On this Thanksgiving weekend, let's thank the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, along with its public- and private-sector collaborators, for creating the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University Metro station, which opened last Saturday.
This innovative Metro Red Line station is especially significant for several reasons.
The station, located halfway between the Union Station and Rhode Island Avenue stops, with its north end perched over Florida Avenue, is the first inserted within the original Metro station network. That network was designed, built and began running in the 1970s.
Instead of reinforced concrete, the station's graceful, subtly arched platform canopy is spanned with elegant, white-painted, steel plate trusses and glass sheathing. This architectural strategy, opening the canopy visually to the sky, imparts a pleasant sense of transparency and structural lightness.
Four elevators and four escalators, along with stairways, provide redundancy lacking in other Metro stations. Thus Metro riders will be able to ascend or descend comfortably within this station even when one of the elevators or escalators fails.
Abutting the tracks will be a 2,000-foot-long segment of the Metropolitan Branch Trail. Planned for bicyclists and pedestrians, this new trail will stretch for eight miles along the Red Line right-of-way between Union Station and Silver Spring. Eventually it will link up with the Capital Crescent, Rock Creek Park and Sligo Creek trails and become part of a region-wide hiker-biker network.
But the most significant aspect of the new station is its role as catalyst for urban revitalization in this formerly decrepit industrial neighborhood, where acres of surface parking lots and obsolete structures have long dominated. Costing more than $100 million, this station promises to dramatically transform a part of the District that, despite its strategic location, has remained fallow, unsightly and unsafe for decades.
Building this station is a stellar example of "smart growth" policies and investment, both public and private, in action. In this sector of its plan for the area called "NOMA" -- North of Massachusetts Avenue -- the D.C. Office of Planning envisions mixed uses, high densities and animated streetscapes.
Transformation has already begun and stands a good chance of being substantially accomplished within the next 10 to 15 years.
Public and private optimism about redevelopment is reflected in the station's unique public-private financing. About a quarter of the station funding was federal. Slightly more than half came from the city. But $25 million was raised through a bond issue that nearby businesses and property owners agreed to pay for by taxing themselves. This made economic sense because, while the station will substantially increase nearby property values, property owners will benefit from tax credits as real estate values rise.
