Comcast is finally in discussions with the Georgetown neighborhood and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) after residents became angry with the placement of “small refrigerator-sized green utility boxes” around the Georgetown neighborhood. Many residents were upset by this as they had not agreed to the placement of the boxes and felt that it was ruining the aesthetic of the Georgetown neighborhood.

“This business is coming into our community and is just making an aesthetic wreck of what we try to conserve in our historic district,” said Commissioner Tom Birch in an ANC meeting on November 1st. Usually, any architectural changes in the area must be approved by commissioners in order to preserve the historic feel of the neighborhood.

Other residents complained that Comcast had left “a pile of bricks and plywood” after placing the box and one resident claimed that the boxes were so unsightly, they “wouldn’t even be approved of in a tacky, suburban area.”

In the recent discussions, Comcast stated that it had obtained the appropriate permits for construction in the area. However, according to the news site TheWrap.com, Comcast is  now working with “interested parties” to find “mutually beneficial solutions as we continue to provide Georgetown customers with our innovative products and services”. Spokeswoman for Comcast Aimee Metrick said in a statement that Comcast was unaware that it had to meet any additional requirements.

Georgetown residents like Birch hope that the boxes can be removed from the street and placed in locations in which they won’t be disrupting the historical feel of the neighborhood, such as to rooftops or other alternative locations. Birch mentioned that in addition to being an eyesore, the boxes could have a negative effect on the real estate values of properties around the neighborhood.

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The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is planning to implement a 37-mile streetcar system to connect all eight wards of D.C. A route along H Street and Benning Road is already underway and officials hope to open it up for operation in mid-2013.

This small 2.2-mile section is a small part of a bigger 22-mile priority line that will eventually connect Georgetown to the rest of the district, thus increasing the amount of easily accessible transportation for Georgetown residents and students. The route will be similar to that of the Circulator, going from H Street to K Street and then under the Whitehurst Freeway.

The DDOT cites many benefits to the streetcar program on their website. The main issue with the current metro rail system is that while it provides good transportation throughout the city, it does not adequately connect neighborhoods. They believe streetcars are the remedy to this situation. There are also environmental benefits to the system as it will ideally decrease the amount of short, inner-city car trips taken, traffic congestion, and overall air pollution.

In June, DDOT released a Request for Information (RFI) in order to solicit feedback from industry experts about the most effective way to construct the system.  They have received twenty responses from different organizations and are planning to begin looking over them in the next few months.

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Tomorrow is the culmination of the approval process for Georgetown’s 2010-2020 campus plan. Or, at least it’s supposed to be the finale, but there is a good chance the plan will be dragged to court by one party of another like during the 2000-2010 approval process. Basically we are certain that the seventh zoning commission hearing is happening tomorrow. Here’s Vox‘s predictions of how it will go down:

The university will play the good-neighbor card

Vox predicts that the university’s tactics will be three-fold. First the university will flaunt its eleventh hour initiatives in front of the zoning commission. The university has been performing its look-how-much-we-care-about-our-neighbors’-well-being dance directly for the benefit of the zoning commission because God knows the community won’t be won over. This might not be the university’s primary argument, but it will get a mention. Now there is the possibility that the zoning commission will question the university’s motives on the eleventh hour initiatives, but that won’t go beyond speculation (and Vox doubts Chairman Anthony Hood will tolerate that).

The second organization the university aims to impress (and already did impress) is the District Department of Transportation. In their June filing, DDOT opted to not support the campus plan for various issues including an incomplete traffic report. DDOT made a series of recommendations, including the M Street Shuttle, to which the university acquiesced. And it worked. Earlier this month, DDOT filed again, rescinding their opposition on certain conditions (that the university continue to provide data on traffic patterns, basically). DDOT seeing no objection is a serious win for the university, and Maureen Dwyer, Georgetown’s lawyer, will undoubtedly bring this up.

Third, the university will try to put a muzzle on the neighbors to keep them from yapping. The university filed a request to have the community groups/ANC’s recent filings be dismissed on the grounds that, in June, the commission closed the record to everything not regarding transportation. The neighbors disagreed with the university’s interpretation of the closing of the record in a rebuttal filing. This should play out early on in the proceeding. If the neighbors are allowed to testify, the university will most likely try to discredit them with some conflicting evidence. For instance, Rocky’s reports contradicts one of the neighbor’s testimonies about the number of parties on a weekend and some vandalized flower pots on 36th street.

