DC: Professional Tennis and a new football sports complex | The missed connection for good planning, transit, and intensifying uses where appropriate

Rock Creek Tennis Center, Washington DC.

The National Park Service has put forth a tender to rehabilitate the William Fitzgerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park ("Feds seek private money to upgrade tennis center that hosts DC Open," Washington Post).  From the article:

The National Park Service this week issued a request for proposals seeking a long-term lessee to renovate and operate the aging tennis complex in Rock Creek Park, calling for at least $25 million in private investment and setting an unusually compressed timeline for bids.

The request was posted late in the day [December 17th]. Proposals are due Jan. 20, just 34 days later, with the agency indicating it hopes to have a lease in place as soon as March.

The short term of the tender makes people think the project is dialed in for venture capitalist Mark Ein, who runs the tennis tournament there.

Area resident Binta Robinson had the great idea of marrying the tennis center to the plans for the development of a new football stadium at the RFK campus, based on the example in Miami and the tennis complex integrated into the Hard Rock Stadium there.  I thought it was a great idea, and wrote about it ("You get what you plan for: the multi-use Miami Hard Rock Stadium versus typical football stadiums | Washington Commanders").

I also submitted public comments on the stadium project ("Public comment period: Redevelopment at the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus | Closes December 19th").  Those comments were due two days after the release of the Tennis RFP.

But obviously, these two projects are not seen as potentially complementary but located the stadium. Although Ein owns a stake in the NFL Commanders football team as well.

Google Earth view of the Rock Creek Tennis Center in between Rock Creek Park and the residential neighborhoods east of 16th Street NW.

A big problem with the tennis center and the Mubudala Open there is that it's located in a neighborhood, not in a place with multiple transportation options--definitely not Metrorail access, and limited parking.  It's not the kind of use that's congruent with neighborhoods.

Of course, given it's DC and that it's the Park Service, lack of vision shouldn't be a surprise.

This is what I call "designing conflict in," when the purpose of planning (not that there is planning going on here, more like project management) is to "design conflict out."

It's not that I don't believe in mixed use places.  But placement of uses ought to use the Dutch method where uses with high transportation demand are put into places where the infrastructure (road, transit, bike, pedestrian) already exists ("ABC Zoning: An Integrated Approach to Mobility Planning," Dutch Cycling Embassy).

In the Netherlands, there is a decades-long tradition of steering the cars to the highways in order to create more safety and more room for other users on the subordinated networks. In the Utrecht SUMP, the strategy aimed strongly for cars to use the ring road around the city in order to free up space for cyclists in the heart of the city. And the mobility strategy is not only about the routing of cars, but also about the strategic planning of parking places and traffic management. This all can help to create more space for other modes in the heart of the city.

While the Dutch, unlike the US, are focused on maximizing the shift of trips from motor vehicles to sustainable modes, the general point pertains.  Put high demand for traffic uses in places where the infrastructure already exists, to leverage existing public investment.  

This is doubly true given the amount of public investment for infrastructure that will be going into the RFK site. (Sadly, DC has already truncated the possibility of adding streetcar service within the RFK campus, "s.")