Re: This year's Yugo Awards

[Tim McDaniel]

In article <knbaos$kns$1...@dont-email.me>,
Lawrence Watt-Evans <l...@sff.net> wrote:
>A somewhat amusing (at least to me) parallel to this is the
>Georgetown section of Washington, DC. When the city decided
>Washington needed a subway and started building the Metro in 1975,
>the wealthy property owners and businessmen of fashionable Georgetown
>had the two proposed Georgetown subway stations removed from the
>plans -- they were afraid they'd bring in the Wrong Element.
>
>Those people, or their heirs, have been kicking themselves ever since.

http://georgetownmetropolitan.com/2011/01/24/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-georgetown-metro-stop/
matches my memory and refutes that urban legend.

"If you take anything away from this article, please let it be this:
the reason there is no Metro station in Georgetown has absolutely
nothing to do with neighborhood opposition. Nothing. No 'rich
Georgetowners wanted to keep out minorities'-conspiracy. No matter
how much it fits with the popular stereotype, it's just not true.

"As rigorously documented in Zachary Schrag's Great Society Subway
[http://www.amazon.com/Great-Society-Subway-Washington-Landscape/dp/080188246X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295836833&sr=8-1],
the planners behind Metro simply never seriously considered putting a
station in Georgetown. The reason: the Potomac. To get under the
river, the Metro tunnel has to start heading down far enough away so
that it's not like a roller-coaster.

"Commercial Georgetown is very close to the river and on a steep hill,
which wouldn't give the tunnel much distance to reemerge from
underneath the river. Thus a Georgetown station would be extremely
deep. It would be physically possible to build, but it would be
extremely expensive.

"And the Metro planners didn't see a reason to spend that sort of
money on Georgetown. In the 1960s when the plans were developed,
Georgetown had little office space and few apartment buildings. It
simply was not a destination of suburban commuters. Since that was
the audience for which the Metro was primary designed to serve,
Georgetown was not considered a worthwhile station location.

"That's it. No matter how affirming of all the stereotypes of
Georgetowners the myth is, it's absolutely false."

For illustration, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn_%28WMATA_station%29
(near the river but not on a hill) says "The escalator to street level
at the Rosslyn Metro station is the third longest continuous span
escalator in the world". That's currently the deepest station on the
Orange and Blue lines.

--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com

[Ted Nolan <tednolan>]

In article <kndi9i$osm$2...@reader1.panix.com>,

And it will give you vertigo if you look up..

OTOH, it can be inspiring, depending on who you are underneath.
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

[Greg Goss]

t...@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) wrote:


>>For illustration, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn_%28WMATA_station%29
>>(near the river but not on a hill) says "The escalator to street level
>>at the Rosslyn Metro station is the third longest continuous span
>>escalator in the world". That's currently the deepest station on the
>>Orange and Blue lines.
>>
>
>And it will give you vertigo if you look up..
>
>OTOH, it can be inspiring, depending on who you are underneath.

I sometimes have to be careful to retain my balance on the
not-quite-as-long Granville station escalator in Vancouver. The
escalator goes from a basement mall to the upper level of a two-level
station, so it could have been longer. I'm not sure where to look up
the span of either Rosslyn or Granville escalators.
--
We are geeks. Resistance is voltage over current.