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Monday, April 07, 2014

Coalition For Smarter Growth message regarding McMillan

From: Tania Jackson, Vision McMillan Partners <info@envisionmcmillan.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 7, 2014 at 1:04 PM
Subject: FW: McMillan Update





Check out this email sent by the Coalition for Smarter Growth last week. We are proud to have the support of such a well-respected organization and are thankful for their efforts to gather supporters to attend our May zoning hearings.

We hope you'll take a minute to read their note below, then click here for hearing dates and times and to sign up to attend and show your support!

-Tania
From: Aimee Custis, Coalition for Smarter Growth
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2014 11:46 AM
Subject: McMillan Update

  
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The push to restore the McMillan Sand Filtration site, near Washington Hospital Center, back into the fabric of a walkable DC is nearing an important moment. And now, a new transportation study shows that the redevelopment can be done without choking the surrounding neighborhoods in traffic.

The DC Zoning Commission will soon hold hearings on the McMillan project -- so the most critical time to voice support for a project that will make our city more walkable, create more housing choice, and preserve the historic beauty in a new park is almost here.

Please sign up here to testify during one of four key hearing nights in early May. Then keep reading for our take on the recent transportation study. >>

Our main takeaway from the transportation study? That it’s quite possible to make sure the McMillan redevelopment will provide a variety of transportation choices -- not unnecessarily burden busy roads in the surrounding neighborhoods. This means following through on planned improvements to transit, which the report says are needed even if the site remains fenced off:
  • In the short run, improving the Metrobus 80 bus line on North Capitol St. (already a designated bus priority corridor) will help the most.
  • Other planned bus line improvements are recommended, along with the streetcar line running along Michigan Ave. from Woodley Park to Brookland Station.
  • If these transit investments are delayed, the report recommends coordinated shuttles to the Brookland Metro station.
The study concludes that thanks to these new investments in transit and tweaks to the connecting roads, the traffic with the redevelopment will be no worse than if the redevelopment isn’t built. That’s great, and it shows how important more well-designed smart growth developments are to keeping residents mobile as DC continues to grow. 

The report also calls for improvements to bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure including completing the street grid through McMillan, multiple pedestrian access points in each building, ample bicycle storage, and space for three Capital Bikeshare stations.

While we think the study is positive overall, we’re not pleased with everything.

Click here to keep reading about improvements the study doesn’t cover, and sign up to testify during one of four key hearing nights in early May. >>

These details are important. With a redevelopment as large and controversial as McMillan has been, it’s important to make sure we are making the right policy decisions. In the coming weeks, we’ll be pushing the city to incorporate our suggestions and give the new neighborhood the tools it needs to live up to its potential.

Thanks for all that you do,

Aimee
--
Aimee Custis
Coalition for Smarter Growth
action@smartergrowth.net

PS: Did you miss out on some of our earlier emails on why we think the McMillan redevelopment is a good deal for DC? Catch up here and here.
Copyright © 2014 Vision McMillan Partners, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in getting updates related to Vision McMillan Partner's plan to transform the McMillan property into a model 21st century community.

Our mailing address is:
Vision McMillan Partners
1508 U St, NW

1 comment:

  1. "if the development isn't built" GOD WILLNG! We have the beautiful open space that Senator James McMillan planned in his Cities Beautiful Movement. Our office of historic preservation wrote this incredible nomination, and McMillan was awarded National Register of Historic Places
    (so build 50 ugly "brutalist" buildings and a insulting McPark on it,,, a mockery of historic preservation, a VIOLATION of the LAW!)
    http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000022.html
    We will have unlimited healthy activities like a decent world capitol. Our own "GlenEcho" of festivals, classes, art, yoga, picnics, kids camp like a world class city!
    We have sustainable urban Agriculture in 20 acres of underground galleries. Mary Cheh and David Grosso on the City Council Environment Committee are advocating we find a DC sustainable food, nutrition and exercise hub. THIS IS IT. Your park is it!
    Please see this fascinating video on the vertical farming process at
    http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo
    We need this park for the public, who own it, who have been blocked from enjoying McMillan Parks healthy benefits for 30 years of DC government racist discrimination. While it lavishes our tax dollars on the privileged upper NW. The ultimate corruption is the "Surplus" where our Dc mayor and the city council hacks hand over our $billion land to the outsider deveopment conglomerate. Even our Deputy Mayor is a former Tramel Crowe Vice President...what a fixed bad deal..Eminent domain in reverse for the corporations, and screw the people!
    Come on How many organizations are in the Coalitin for Smarter Growth? Smallest coalition in the world! Wise up DC, it's your park, for your use, and this development was a bad idea in 1986, a miserable forced bad deal, and inappropriate in every way..go develop the shopping center at Rhode Island Ave. Metro,,, not Tony enough for this little coalition. Why does VMP need Jamie Fontaine, the Baltimore PR guns for hire, to rustle up support. Look to the future of the children, of a healthy quality of life for the city,,,open your eyes folks,
    NO DEVELOPMENT------- YES PARK AND URBAN AGRICULTURE.!!!!!!
    Fight the corrupt "surplus", from the mayor(unindicted) who has hustled this town but good.


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