–From Planning Magazine, March 2009–
Inaugural Car-Free D.C. Deemed a Success
by Geof Koss
CongressNow Reporter
When Barack Obama was elected president last November, Washington, D.C., planners knew they would have to do things a little differently. Early crowd estimates predicted as many as four million people at the inauguration.
“That got everyone’s attention,” says Candace Smith, a spokeswoman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The figure dwarfed previous inaugural crowds, and threatened to overwhelm the region’s transit system.
With the Secret Service in the lead, a partnership of local law enforcement and transportation agencies hatched a bold plan that essentially turned a large swath of downtown Washington into a car-free zone. The Potomac River bridges that provide access from Virginia were closed to personal vehicles, as was incoming traffic on interstates 66 and 395—two of the main thoroughfares into the city. Instead, visitors were funneled onto Metro trains and buses, or they walked. Only chartered buses were allowed to park within the security perimeter surrounding the White House, Capitol, and National mall.
Metro set ridership records for several days, culminating in an all-time high of 1.5 million trips on Inauguration Day. “We’ve never done anything like that,” says Smith. Metro is appealing to the federal government for reimbursement of the $5.2 million cost incurred by running extra trains and buses over the four-day weekend.
Some two million people crowded the Mall on January 20. Those that didn’t take public transportation walked, biked, or even kayaked across the Potomac River to get there.
Eric Gilliland, executive director of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, says his group parked 2,000 bicycles at two valet stations north and south of the security perimeter. “We really tried to make it as easy as possible to ride that day,” he says.
Planners say the day’s success holds a bigger lesson for the possibilities of mass transit. “We’re struck by how the city was capable of moving so many people to a central location by means other than personal vehicle,” says Cheryl Cort, the policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a D.C. metro non-profit.
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2,000 Bikes at the valet parking corrals and who knows how many more locked to trees, poles, and anything else. Woohoo!