Metro is saying if it’s going to build anything at all, it’s going to build a new tunnel from a new Rosslyn station to the existing Union Station (via Georgetown and Mt Vernon Square). It’s not asking anyone’s opinion on if they want it or if it’s a good idea necessarily. They’ve decided for us that it is, or else we get nothing.
Given that, would you prefer that Union Station connect to:
*College Park (via new stops at Union Market, Ivy City, and the Arboretum within DC), or
*New Carrollton (similar new stops), or
*Huntington (via new stops at Buzzard Point, St Elizabeth’s, and National Harbor, with a new connection at Navy Yard)?
And would you prefer to connect Rosslyn to:
*Nothing new (cheapest option) or
*Clarendon (pushing out the silver-orange split-off from current Rosslyn station, to alleviate congestion) or
*A new silver line express tunnel to West Falls Church?
So when you put it this way, I think the obvious attractive spots are to do the silver line express tunnel, the connection to National Harbor, AND the connection to College Park. Obviously, to do all three would outrageously expensive and complex.
I am pretty sure voters would rather we do something over nothing, so since all options include the same segments from Rosslyn to Union Station, can we vote that segment up or down first so we can start building that much sooner, and then while that’s being built, we can all decide how we want to budget the rest of the funds (College Park, Huntington, Silver Express, or New Carrollton)? [Perhaps we’d even find new funds along the way if it were broken up into chunks like this].
Because otherwise, these four or five choices feel like what you do to a five-year old: You give them three choices, all of which involve getting them to do what you need them to do, but in different ways. So can we skip that part and just vote separately on this first segment from Rosslyn to Union Station? Because even that alone would be useful, and we can decide from there where we want to go.
Metro is saying if it’s going to build anything at all, it’s going to build a new tunnel from a new Rosslyn station to the existing Union Station (via Georgetown and Mt Vernon Square). It’s not asking anyone’s opinion on if they want it or if it’s a good idea necessarily. They’ve decided for us that it is, or else we get nothing.
Given that, would you prefer that Union Station connect to:
*College Park (via new stops at Union Market, Ivy City, and the Arboretum within DC), or
*New Carrollton (similar new stops), or
*Huntington (via new stops at Buzzard Point, St Elizabeth’s, and National Harbor, with a new connection at Navy Yard)?
And would you prefer to connect Rosslyn to:
*Nothing new (cheapest option) or
*Clarendon (pushing out the silver-orange split-off from current Rosslyn station, to alleviate congestion) or
*A new silver line express tunnel to West Falls Church?
So when you put it this way, I think the obvious attractive spots are to do the silver line express tunnel, the connection to National Harbor, AND the connection to College Park. Obviously, to do all three would outrageously expensive and complex.
I am pretty sure voters would rather we do something over nothing, so since all options include the same segments from Rosslyn to Union Station, can we vote that segment up or down first so we can start building that much sooner, and then while that’s being built, we can all decide how we want to budget the rest of the funds (College Park, Huntington, Silver Express, or New Carrollton)? [Perhaps we’d even find new funds along the way if it were broken up into chunks like this].
Because otherwise, these four or five choices feel like what you do to a five-year old: You give them three choices, all of which involve getting them to do what you need them to do, but in different ways. So can we skip that part and just vote separately on this first segment from Rosslyn to Union Station? Because even that alone would be useful, and we can decide from there where we want to go.