Posts Tagged ‘rhode island avenue’

Rhode Island Avenue – an Opportunity to Truly Connect Communities (and Bolster WMATA Finances)

July 23rd, 2015 5 comments

Low-cost planning maneuvers could increase transit-accessibility for one thousand households and save the region $1.3 million per year!

We recently covered an exciting development project in Northeast D.C., one that will create housing and jobs right next to the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station. Because the site is located within the station’s half-mile walk shed, all those new residents, employees and shoppers are likely Metro customers, whose fares will help improve the system for everyone.

But is that the end of the story?

In our analysis of station walk sheds — the area within a half-mile walk of the station — we discovered that the Rhode Island Avenue walk shed is constrained by physical barriers that force pedestrians to make lengthy detours. The most notable of these is a retaining wall along the northern edge of the redevelopment site (currently the Rhode Island Center shopping mall):

RIExisting+Barrier

Current walk shed of Rhode Island Ave station, with illustration of the retaining wall.

For Edgewood residents living immediately to the north, walking to the Rhode Island Avenue Metro requires a detour around the barrier that inflates the walking distance by up to half a mile – making the total walking distance a full mile or more. While some choose to make the long hike to the station, we know that people are significantly more likely to use Metro if the station is within the half-mile walk shed.

This led us to ask: What if we make a pedestrian connection through that wall part of the large-scale redevelopment? Read more…

All Aboard! Metro Welcomes New Development Planned at Rhode Island Avenue

July 22nd, 2015 Comments off

A redevelopment project planned for Rhode Island Avenue Metro station, one of the largest such projects in the District, could bring $2.3M per year in new fare revenue for Metrorail.

A venture led by MRP Realty is proposing a mega project near the Rhode Island Avenue metro station, which when constructed would add over 1,500 residential units and retail to that transit-oriented community.  That’s fantastic news for the District, which needs household growth to resolve its structural fiscal deficit, and also for Metro and the region, which benefits each time we add transit-oriented development that drives ridership and revenue.

Image Courtesy MRP Realty

Image Courtesy MRP Realty

At Metro we find this especially exciting because it is yet another example of how changes in development are in part fueling a ridership resurgence.  Our Land Use-Ridership model conservatively suggests that this project will yield an additional 3,200 rail entries per day systemwide, generating rail fare revenues of around $2.3 million per year. Whether this ridership actually materializes – or is even higher – depends on the developer building good pedestrian connections to the Metro station and the Met Branch Trail.

In addition, this project could be a good opportunity to create a pedestrian connection between the station and the neighborhoods to the north, where potential Metrorail riders are blocked from the station’s “walk shed” today.  The current conditions include a challenging combination of grade changes and physical barriers behind the shopping mall, creating pedestrian barriers outlined in red below. The key question will be whether the development will help fix the barrier along the north side of the site, which would only increase the ridership- and revenue-generating potential of this project.

Image Courtesy Google Maps

Pedestrian barriers in red. Image courtesy Google Maps

The property tax benefits of the project all accrue to the District, and the increased revenue to WMATA doesn’t come for free – the system will need to handle the additional passengers and incur additional operating costs and potential wear and tear on the system.  Right now there isn’t a defined mechanism for WMATA to recoup the value of real estate property taxes to fund capital renewal or expansion.  But certainly anything that contributes to the operating health of the transit agency through increased ridership and revenues goes a long way to promoting financial stability for the Authority, as well as lowering the operating subsidy burden it requires to run the system.