systems in this area, or to use this growth to provide a southern 'bypass' around downtown transportation gridlock.

This 'Downtown South' area will most likely include a brand new Major League Baseball stadium, presently planned near the Anacostia River. It will be built over the dead bodies of most of DC's hyper-activists anxious to spend city revenues only on the city's many residents too poor to attend baseball games. The desolate industrially-zoned area at Half Street and Potomac Ave, SE depicted here includes the planned location of home plate. It is much closer to the Navy Yard metro station than the Navy Yard is. Nevertheless, the stadium's detractors are trying to hang the cost of enlarging the station on the stadium, rather than the commercial and residential growth expected throughout the "Near Southeast" area. Presently, there is virtually no planned metro expansion in the pathetically inadequate projected WMATA capital budget.

The barebones Benning Road Metro Station toward the eastern end of the Blue Line opened in 1981 smack in the middle of Ward 7, east of the Anacostia. It has averaged a bit under 3000 entries or exits per week ever since. It is just under 4 miles due east of the national capitol dome. There has been virtually no economic 'smart growth' development around this station in 23 years. It is also served by two local ("non-regional") bus routes (U8 and U5/6) which loop around between nearby neighborhoods at about 1100 "bus-hours per week", and one "regional" bus route (96/97), the East Capitol Street/Cardozo Line, which provides about 930 "bus-hours per week". According to the Approved FY 2004 WMATA Budget each subway rider requires a $0.69 subsidy, and each rider who jumps on a bus requires a $1.36 subsidy. DC will pay the lion's share of these subsidies because its residents use public transit so much (not so little!).

 

Right across from that metro station at the intersection of Benning Road and East Capitol Street, sits Dennys, "the only sit-down restaurant east of the Anacostia", according to the disgruntled local political aspirants who just won primaries over three long-time DC Council members. The fuchsia-painted restaurant (in the insert) just across the street has been closed for years. It adds a certain color to an otherwise down-trodden neighborhood, but nothing to its economy. There are virtually no capital investment funds in the 2004-2009 WMATA Capital Budget, and none will find their way to this part of town, though planning and engineering design to extend this line further into Prince George's County is underway.

The Anacostia Metro Station on the Green Line at the intersection of South Capitol Street and Martin Luther King Avenue in Ward 8 has three times the weekly riders as Benning Road, and a much more elaborate bus terminal as well. It even has a parking lot, an inconvenient distance away on Poplar Point. However, this promontory on the Anacostia River will soon become part of the city's ambitious Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, and possibly home to as new soccer stadium. Despite this future promise, the most prominent building within walking distance of this Metro station is the Nichols Ave Elementary School which has stood empty for years. It is a monument to Ward 8's decline into poverty, and the inability of its elected representatives, including 4-term ex-Mayor Marion Barry, to do anything about it. As Marion Barry wins the Democratic nomination to represent Ward 8 yet again, NARPAC offers some advice on how he might improve his legacy where it is needed most.

NARPAC devotes its September update to a close look at the newly released "DC Vision" document intended to guide the development of the next version of DC's long-range Comprehensive Plan. That "Vision" essentially paints a picture of DC as an Island Kingdom totally independent of any metro area, and with no obligations besides improving its 144 neighborhoods as financially independent fiefdoms. We have therefore worked up the attached draft cover for the final Comprehensive Plan to reflect its insular views.

While the suburbs of our national capital metro area are busy making plans to continue their extraordinary economic expansion, the DC "Vision" focuses its transportation growth on "connecting the whole city" internally and with no growth in Metrorail. DC's Office of Planning sponsored a consultant's transportation strategy report to support that approach. Meanwhile, the 20-odd story core buildings at Tysons Corner II, including the posh Ritz Carlton hotel, will soon be joined by many more office and residential buildings in a high-density zoned area as big as DC's downtown area. Plans are complete to service Tysons Corner with four new metro stations. By contrast, DC's "Vision" condemns the core city to becoming an ever-smaller economic force in its metro area.