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After debuting its Capital Bikeshare program in late September, the D.C. Department of Transportation finally installed Georgetown’s very own solar-powered bicycle station earlier this week.

The station, which is located in the House of Sweden parking lot at the intersection of K Street and 29th Street, doesn’t have any bicycles yet. According to Georgetown Metropolitan, a second station should spring up on Wisconsin Avenue next week.

Another station was originally slated to be installed near campus at the intersection of N Street and 37th Street, however, those plans now appear to be up in the air.

GM added that a fourth station is rumored to open in front of the Hardy School, near the Wisconsin Avenue Safeway.

7:30 p.m. update – Commenter “Anon” reports that the bikes are now at the station.

Photo: Google Maps

Georgetown’s old-time, cobblestone streets are about to get a makeover.

According to DCmud, who spoke with a DDOT official familiar with the project, the D.C. government will begin to rebuild O and P Streets in “early November.”

Last March, DDOT revealed the extent of the planned repairs. Because the cobblestones sunk below the streets’ trolley tracks, which run down the middle of each road, city workers will need to remove both the cobblestones and the tracks, lay a new foundation, and then put it all back together.

At the time, a DDOT official predicted that the whole process will take 18 months.

A long-term project that will require noisy construction equipment? The neighborhood will love this!

Photo: Flickr user “brownpau“

No bike? No problem.

Starting this fall, the DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) plans to expand its popular bicycle rental program to 100 stations across the city. Building off of the success of the SmartBike DC bicycle sharing program, Capital Bikeshare will bring at least 1000 bicycles to the streets of Washington.

And here’s the best part—Georgetown University snagged itself a station. Earlier today, DDOT posted a map of the preliminary Bikeshare location on its website, only to take it down after noticing some errors. (The heroes over at Greater Greater Washington, however, have an interactive copy.) According to GGW, DDOT is “still tweaking” the map which details all of the bike sharing stations, but plans to formally announce the locations later today. (UPDATE: The map is back on the DDOT site.)

How will this affect Georgetown students? For starters, it will mean that some of us can ditch those long waits for GUTS buses.

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Monday’s Advisory Neighborhood Committee meeting was short on entertainment, but awfully long on just about everything else.

Topics included how to ease the traffic jams at the intersection of M Street and Wisconsin Avenue, a monthly public safety report, some complaints about the Alcohol Beverage Control Board’s moratorium, and a University’s ten-year plan—but sadly, it wasn’t Georgetown’s 2010 Campus Plan. Let’s get to the wrap:

Ed Solomon: Private Eye

In what we can only imagine was a long-gestating dream, Commissioner Ed Solomon delivered the evening’s public safety report after MPD Lieutenant Jon Hedgecock couldn’t attend the meeting.

“As far as crime in our area, it’s still basically what we reported last month,” Solomon said as he presumably imagined himself chasing down petty crooks and arresting bank robbers. “It’s trending down but there’s been some high-visibility crime in our neighborhood.”

According to Solomon, who we hope dons a mask and fights crime on the streets of Georgetown, MPD plans to move extra police officers from Friday and Saturday nights to “other higher crime nights.”

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The impending snOMG, snowpocolypse, snowgasm—call it what you will—is nearing the District, and it’s guaranteed to seal you within the Georgetown bubble, and probably your house, too. But while you watch TV and drink for warmth, comfort yourself by thinking about all the extra mobility you’re going to have in the future, now that the D.C. City Council has approved the Circulator’s extension from Georgetown to Virginia.

The Circulator is the City’s frequent, clean, most reliable, and inexpensive bus line that connects major parts of D.C. This new route is going to replace the Blue Bus, or Metro Connection, the much smaller buses that currently run every ten minutes from Dupont to Rosslyn via M Street. John Lisle, a spokesperson for the District Department of Transportation, said that this means the new route will not cost the city additional money.

Meanwhile, Councilmember Kwame Brown (D-At Large) is thoroughly displeased at the Council’s alacrity to approve a City-funded route that goes into Virginia before it supports a Circulator routes that crosses the Anacostia River. And we can’t say we blame him—it seems it was his efforts to get the Council to approve such a line that drew attention to the possibility of a Dupont-Rosslyn route in the first place.

Via Georgetown Metropolitan