When the Subway put the city back together

Metrorail as planned in 1969

December 9th will mark the 50th Anniversary of the groundbreaking for Metro. Before that happened, the Post ran an article on Nov 19, 1969 about what the Metro would mean for the region. That article was entitled "When the Subway Puts the City Back Together" by Joe Andrson. While this is a bit off topic, 1969 could also be viewed as the starting point for the modern bicycle movement in DC, making biking and the subway littermates of sorts, so I hope you'll indulge me a bit.

On Dec 9, 1969, Secretary of Transportation John Volpe and several local officials did the traditional shovel and hardhat ceremony at Judiciary Square marking the beginning of work on the Metro. Until a week earlier, the groundbreaking was to be at Lafayette Park where President Nixon would throw a switch on an earth auger to dig a small hole that would become an air vent for the Metro system, but one week out the White House asked to move it and at the last minute Nixon pulled out, but he did sign a bill earlier that day that would fund the full system.

The construction was one of the most disruptive events in Washington travel - which at the time was pretty much driving, bus or walking - and to some extent aided in the rise of cycling. The city was already congested, and the construction was only making it worse. How to get around in such a mess? By bicycle of course. 

The November 1969 Post article is more hopeful than dreary, but it has a bit of both. It's concerned about traffic and businesses that will go under when customers can't get to them (and both of those happen), but it also talks about a building boom along Metro corridors, economic growth, a chance to experiment with planning and building design, jobs, "high rise apartments and office centers in the ghetto", suburban job opportunities for urban dwellers and faster/easier transportation. Many of which also happened. 

There were so many stories of businesses that were impacted by the work. Many merchants were upset that they were losing vault space - areas below the roads that their basements extended into - and Woodward and Lothrop lost their pedestrian tunnel beneath G Street that connected their two stores, as well as a corner of their store for an entrance. Metro had to tear down a lot of buildings, because it was just cheaper than shoring them up, especially around Metro Center. One building even hosted the Secret Service training school. In 1969, they planned to take part or all of 480 businesses and 520 dwellings. 

At the time they thought Metro would be running by 1972 - but it wouldn't open until 1976. Interestingly, they state in the article that Metro has plans for a pedestrian tunnel between the two Farragut stations - something that is still just a plan - though the system was designed without long tunnels that attract "muggings and urination."

Several years ago, a Post writer posited that only two things connected everyone in the region - Metro and the Washington Football Team - and now maybe that's not true anymore. But Metrorail did help put the city, still recovering from the 1968 riots, back together. And now, you can take your bike on Metro any time you want to. 

Comments

[Peter]

Cool article! I left for collage the year Metro opened.

[Contrarian]

The "muggings and urination" line is a good insight into the driving design goal of Metro: that it not be an urban subway system. More specifically, that it not be the NYC subway system.

By the sixties cities were considered run-down, filthy, dangerous and dysfunctional places and their subways were a microcosm. Suburbs were clean, new and modern. Metro was built as a commuter railroad more than a city subway system. So it had forward-facing seats instead of benches, carpeting, and bans on disruptive conduct like eating and bringing bikes aboard.