Another consultant's background report on economic development policies proposes to welcome new "net revenue-producing residents" into vacant and abandoned housing units scattered around the city, many in DC's poorest and most blighted neighborhoods. These stripped apartment buildings in DC's high-crime Trinidad neighborhood are now available for sale (as is) for $250,000. The consultant's report by the Urban Institute on housing strategies suggests that this same group of vacant buildings be gradually reclaimed over the next 20 years for the needed 72,000 affordable housing units for households who seldom pay their way. The "Vision" seems to be double-counting its dubious assets, and DC's bullish real estate market may be the final arbiter!

In what appears to be a politically-oriented, but disingenuous, ploy, both the Social Equity Planning Report and the Sense of the DC Council Resolution try to make sure that DC makes economic progress without incurring "gentrification", i.e., a substantial increase in real estate values in relatively poor neighborhoods. Apparently the owners of this 3-unit row house on Trinidad's Montello Avenue have had no such proscriptions and are two-thirds of the way to significantly increasing their investment. In NARPAC's Proposed Alternate Vision Outline, the case is made that unless DC's Comprehensive Plan faces up to these unavoidable risks of gentrification, de-concentration, and relocation, and develops means to cope with them, the city will continue to be the region's poorhouse rather than the nation's capital city.

A Tale of Two Metro Stations is evolving that should concern all Americans interested in the continued economic development and world-class standing of their national capital city. The upper photo shows the Potomac Avenue Metro Station. It has been open for business for 27 years and is now serving less riders than it did when it opened. The lower photo shows the considerable progress on the new New York Avenue Metro Station beside the main CSX and Amtrak railroad tracks approaching Union Station (in the background, below the capital dome). It is the last station currently planned to be built in DC. Something is clearly wrong with DC's ability to develop its existing assets, and with its intention to keep up with metro area growth. As a stimulus for more imaginative local planning, NARPAC has developed its own notional Vision for a Robust Urban Metrorail System, and it includes a major expansion of Potomac Avenue as a "Destination Station".

The brightest and lightest temporary capital investment in DC is the presence of over 150 imaginatively decorated panda bears, as a follow-on to the Party Animals of 2002. The upper photo (taken by Jarad Vary) shows a panhandling bear outside the Metro headquarters on 5th Street behind the National Building Museum. Based on the rationale behind NARPAC's vision, it is likely to require major Federal funding to provide the investment capital needed to keep Metrorail growing. The lower photo shows a sidewalk superintendent bear, trying to help prevent the pandemonium that will result if Metro does not even get the funds needed to perform essential maintenance, or the pandemic that will spread across the city if gridlock develops during commuter subway rush hours. A collection of Jarad Vary's photographs is included in our web site's "art gallery".

One of DC's most intractable problems involves developing a realistic affordable housing strategy. The Urban Institute is again leading the debate with a new report on equitable housing, which strikes NARPAC as totally unrealistic. NARPAC first photographed this dilapidated green house on 9th Street, NW over six years ago, but it still remains unrestored to help meet DC's peculiar housing needs. What a shame! Variation in housing stock is one of the factors that differentiates DC from Long Beach, CA , and may have made it easier for their public school superintendent to appear so much more successful than DC's.

Rosslyn, Arlington County's "business district", and DC's largest "edge city", is planning to add yet again to their revenue-producing, high-density development on a 2-acre site pictured here facing Georgetown across the Potomac River. In this photo, the center buildings are to be demolished at 19th and North Lynn Streets, to make way for "Waterview", twin 24-story towers that will provide more office space than the 38-acre site in Northwest DC, where Homeland Security will take over from the Navy. And it will provide a hotel, retail space, and 180 condos as well. NARPAC estimates that this valuable but badly misused DC property, soon to transferred to the GSA (the "federal landlord") would, if redeveloped for the upscale, high-density residential market, provide DC more annual revenues than it currently spends in toto on public libraries or locally-funded road repairs!

