Myth: Georgetown Residents Fought to Keep Metro Out

• October 19th 2009

by Will Smith

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Newcomers to DC often wonder why Georgetown — with all its retail, restaurants, bars, residences, the university and other attractions — doesn’t have a Metro station. The common explanation is that when Metro was being planned, well-to-do Georgetowners resisted a station in the neighborhood believing it would bring in “the riffraff.” They wanted their elite neighborhood to remain relatively inaccessible and pristine, goes the myth.

Well a post today from We Love DC reveals that this widely-propagated explanation is just that, a myth. Metro planners never seriously considered installing a station in Georgetown at all, according to The Great Society Subway, a book about the creation of the Metro from which We Love DC draws its history. First, the Metro was envisioned as a system to enable easy access to downtown from the suburbs. Since Georgetown is near downtown, planners didn’t see much of a need for its residents to have a station. Second, Georgetown’s proximity to the river made the logistics and cost of a station unappealing.

We Love DC notes that it is quite possible Georgetown residents would have opposed a station if one had been actually planned. Evidently many neighborhoods opposed Metro for a variety of reasons. But as it happened, a Georgetown station never was planned, and so the idea that residents actively campaigned against it is not true.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/myth_georgetown_residents_fought_to_keep_metro_out/1423.