THE WASHINGTON
Even the District of Columbia's Commission of Fine Arts was involved, insisting, for example, that a signature curved-vault design be used in Metro stations, which were dug initially as underground boxes.
In "The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro," Zachary M. Schrag tells the story of how Metro came to be and how it developed--writing about "how an entire metropolitan area faced its choices about transportation."
Washington was one of the first cities to choose rapid transit rather than more highways within its boundaries, but at first it was not an easy or popular choice. Travel by automobile was ascendant, and public-transit ridership was falling. The interstate highway system plan called for numerous highways through and around the District of Columbia.
Washington architect Louis Justement proposed what Schrag describes as "a city shorn of many or most of its houses, shops, and side streets, filled instead with large apartment complexes, drive-in shopping centers, and high-speed arteries linked to feeder roads by cloverleaf intersections."
Justement's ideas came to partial fruition in the Southwest redevelopment, which in the 1950s and 1960s bulldozed the area's slums and replaced them with present-day L'Enfant Plaza and its environs.
Urban renewal faltered when it came to the Inner Loop, however. Not today's Inner Loop (the inside circle of the Capital Beltway) but an additional, inner beltway. This and other limited-access highways would have been built through much of central Washington.
Schrag says the plan "awoke the wrath of District residents," and the city's response was to fight the highway construction and push for rapid transit instead.
Yet the new National Capital Transportation Agency was small and weak, designed to engineer a modest rapid-transit system, though even this much was strongly opposed in some quarters. Arlington's planning director in 1962 claimed that "rapid transit for the Washington Metropolitan Area simply will not work." He thought helicopters would be more practical.
To create anything more than a bobtailed system of rail routes within the District of Columbia, even with the federal government providing two-thirds of the funding, Metro had to reach an agreement with Virginia and Maryland cities and counties, which would pay for and receive service. An alternatives analysis showed that a bigger system would actually be cheaper to operate.
As design of the Metro system proceeded, controversy over the highways continued. In 1966, Schrag says, consulting firm Arthur D. Little Inc. "submitted a blistering critique of highway planning." It said that "freeways have generally created more problems than they have solved" and recommended against a major commitment to the highway system.
However, highways through Washington had their staunch defender in Rep. William Natcher of Kentucky, who held up Metro design and construction funding, demanding that the Three Sisters Bridge and other road projects be completed.
But Alan Boyd, the first secretary of transportation, was willing to listen to highway opponents, and eventually (in 1979) Natcher himself lost power.
Metro was supposed to run in the black and pay some of its own capital expenses, too, but as the years progressed, it became evident that revenues would not fully cover operating expenses--especially after Metro absorbed local bus operations in 1973. It needed subsidies, and its capital funding was a separate requirement.
Even decades after its founding, some continue to question Metro's value, and it has had numerous problems in its operations.
But overall it is a popular, safe, efficient system, and, according to many, well worth what it cost to build and operate.
Steve Dunham of Spotsylvania County commutes on Virginia Railway Express to Arlington. He chairs the board of directors of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons. Write him c/o Commuter Crossroads, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401, or e-mail
Email: literalman@aol.com.