This painting of the famous Duke Ellington is now visible again behind the U Street Metro entrance, where major new redevelopments are underway. A gifted Howard undergraduate recently expressed the emotional conflict between gentrification and displacement that must inescapably accompany the continued redevelopment of the nation's capital city. "The Ellington", a new 7-story residential complex (in the shape of a giant "E"), will soon open its doors for residents far wealthier than those currently living here. Amanda Miller wonders where they will go.

The World War II Memorial on the National Mall was finally dedicated over the Memorial Day weekend of 2004. Seventeen years in the making, and the subject of various complaints about size, style, and location, it is sited between The Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. NARPAC thinks it is a fitting memorial to the "last good war" whose total victory changed the world for the better and the fabric of the United States as well. Surely this majestic memorial should be less controversial than the 1800 acres of mostly non-essential military facilities within DC that seriously hamper the ability of the District to raise the revenues it needs to be the nation's finest city as well as the region's poor house.

Just southeast of the Lincoln Memorial stands the Korean War Memorial. It is a far less grand memorial dedicated to those soldiers who slogged through a distant war which did not result in a clear victory, but which still ties down a substantial number of Army and Air Force military personnel fifty years later. Following close on the heels of WWII, it also delayed the closure or contraction of many military facilities than had been opened or enlarged to fight that war. It was not until the late 1980's when a formal procedure was instigated by the Congress to encourage an orderly Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process with minimal political interference.

Just northwest of the Lincoln Memorial is an even more subdued memorial to each of those killed (and to the nurses who tried to save them) in the only war the US has lost to date. The Vietnam War Memorial is certainly the least ostentatious of the mall's memorials, which for many years thereafter produced an alienation between the military and their civilian peers, as well as a reluctance to take on more Third World realignments. But one positive outcome was the successful transition to an all-volunteer US military force. This in turn required a significantly higher, and more costly, quality of life on military bases. By the 1980's, the collapse of the 40-year Cold War (not as yet memorialized) reduced the demand for, and funding of, US military forces. The need to continue to consolidate functions on underutilized bases is obvious.

This large new downtown building with the swank address of One Franklin Square has the distinction of providing DC with more "revenues per acre" from property taxes ($4 million per year) than any other commercial building in the District. It has a commanding site on K Street, NW, on the north side of the capital's historic Franklin Square. It is totally consistent with the new draft of the Federal Elements of the Comprehensive Plan for the National Capital currently being circulated by the National Capital Planning Commission.

This beautiful private residence on 30th Street just off Massachusetts Avenue, NW, has the similar distinction of having the highest per-acre property tax assessment of any residential parcel in DC. But it will yield only about $150,0000 in annual revenues for the District. And herein lies NARPAC's general dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive Plan: the federal government has no long-range plan to transfer more poorly utilized federal properties to DC for revenue-rich commercial development. In fact, that plan does not acknowledge that improving DC's Third World quality of life (at the other end of town) should even be part of the federal government's goals to assure the world's finest national capital "image".

These artists' sketches (courtesy of Torti Gallas and Partners, CHK, architects) show the winning design for the new high-rise building (DC-style) to be built on the wax museum site, just east of the Museum of DC History (nee Carnegie Library) at Mt. Vernon Square. Upper view is looking north from 5th and K Sts, NW, the lower view is from the north end of the block at 5th and L, looking south. This valuable new development is constrained not only by federal law and by District code, but also by Shaw neighborhood activists resisting "gentrification" and urbanization. This anchor property for the "NOMA triangle" (i.e., north of Mass Avenue) is located in DC's famous Topographic Bowl (which defined the limits of the original L'Enfant City). Many of the residents of this complex should have a grand view of the slopes and rim of the bowl just beyond the Florida Avenue Escarpment. Puzzled? Read the Plan!

