If DC had visionary elected officials and planners it could use the new WMATA "BOS" study to push through the development of a separated Silver Line in DC (and Northern Virginia)

Charlie comments on an earlier blog entry, writing:

As I keep harping on, DC could have built a separated blue line for what it wasted on various projects over the past 10 years. But that is politics, and other things come first.

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Pre-2003, WMATA did its own expansion planning, and proposed the creation of what was then called the "Separated Blue Line."


Proposed changes for the WMATA system, 2001 (separated blue line), Washington Post graphic. (This graphic was never put online, but when I was a source for a couple stories by Post reporter Lyndsay Layton she tracked it down for me.)

This was when it was expected ridership would grow, reaching 1 million daily riders in the early 2020s.  Instead, these days, ridership has dropped by about 1/6 to about 500,000.

-- "Coming to a Curve: Region's Subway System Begins to Show Its Age, Limits" By Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post, March 25, 2001; Page A01
-- "Crowds Could Derail Decades of Progress," By Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post, March 26, 2001; Page A01.

This was back when the H Street revitalization effort ("360 Apartment building + Giant Supermarket vs. a BP gas station, which would you choose?," 2013) was just starting and we advocates found tantalizing the vision of a separated Blue Line with two stations on H Street NE--I still remember reading the article and seeing the graphic!

But in 2003, in response to a regional economic downturn this proposal was junked, and was kept alive only in regional planning only within the Arlington County Master Transportation Plan, because the County understood the need for a second crossing from Virginia to DC in Rosslyn.

-- "Metro Construction Projects Creak to Halt; Economic, Political Changes Cancel Expansion Plans, Spur Job Cuts, Early Retirements," Lyndsey Layton. Washington Post, July 13, 2003. pg. C.01.

In 2006, I wrote about how DC should use Virginia's creation of the Silver Line in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, in part to serve Dulles Airport, to bootstrap the creation of the Separated Blue Line.

-- "Blinking on urban design means you limit your chance for success"

And that without adding crossing capacity into DC, this expansion was going to create service problems within the existing system, something that Virginia elected officials finally figured out in 2014, a few months before the Silver Line opened.

-- "The Silver Line WMATA story that WJLA-TV missed"

Over the years, I kept writing about the Separated Blue Line as a concept, as something DC should do.

Although one DDOT planner made the point that without the ability to add height, and because a goodly portion of a separated line going through the core would not add development capacity, it would be difficult to justify the expense.  Hence, increase the height limit...

In 2016, I wrote about it again, in terms of improving system reliability in the face of the serious degradation that came from the addition of the Silver Line.

The thing about "interlining," when two or more lines share a section of track is that problems on one line don't stay contained on one line. Instead, they spread to the other lines like a virus. The addition of the Silver Line has stressed the equilibrium of the original system considerably.

-- "More on Redundancy, engineered resilience, and subway systems: Metrorail failures will increase without adding capacity in the core," 2016

Later that year, a comment in Greater Greater Washington made me realize that the Silver Line could be fully separated from the Orange Line with a different alignment in Arlington County.

(A couple years ago at a meeting I talked with WMATA's planning director Shyam Kannam about these issues and then he said "we have figured out the problems that derive at Rosslyn, but we still can't figure out why the problems happen coming from the east.")

In 2017, expanding on this and other concepts, Paul Meissner and I developed a "conceptual map for fixed rail expansion" and it included a Separated Silver Line fully separate from the Orange Line.


(Although the Silver Line section hasn't been updated to reflect my more recent thinking.)

WMATA has just announced the launch of the "BOS" -- Blue, Orange, Silver -- Line Study to figure out how to fix these problems ("WMATA to study 3 rail lines to address region's future needs," Metro Magazine). From the article:

With a goal of identifying long-term options to improve reliability, meet future ridership demand, and better serve customers, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) launched a two-year study of its Blue, Orange, and Silver rail lines

Today, the Blue, Orange and Silver (BOS) lines all share a single set of tracks between the Rosslyn tunnel and the Anacostia River, creating a bottleneck that limits the number of trains that can cross between Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. The limited capacity means WMATA cannot easily add more trains and has limited ability to work around service disruptions. With the current configuration, a disruption on one line can have a ripple effect on all three lines.

