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Articles
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| Union Station may become a transit “intermodal hub” |
VOICE writes, "By ARTHUR DELANEY
The District Department of Transportation recently hosted the first of a series of meetings at Union Station on the fate of the building’s surrounding streetscape, which officials hope will become “an efficient transportation network around a vital historic, cultural, and essential transportation resource.”
The District is studying the feasibility of various improvements to the way the station accommodate buses, cars and trains. Improvement is necessary, the city says.
“If you drove here, you might have rear-ended a bus, or you might have used profane language,” said Transportation Department project manager Tomika Hughey. “That is the reality of transit at Union Station.”
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton delivered opening remarks to the roughly two-dozen neighbors and engineers who showed up at the May 29 Transportation Department presentation at Union Station’s Columbus Club. Norton said she remembers the building as a stately train station when she was little.
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“By the time I was grown up, it was a slum owned by the federal government,” she said. But the building is in good hands now, with a “true public-private partnership” between the District and developers looking to improve transportation around the station, Norton said.
She reported she had obtained $2.25 million from Congress to fund the study: “The Congress of the United States wants this to be a true intermodal hub.”
Key aspects of the project include parking for tour buses, integration of a streetcar service to H Street NE and a pedestrian tunnel from Union Station to 1st Street NE. The total study area ranges between M Street NE and Massachusetts Avenue NE, North Capitol Street and 3rd Street NE. The District expects to finish the study by October 2008.
Hughey said the city wants to make sure neighbors’ voices are heard. “Most importantly, we don’t want to degrade the community in the process,” she said.
Over a dozen community groups, including nearby advisory neighborhood commissions, form the study’s “Community Leaders Committee.”
Some neighbors at the meeting said they thought the Transportation Department had not done enough outreach.
Monte Edwards of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society complained that neither the restoration society nor the Stanton Park Neighborhood Association had received notice of the meeting.
Hughey apologized for leaving anyone out. “I take ownership of that,” she said.
Near Northeast advisory neighborhood commissioner Ryan Velasco said he wants to make sure Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells is involved in the process.
Hughey said Wells will be involved. “He’s a very transit-oriented council member, which is refreshing to us,” she said.
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Posted on Jun 16, 2008 20:00pm.
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