Second District Headquarters of DC's Metropolitan Police Department is located on a suburban campus on Idaho Avenue, NW. It will remain part of Regional Operational Command North, and patrol about 7500 mostly residential acres with some 52,600 well-off households and less than 12,000 kids under 18, most with two well-educated parents. Under the latest proposed "police reorganization and deployment plan", this headquarters will control seven police service areas (PSAs), two less than now, with some 232 officers, including their senior officers and support staff. Last year they responded to just under 12,000 priority emergency calls involving 283 violent crimes and 1 homicide. It will remain the least stressed police district in DC. Contrary to self-serving local conventional wisdom, no more than 12% of DC's total police assets will be deployed downtown to cope with the needs of all federal workers, commuters, tourists, visitors, and demonstrators together!

Two miles southeast of 2DHq (above) the Third MPD District Headquarters sits on U Street, NW, just west of 16th Street. It is the second of three components in ROC-North and its operating area of some 2275 acres is the smallest of any DC police district. It will have 7 new (vice 12 old) PSAs, and use 419 officers and support personnel. They will watch over some 54,600 modest and less well-schooled households with 17,400 kids who have as many single moms as married parents. And consistent with local socio-economic trends based on total parental education, 3D will again be responding to almost 25,000 emergency calls involving 1900 violent crimes and over 20 homicides (nowhere near the maximum of over 60 in 6D and 7D). It will remain the most stressed DC police district, but should benefit from the increased number of police officers.

On the high ground at Tenley Circle just across Albemarle Street from the Tenleytown Metro station in Northwest stands Janney Elementary School, one of DC's finest schools in one of DC's most prosperous, and strong-willed, neighborhoods. From its cupola there is an unobstructed view across the Potomac to DC's Northern Virginia suburbs. Closer to ground level, its kids generate some of the highest "NAEP testing scores in DC. If there were many more schools like Janney, the city would not be in turmoil about the public school system's "abysmal student achievement".

Just across Alabama Avenue from the Congress Heights Metro station behind St. Elizabeth's in Southeast stands Malcolm X Elementary School, one of DC's lowest performing schools in one of the city's highest crime areas. It is one of the schools that has generated a very high (and sudden) level of discontent with DCPS management and oversight. NARPAC's March update focuses almost entirely on various aspects of this perceived problem, and expressed its concern that city officials and lay leaders may leap to the wrong conclusions, and make the situation worse. The current focus is almost entirely on academic reform, but some of the underlying causes are way beyond DC's control, and others relate to less than stellar DC facilities planning.

Owners of the comfortable homes in the DC residential suburb of Tenleytown will soon have to deal with significantly rising property taxes resulting from their first re-assessment in the three years of DC's booming real estate market. Normally home base for some of DC's finest NIMBYs, now it is the turn for its NOOMPs. Controversy over how to mitigate these tax increases became a major local political issue in January, and NARPAC isn't too pleased with the strange messages sent by the outcome.

From high atop Tenleytown's 90-acre Fort Reno Park there is a splendid view out across DC's urban border to the building tops of the "edge village" of Friendship Heights, Maryland, developed near the Friendship Heights Metro Station.. There in the luxury of DC's under- taxed suburbs, these cliff-dwellers live with fifteen times the density of those living in Census Tract 11 near the DC Tenleytown Metro Station, and produce for Montgomery County fifteen times as much net revenue income per acre. Located about one mile apart on the Upper Wisconsin Avenue Corridor, the difference in approach to "smart growth planning" is both evident and contentious.

Many of the 15-20 story buildings of Friendship Heights Village front on Williard Avenue near Friendship Boulevard. Fortunately for these residents, many single or retired, neither of these streets will be designated TR-I truck routes, and hence will not be subject to continuous 24/7 use by trucks 80,000 pounds and heavier. On the other hand, DC is now reviewing a federal DoT-sponsored Truck Traffic Study for DC which hopes to bestow such authority on both Wisconsin and Connecticut Avenues within the city limits. NARPAC thinks the city would do well to turn such necessity into a virtue and devise ways to turn city traffic of all sorts into city revenues using newly available technologies.

