Capitol Heights sits directly on the Washington D.C.–Maryland border and is surrounded by parking lots and empty land 🤦
Why isn’t transit ridership in the US isn’t higher? Partly because very few people are allowed to live near the best transit. This is the Capitol Heights metro station
24 Comments
sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 1d
Capitol Heights is an interesting example to choose. It's a predominantly black neighborhood that is still pretty dense (5000 people per square meter, 2000 people per square km), at least compared to national averages or even the averages in the same metropolitan area.
By some metrics, it's more walkable than average in the DC area.
I do feel like it's a bit cherry picked, in that you've included a major park (Marvin Gaye Recreation Area), serviced by a major biking/hiking trail, in the satellite image, and it's the most central station on its line to have parking, as the system kinda switches emphasis from an urban transit system in the center to a suburban park and ride/commuter rail on the edges. The fact that the DC Metro does both is kinda a controversial design choice, but it was intentionally designed to serve the suburbs, too.
There's stuff that can be done. For whatever reason, Maryland left huge swaths of its boundary with DC as a big green trail, but didn't fully develop them as parks or tree-lined spaces. And the homes that were built there about 100 years ago aren't as nice as some other neighborhoods in the DC region. And the whole area east of the Anacostia river is a bit less economically developed than the center and west and north of DC, with a complicated history of race and infrastructure and development.
I'm not entirely sure the current residents would welcome multifamily residential or mixed use developers with open arms, but the demographics and politics and economics and history of that neighborhood isn't one I'm very familiar with.
I like talking zoning and land use, and encouraging density. This particular example is one that I don't think is as simple as OP suggests.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 15h
Branch Avenue is i think a better example of the same thing, just a bit to the southwest.
Not only is it literally surrounded by a sea of parking that seems to house a grand total of like 50 cars when the aerial imagery was taken, but it's also got a shitass miserable commercial area to one side and it's got highways boxing it in so good fucking luck walking there from anywhere but the development nearby (doesn't even have a ROAD connecting it to .. No wonder they put in a massive parking lot when everyone has to drive to the subway..
Fucking beautiful scenic walking route
sparkyshocks@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 14h
Branch Avenue is the last station on its line. The whole DC Metro system treats the last stop as a major park and ride station, on all the lines, with ample parking and a big bus terminal. Some of them also have connections for the VRE or MARC systems, or even Amtrak stations for intercity rail.
It's for when people from the suburbs want to go into the city but don't want to look for or pay for expensive parking.
So the debate at that point becomes: do we want the system to be available to the residents of non-walkable neighborhoods so that they can still come into the city for work or entertainment without adding to car congestion and parking issues? For a city like DC that often has high attendance events, where hundreds of thousands of people show up for a day, I think that's probably worth it.
The last station on any given line doesn't need to be walkable, in those cases. Most lines in Chicago have parking at the last station on the line, as well (and many have connections to commuter rail with Metra, which definitely have parking at their stations). Even the end of line stations that don't have parking in that system are pretty centrally located, showing that tradeoff on whether you want to build the line all the way out to the suburbs or not.
New York has lots of walkable stations at the end of line, but it also sits in an urban core where the metropolitan area doesn't actually fall to low density, so that the system does have to hand off passengers to the commuter rail lines (Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit) that are also in heavy use, but that tend to have much demand fluctuation by time of day or day of the week.
But when discussing individual stations, it's important to make sure you understand whether the concepts you're discussing are common or unique to that station, and why things were done that way, so that you can evaluate whether it was good or bad that things were done for that reason.
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 13h
But even for park&ride this is a miserable way to do it, not only is surface parking just inherently awful in every way but they also separated the actual high-density residential area from the station by a big parking lot! It's insane!
Literally the next station up on the same line has an actual parking garage and is thus more comfortable for commuting drivers.
AviAdi@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1d
You must think how it would affect those 30 homeowners if their quality of life was altered by having density in their "peaceful" neighborhoods. Have you people ever considered how much the traffic would increase for those poor homeowners who already fear so much? Now you're trying to change their whole neighborhood, this is America! We can't have change here! It's been this way since America was America God damn it!
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 1d
Imagine an entire neighbourhood near there with bike lots, and bicycle lanes....
JordanZ@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 22h
The distance to the train station was never really my problem. Both my mother and sister also commuted to a train station for decades.
I took the train downtown for like 4ish years. During non-peak times it was slower. During the peak of rush hour it was a bit faster, usually. Regardless I enjoyed the time I could spend reading or doing whatever. My work moved locations to a place south of the city. Public transit is still technically an option. The physical distance and thus the drive time didn’t really change from my house just different directions of travel. It’s now about 4x the travel time via public transit…oof. Back to driving to work. I do miss the dedicated free time. I use to read like a book a week on the train.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 1d
Where I live, they operate a city bus system as a tax write-off or something equally sketchy. You never see the buses. Maybe once in a blue moon. Maybe there’s just one? There are a few bus shelters but they don’t really have them in residential areas. So I guess you can get around downtown but in no way, shape, or form is it meant to replace personal vehicles. I don’t even know why they bother, unless it’s like a tax cheat.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1d
The one large field looks like park/playground, which is kinda what you want? What’s your issue with this picture exactly? It’s not massively high density?
