Oops (a/k/a hindsight)

Given the debacle over the Brookland Small Area Planning process (it commenced in Nov. 2006 and is in the final stages now), it occurs to me that DC _didn't_ do "station-area planning" (see this document from Crandall-Arambula, Station Area Planning) in the same way that Arlington County did, when the WMATA subway system was being planned.

WRT subway station areas in the Central Business District and the areas abutting it (i.e. Dupont Circle or Capitol Hill) there wasn't really a need to do wholesale new planning, because the zoning and/or neighborhood structure and built environment already supported intensification or leveraging of the proximity of the transit station.

Stations outside of the L'Enfant City, which was designed during the time of the "Walking City" and has a block and street grid format that supports transit use, needed more focused planning in order to leverage the proximity of transit and to begin the process of reforming mobility patterns towards a more transit-friendly, even transit-dominant paradigm, rather than the automobile-centric patterns that were and to some extent, continue to be present in neighborhoods like Brookland or the area around Fort Totten.

While I do think that some of the buildings are junky, and there are some real spatial and capacity issues, the way that land use is intensifying within a couple blocks of the Takoma Metro Station is a step forward, although other things need to be accomplished (urban design plan developed and implemented for Cedar Street/Carroll Avenue to integrate and connect the Takoma DC and Takoma Park, Maryland commercial districts) in order to make it work, what is happening there shows what should have been done elsewhere at some of these other stations, decades ago.

This building, Gables Takoma Park, is by far the most attractive of the new buildings constructed around the Takoma Station. There is a road capacity issue presented though wrt Blair Road, a two lane "country road" which has congestion issues during rush periods at Blair and Cedar and at Blair and Piney Branch.

The plans by EYA to develop townhouses abutting the Takoma Station continue apace, according to "EYA moves forward with plans for Metro development " from the Gazette.

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Also see the WMATA 2005 Development Related Ridership Study.