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New Look Avenue: D.C. Panel's $2 Billion Plan for New York

A District task force is proposing a $2 billion make-over for New York Avenue, a dilapidated Washington gateway, that would include a rail line, a traffic tunnel and a spruced-up grand boulevard. But finding the money to pay for the ambitious plan will be difficult.

The 37-member task force appointed by Mayor Marion Barry (D) will unveil a plan next month that seeks to make it easier for people to travel in and out of the city along an improved New York Avenue between Seventh Street NW and the District line. If the improvements are made, panel members hope, developers could be persuaded to invest in housing, businesses and restaurants that would provide jobs and boost the District's tax revenue.

Whether the money can be found to carry out the plan, or even parts of it, the proposal spotlights the importance of New York Avenue to the region. The road carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day, making it the District's second-busiest street, after Kenilworth Avenue NE. Users include tourists, commuters and truck traffic serving light industry, warehouses and distributors.

Fed by Route 50 and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, New York Avenue will be a preferred route when the new convention center, the MCI Center sports arena and the opera house open downtown. Easing traffic congestion there also is important to Maryland officials who want to increase use of Baltimore-Washington International Airport, because it would make it easier for Washington travelers to get to BWI.

However lofty the goals, remaking New York Avenue won't be easy or cheap. In effect, the task force is asking Congress and the Clinton administration to find nearly $2 billion at a time when lawmakers are trying to balance the federal budget and other cities have pressing needs.

"We really have to convince Congress to make up their minds whether they want a national capital we can be proud of. Do they want to put us on our feet?" said Ron M. Linton, chairman of the task force, which has the support of some key business groups, including the Federal City Council and D.C. Chamber of Commerce.

But Robert D. Reischauer, former chief of the Congressional Budget Office, said: "The possibility of the District getting close to $2 billion from the federal government for economic development is only slightly higher than the chances the ice cap will melt in the next five years. It's a lot of money . . . being asked for by a city that doesn't have a lot of political clout."

Even if Congress had the money for New York Avenue, the District has other pressing needs, officials said. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Oversight subcommittee on the District, said: "If you're going to spend $2 billion, where's the first place to spend it? Is it to improve the water or do something like this on New York Avenue? That's the $64,000 question."

Clinton administration officials declined to comment.

Linton has spent the last six weeks taking business, civic and political leaders on tours of the four-mile stretch of New York Avenue to build support. Though the plan borrows heavily from past proposals for the avenue that went nowhere, this task force bears Linton's imprint. He is commander of the D.C. police department's reserve corps and a former chairman of the regional airport board.

Details of the proposal still are being worked out, and a report will be sent to Barry next month. If money could be found, the project would take several years to complete. Key proposals include:

A rail line between Metro's Green Line station at Mount Vernon Square/UDC and a new station at Fort Lincoln. Stations also would be built at New Jersey Avenue; Florida Avenue near the city's wholesale food market; Ivy City near Gallaudet University; and Bladensburg Road near the National Arboretum. The task force hasn't decided if the rail line should be an extension of Metrorail or an above-ground light rail line, which could be cheaper and allow for more stops.

A commuter rail station adjacent to the Ivy City station that would intercept some of the Maryland commuter rail passengers who now go to Union Station. Amtrak President Thomas M. Downs is advancing the idea as a way to reduce train congestion at Union Station.

A tunnel to separate Interstate 395 traffic among Maryland, Northern Virginia and the District from the stop-and-go surface traffic on New York. The task force proposes putting interchanges at I-395 at the Labor Department, 200 Constitution Ave. NW; the convention center's underground parking lot at Sixth and L streets NW; and near Sixth Street NE. A Virginia driver heading north on I-395 could avoid local traffic by taking the tunnel from the Labor Department to Sixth Street. Maryland commuters could use the tunnel between downtown and the Baltimore-Washington Parkway or Route 50.

A reconfigured New York Avenue between Seventh Street NW and Florida Avenue NE that would create a 25-foot-wide median with vendors, benches and landscaping. The boulevard would have service lanes for local traffic, plus two lanes in each direction for through traffic. The chaotic intersection of Florida and New York would be turned into a traffic circle with a monument in the middle.

A massive deck over the railroad tracks north of New York Avenue that would house offices, parking, shops and restaurants.

The task force predicts that the redevelopment plan could add 40,000 new jobs to the New York Avenue corridor from office, retail and industrial development. With improved transportation, hotels could spring up, Linton said, and new residential high-rise buildings could be built along Massachusetts Avenue and K and North Capitol streets.

The proposal also revives an idea broached three years ago by council member John Ray (D-At Large), who advocated creating a New York Avenue Development Corp. patterned after the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp., which used federal money to trigger private investment in the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue downtown.

"Nothing is going to happen in that area without a massive stimulus," said Nathan Isikoff, chairman of Carey Winston Co., the city's largest commercial real estate developer.

Isikoff and others said that redevelopment won't occur along New York -- or anywhere else -- until the District stops losing residents. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has proposed a flat income tax rate as an incentive to lure people back.

"New York Avenue . . . will have to compete for money," said Thomas W. Wilbur, president of the D.C. Building Industry Association. "Right now, it lacks the infrastructure of other underdeveloped areas that already have Metro. . . . I'm a firm believer in a flat tax. You're not going to make things happen in these areas if you don't have people."