Residential neighborhoods need Infrastructure too.
Sam_the_vallerina@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 1d
What's the point of a metro station if its completely inaccessible by foot? If you're going to invest billions into a metro line, each station should be maximizing its economic contribution by building housing and mixed use development around it. Otherwise what's the point of building transit if you need to drive a car just to get to the train?
ETA: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that park-ride can never work. There are plenty of examples of park-ride stations in cities like Seattle that are actually accessible by foot, with transit oriented development near the station. This isn't that. This is a train station that will never actually get major ridership because its builders have decided that the only people with access should be people with cars. If they wanted this to actually be useful, there would be proper sidewalks, a pedestrian bridge over the roadway, and some level of Transit Oriented Development around the station. There is absolutely no evidence that there's even a half-decent park near the station. Just a parking lot and some roads.
zaphod@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 20h
It doesn't look like it has to be. There seems to be quite a lot of housing (for USA standards) within one kilometre of that station. I would call that a walkable distance, build some proper sidewalks if they don't exist.
Sam_the_vallerina@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 15h
That's literally my entire point. This station is entirely inaccessible by foot. Are you people just being willfully obtuse? Nobody wants to walk a mile and a half along a highway just to get to a train station. This kind of garbage infrastructure is why transit use is so low in the united states.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
For people who live in the surrounding municipalities to ALSO be able to use the infrastructure… it’s almost like there’s more than one usecase..
Why do you think everything has to be “economical” are libraries? The post? Hospitals?
It’s NEVER about maximizing the economy contribution, where the hell did you get that idea?
Sam_the_vallerina@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 23h
Yes, actually, hospitals and libraries should contribute value to their communities. How is that even a question? Are you saying that libraries and hospitals should be poorly run and not contribute to society?
We should have libraries that are well-run and have lots of books. We should also have transit that is accessible, fast, and reliable. Train stations like this make it so transit is difficult to access for most people that would actually use it. Park-and-ride stations are fine, but not if they're out in the middle of nowhere with nothing useful within a half mile radius of the station. This station is literally surrounded by high-speed roads and would be horrible to get to on foot. This is the sort of thing that makes American transit bad at its job.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 18h
Contributing and being economical are wholefully different things.Make sure you have your point in order before yapping your gums. Words have meanings, make sure you use them properly if you’re trying to make an argument.
Of course libraries should be beneficial and run well, but that doesn’t make them profitable or economical. Most of those are actually tax sinks and extremely uneconomical. It’s why you didn’t mention the post in your reply but I did….
How can libraries and hospitals be economical if they don’t charge? Or are you suggesting these should be charged instead of free via taxpayer money?
Of things had to economical and run at max efficiency nothing would be built and all this infrastructure would cost money to use. You can’t seriously be trying to suggest this is the better option…?
Sam_the_vallerina@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 15h
I do not understand people who get this upset over an internet argument when they're so confidently wrong. Chill, dude.
Libraries strengthen GDP and improve land values. They are a net benefit to society both economically and culturally. https://criticaldebateshsgj.scholasticahq.com/article/117035-how-public-libraries-drive-economic-vitality-in-surrounding-communities
Hospitals contribute massively to regional economies. They are a net benefit to society both in terms of public health and economic impact. Similarly to libraries, they improve land values and GDP in addition to their less quantifiable impacts on peoples's lives. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44950667
All of this is besides the point that transit systems should be accessible by foot. It is so fucking weird to pretend that its okay for a metro station to he completely encircled by massive roads for cars. This sort of car-brained infrastructure has led to decades of wasted public investment in cities like Denver and Los Angeles, where this exact sort of station characterizes sprawling train systems that almost nobody uses. People don't like actually using these kinds of train stations. That's not to say that park-ride stations can't ever work, Seattle actually does a great job of integrating them into neighborhoods while also promoting walkability and development around the station.
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
There is value in having a good transit connection to nature parks and other "low value" recreation areas, but this isn't it.
Of course in such a so low density area, it shouldn't be underground.
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
Which 'large field'?
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 18h
The one that’s not a meadow.
Can’t empty land just be field? Or a forest? Or just nature? Why does everything need to be maximized? Can’t nature live with us too?
birdwing@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 17h
I don't know which one that is. Could you mark it?
That said, I think it's better to remove the parking spot and instead have mixed housing there, with the ground floor being stores.
plantfanatic@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 12h
Why mark it? It’s totally irrelevant to the point, but you’re fixating on it for some strange reason.
So where would out of towners park? What about people in the surrounding agricultural areas park to get into town? Tourists?
There’s reasons to have parking too. Not every single place needs to be maximized to the Sqft, there’s reasons to have space and open areas too.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 23h
that is true, while in the west we have some what "passable" PT, IF YOU are not living near a hub you wont be able to travel to farther away jobs outside cities, its all car centric, which Fast rail was suppose to solve. cost for fare has gone up within the last few years.
jacksilver@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 11h
I'm not going to say the US is great at public transit, but the DC metro transit system is one of the best in the country. This stop is a bit of a cherrypicked example as many of the stops for the DC metro are in heavy urban areas surrounded by apartment buildings.
If you look at Philly, Denver, Chicago you'll see that the average stop in DC is better utilized than in other places.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 21h
Frequency and convenience.