The BOS Study will identify potential infrastructure improvements and service alternatives to resolve these issues.

… Not quite 13 years after I first suggested that these kinds of problems would occur.

While WMATA will be focused on short and intermediate term fixes, and these days given the massive fall off in ridership, I don't expect that they are thinking about expansion or separating one or more of the lines.

But separating and extending the Silver Line should be on the table, especially for DC.

If only DC officials were up to the opportunity and challenge.

Here's what I suggested in 2016, with some updates.

Concept for a fully Separated Silver Line  

Instead of what used to be called the separated Blue Line, I now term it a separated Silver Line. It could also be thought of as a "Downtown Relief Line."

1.  Instead of merging onto the Orange Line at East Falls Church Station, instead treat that station as a transfer station and continue the Silver Line south on a new alignment to Route 50/Arlington Boulevard then east to Rosslyn, crossing to Georgetown, continuing eastward to Union Station (this adds capacity to serve Amtrak's plans for expansion), and then further east to H Street NE. (The Arlington Boulevard alignment was suggested by commenter Ryan in a thread at GGW.)

Silver Line in Fairfax County.

2. This would add six stations in Northern Virginia and service to a heavily used corridor.

For DC, it would add one crossing under the Potomac River, at least 9 new stations in DC, redundancy service for Downtown (and potentially 3-4 more stations if an additional Silver Line leg was constructed up Bladensburg Road).

It would serve key activity centers not currently served in Virginia (Arlington Boulevard/Seven Corners) and DC (Georgetown especially), providing additional capacity Downtown and at Union Station, which will be needed to service Amtrak expansion of Union Station.

3.  Paul indicated 8 Silver Line stations in DC.  I would say a ninth should be added at Connecticut Avenue, to connect (indirectly) to the Red Line.  I wouldn't provide a Red Line platform, because the station would be so close to both Farragut North and Dupont Circle.  Instead underground walkways could connect the Separated Silver Line to those stations.

4. In the vicinity of RFK Stadium, (and presuming the truncation of the Blue Line, see below) I would route the Separated Silver Line onto the Blue Line alignment from RFK Stadium to Largo Town Center.  That would put the new Oklahoma Avenue Station on the Silver Line.

5. At RFK, (presuming the truncation of the Blue Line) the Orange Line alignment would remain the same from Vienna to New Carrollton. But by crossing the Silver Line at this point, this would be a transfer point between the two lines, just as it is currently.

The Oklahoma Avenue station, at the western edge of the RFK site, was the only station in the original plan that ended up not being built, in face of neighborhood opposition fearing the station would be the equivalent of a "park and ride."

Rather than the aerial alignment from RFK Station to Minnesota Avenue for the Orange Line, it would be replaced by a tunnelized alignment.

The cost would be justified economically by the ability to enable superior redevelopment of the RFK Stadium site.

… speaking of lack of vision, "Mendelson aims to block DC from purchasing RFK stadium site," Washington Business Journal.  

6. Not indicated on the Meissner-Layman map, an infill Orange Line station could be built at the old Pepco generating site, providing additional service for the RFK area on the northeast.  This would be a 10th station for DC deriving from a "Separated Silver Line"."

(Controversially, because the Park Service has more golf courses than demand, the Langston Golf Course could be redeveloped.  Although the course is particularly important to local African[-American history and likely such a move would be opposed, and would also require approval of Congress and the Executive Branch, separate from the RFK situation, which is equally complicated.)

7. The proposed separate intra-city leg along Bladensburg Road from H Street to New York Avenue and Fort Lincoln could be extended further into Prince George's County if Maryland is interested.

This would provide Metrorail service to the New York Avenue corridor, if somewhat circuitous, and could also connect to a new infill New York Avenue station on the MARC passenger rail system ("One big idea: Getting MARC and Metrorail to integrate fares, stations, and marketing systems, using London Overground as an example," 2015).

DC economic development benefits.  As mentioned, the economic development benefits for DC of a Separated Silver Line would be incredible, especially if the Height Limit were tweaked.  But even if not, offhand I see incredible potential.