The Thompson Point Boathouse is pretty well buttoned up during DC's winter months, but it sits at the confluence of Rock Creek and the Potomac River at the edge of Georgetown. It looks down along the riverbank towards the well-known Watergate complex and Kennedy Center;across to Teddy Roosevelt Island; and upriver past the imaginative Washington Harbor retail/office/residential complex to Key Bridge and the historic B&O canal.. It is also very near the junction of several major DC arteries, as well as DC and Maryland bike trails. NARPAC thinks it could also become the name of a new Metro rail station and intermodal parking facility that should be developed as part of the new K Street Busway.

A leaden sky during Christmas week diminishes the waterfront appeal of the Washington Harbor complex along the Georgetown banks of the Potomac. But if DC's current plans to develop a modern K Street Busway from Union Station to Georgetown bear fruit, this handsome center is likely to gain more year- round visitors. Georgetown vibrancy and diversity is unlikely to be affected by continuing trends in declining births to single teenagers.

With his back to the Potomac River, NARPAC's photographer catches an unusual view of Georgetown's new Ritz Carlton suites, built around a long-idled municipal powerplant, and first photographed in 2001 for this album when construction work began. Many of the multi- million dollar units remain empty: as empty as the space beneath the Whitehurst Freeway. This freeway is an essential, but aesthetically-challenged, bypass for M Street between Canal Road and K Street which some city planners want to eliminate. Instead, NARPAC suggests that this area be built up as part of the K Street Busway to provide much needed off- street, out-of-sight parking, a more elevated park, and a virtually de-elevated freeway.

What does Hoboken, New Jersey, have that DC doesn't have? A complete, fully functioning fully robotic parking garage for 324 cars or SUVs on a 100x100ft lot on Garden Street that blends in with its neighboring buildings so that its entrances are hard to spot. NARPAC compares it to its own designs and another existing system. Such new technology is now available in production from an American firm in Florida, and deserves the serious attention of DC urban planners. The objective is not to ban Americans' favorite possession, but to perfect the union between private and public transportation.

And what does DC have that Hoboken doesn't have? A complete, fully functioning city morgue on the grounds of the largely defunct DC General Hospital. It is accustomed to processing well over 250 homicide victims per year. The lower level entrance to the refrigerated parking for the deceased also holds the several vehicles of the very active medical examiner's office. Crime levels in DC are a subject of serious concern. The mitigation of these embarrassing statistics does not lie in adding more cops, but in improving the circumstances which breed the criminal behavior.

 

DC's new City Administrator gets some free advice from NARPAC in this month's editorial, and some free analysis of how DC stands compared to four relevant cities: two of which Mr. Bobb has managed, and two others whose populations have just surpassed that of DC. We also provide some estimates of how much money DCPS is losing by not closing 28 schools to match the drop in enrollment in the past six years. In fact, Mr. Bobb might do well to simply cross the Potomac to Rosslyn in Arlington County, depicted here, to learn about better land and school use policies for serious economic development.

While visiting Arlington, Mr. Bobb might also take a look at what that county has done together with WMATA to improve bus transportation along its under-served Columbia Pike. The new "Pikeride" stands in contrast to DC's dubious plans to add light rail along city streets and places that deserve expanded and redundant first-class metrorail service.

And if he should go to Arlington via Chain Bridge he might do well to scan NARPAC's brief analysis of vehicular traffic to understand that there's a lot more to road-wear than that caused by those pesky, free-loading suburban commuters that Washingtonians love to hate and are dying to tax. Almost 25,000 vehicles rumble across that bucolic span each 24-hr workday, but most of them are not out-of- state workers.

The Key Bridge over the Potomac River between Rosslyn, VA and Georgetown, DC carries 5% of the vehicular traffic in and out of the nation's capital on a daily basis. Proponents of permanent federal subsidies and/or commuter taxes assert th