Central DC.  First, it would strengthen Georgetown so it can remain competitive as a regional entertainment and retail destination (starting a couple blocks up from M Street, Wisconsin Avenue's retail offer is weak)--although it would obviate the need for a gondola connection between Rosslyn station and DC.  Second, it would help Golden Triangle and Dupont Circle for both office and multiunit residential.  It would allow for intensification around Mount Vernon Triangle.  It would provide additional service to a growing Union Station.

Eastern DC.  It would add Metrorail service to the H Street corridor, one of the city's hottest entertainment districts.  It would provide the ability to do world class redevelopment of the RFK Campus, would revive and drive interest in the Minnesota Avenue-Benning Road corridor and Ward 7, and would move the redevelopment of the Pepco site forward.

Similarly, if a secondary Silver Line leg went up Bladensburg Road, the same thing, especially at the intersection of New York Avenue, which is grim now but full of potential.  It could also provide the impetus for additional development and necessary redevelopment at Fort Lincoln (although so many of the buildings are tied up as condominiums).

And if people would make the hard choice about Langston Golf Course, something no one seems to be willing to come out for ("The Langston Initiative: A New Vision for the District's Public Golf Courses," DC Federal City Council), that would be great too, although would come at the loss of some underutilized open space.

But it should be acknowledged that demand for golf courses has been dropping for some time ("Golf's challenges have country clubs in the rough. Here's how courses are fairing in the U.S.," Sports Business; "The Decline of Golf in 2018 – The Perfect Storm Continues For Most Golf Clubs," Golf Operator Magazine; "Dead Golf Courses Are the New NIMBY Battlefield," CityLab).

All told, this addition to economic capacity for the city, along with the improvement to the city's transit system and the addition of 10 new stations in DC (+ 6 in Northern Virginia) ought to make this a no brainer.

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Orange and Blue Line changes

The Meissner-Layman conceptual map proposes extending the Orange Line on both ends, in Virginia and Maryland.  Note that the I-66 toll concession agreement puts a time delay on possible Orange Line extensions westward.

Also, Paul and I "tussled" over ideas for the Blue Line ("Update to the Paul J. Meissner produced integrated high capacity transit map for the Washington metropolitan area," 2017).

 I wanted to end it in Rosslyn/Georgetown.  He came up with a separate Pink Line to serve the Columbia Pike corridor as well as continued it into DC and Maryland.  After he was done "designing," I realized that my truncated Blue Line could be joined with his Pink Line.

While it's true that people don't like transferring, and research finds that transfers decrease ridership, at the same time research finds that if service is frequent and transfer connections are reliable, people can deal.

Otherwise, the Blue and Orange Lines would remain interlined.

Or given the change in service on the Yellow Line, which will now go to Greenbelt all the time, again, the Blue Line could truncate and end in Rosslyn, and people could either transfer to the Orange line there for service to Northern Virginia or DC, to the Yellow Line to get into DC, or at a new Separated Silver Line to either Virginia or DC.

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This is also an example of what I call Transformational Projects Action Planning.

Vision plans to accomplish quantum change: Transformational Projects Action Planning.  Separately, over time, I've developed an approach to master or comprehensive planning that I now call transformational projects action planning. As part of master plans, I propose setting up a key set of big projects to focus on, projects with multiplicative and scalar benefits.
These are the most recent expressions:

-- "(Big Hairy) Projects Action Plan(s) as an element of Comprehensive/Master Plans," 2017
-- "Why can't the "Bilbao Effect" be reproduced? | Bilbao as an example of Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2017
-- "Downtown Edmonton cultural facilities development as an example of "Transformational Projects Action Planning" 2018
-- "Minneapolis Super Bowl: Urban Revitalization and Transformational Projects Action Planning," 2018

The basic idea is that a master plan should include a set of big, hairy audacious projects (like "big hairy audacious goals") to spur revitalization and community improvement in a substantive way.
TPAPs should be implemented at multiple scales:

(1) city/county wide as part of a master plan;

(2) within functional elements of a master plan such as transportation, housing, or economic development; and

(3) within a specific project (e.g., how do we make this particular library or transit station or park or neighborhood "great"?).