Anacostia station is a Washington Metro station in Washington, D.C., on the Green Line. The station is located in the Anacostia neighborhood of Southeast Washington, with entrances at Shannon Place and Howard Road near Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE (a major street serving the southeastern portion of the city). The station serves as a hub for Metrobus routes in Southeast, Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland.
Station layout The architecture at Anacostia is unusual. Due to cost considerations and the station's shallow depth, the usual arched ceiling was abandoned in favor of flat concrete walls and a ceiling of small barrel vaults (oriented perpendicular to the tracks) similar to the upper coffers in the six-coffer arch station design. The station is an underground stop because the distance between the Anacostia River tunnels and the station is too short to have permitted an above-ground stop. The station has entrances on both sides of DC-295/I-295 (Anacostia Freeway), which necessitated the construction of a slightly longer platform than would be necessary to accommodate trains. In addition, there are no pylons at platform-level at Anacostia.
Because of a 1978 consent decree between Metro and a coalition of handicapped persons' advocacy groups, the Anacostia Metro station was one of three originally planned Metrorail stations to have a redundant elevator when it first opened, with the other two being Huntington and Forest Glen, though some original stations have gained such elevators through station renovations and expansions.
Streetcar service
The Metro station was slated to have a transfer to a stop on the Anacostia Line of the DC Streetcar trolley system. However, in August 2010, District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) officials ordered streetcar construction shut down after city officials refused to extend the construction contract or give a new contract to another firm.
Artwork
The station also contains a work of public art which reflects on the history and culture of the community. River Spirits of the Anacostia is a glass mosaic tile frieze completed in 2004 by Martha Jackson-Jarvis. The mosaic, () is placed along the roof-line of the Metro station and depicts the aquatic life of the river showing fish, plants, birds and other wildlife of the Anacostia River. The work was commissioned by way of a contest by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
History
Controversy over building the Green Line
Master plan Metro drew up its original master plan for its planned system in 1968. At that time, a Green Line was planned to pass through some of the area's poorest and most transit-dependent neighborhoods and provide them with subway service. The southern part of the Green Line was originally to pass over the 11th Street Bridges to the intersection of Good Hope Road SE and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE. The line was originally scheduled to open in 1976. The site of the Anacostia station, set for the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Good Hope Road SE, led to concerns that the station would destroy historic Old Anacostia, and after pressure from the federal government Metro moved the site of the station to Howard Road SE. By the end of 1977, Metro had pushed the opening of the Green Line to June 1983."Schedule Calls for Metro Extensions Into Maryland in November." Washington Post. June 24, 1977. Increasing construction costs and financing problems (primarily caused by the inability of local governments to contribute their share of Metro's funding) led Metro to consider whether to shift the Green Line to a more southerly route along Wheeler Road SE to terminate near Rosecroft Raceway.
In January 1978, a Metro regional task force approved a Green Line route in Anacostia that followed Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and then Wheeler Road down to the Beltway (with a new station added near St. Elizabeths Hospital).Feaver, Douglas. "Anacostia Metro Shift, Greenbelt Route Rejection Backed." Washington Post. January 19, 1978; Feaver, Douglas. "100-Mile Metro Backed." Washington Post. May 4, 1978. But the Prince George's County government demanded in May 1978 that Metro choose the Suitland Parkway-to-Rosecroft route instead, a change Metro agreed to.Feaver, Douglas. "P.G. Council Votes for 2 Metro Routes." Washington Post. April 26, 1978; Feaver, Douglas. "Prince George's County Council Chooses Rosecroft Metro Line." Washington Post. May 10, 1978. Metro announced in November 1978 that it had secured funding to build the Green Line from Gallery Place to Waterfront and that construction was nearly complete on this portion of the line, but that funding did not exist to push the line from Waterfront to Anacostia.Feaver, Douglas B. "Metro Completion Expected in 10 Years." Washington Post. November 19, 1978. Nonetheless, Metro reiterated its intent to complete the extension to Anacostia station by late 1983.
1980 troubles and near-cancellation Funding troubles delayed construction even further. In March 1980, Maryland officials worried that high inflation would leave Metro without enough funds to complete the Green Line, forcing Maryland to pay these construction costs alone.Feaver, Douglas B. "Inflation, Funding Uncertainty May Slow Metro Construction." Washington Post. March 28, 1980. These fears were confirmed in part in September 1980 when Metro announced that inflation had created a $16 million shortfall in its $271 million budget.Feaver, Douglas B. "Fiscal Woes Mounting For Metro." Washington Post. September 19, 1980. By then, Anacostia residents were increasingly angry at the repeated delays in building the Green Line. In September 1980, D.C. City Council member Jerry A. Moore, Jr. delivered a petition containing 1,000 signatures from Anacostia residents demanding sped up Green Line construction.Feaver, Douglas B. "10-Cent Fare Rise Proposed to Cut Metro's Deficit." Washington Post. September 26, 1980.
In October 1980, The Washington Post ran a major article asking "What Ever Happened to the Green Line?" in which the newspaper concluded: "The Green Line, which some argue should have been the first built because it would serve the most disadvantaged sections of the Washington area, is last on the construction list and threatened with extinction."Feaver, Douglas B. "What Ever Happened to the Green Line?" Washington Post. October 14, 1980. The article confirmed that funds were in place and contracts signed to complete the Green Line to the proposed Anacostia Station at Howard Road SE and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE, but that repeated local opposition in Maryland to the line's actual location had forced planners to delay final siting of the line inside the District of Columbia. Additionally, Maryland businessmen argued that the switch of the terminus from Branch Avenue to Rosecroft Raceway had economically harmed them, and they filed a suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland demanding a halt to construction of the Green Line until the line's route could be again reconsidered.
Legal and funding battles In December 1978, Metro announced that cost considerations had forced it to abandon the high-vault ceiling design for all unbuilt stations (except Navy Yard), and that a less-costly design would be used at the Anacostia station. In late 1978 and 1979, a controversy erupted over parking at the planned station. In 1978, Metro proposed building a 2,000-space parking lot on the west side of the Anacostia Freeway.Feaver, Douglas B. "Anacostia Residents Protest Plans For 1,300-Space Metro Parking Lot." Washington Post. January 25, 1979. Angry residents, protesting the amount of traffic which would come into their residential neighborhood, forced Metro to reduce the size of the parking lot to 1,300 spaces. In January 1979, Metro proposed building a 500-space parking garage at the proposed Anacostia station, and adding another 800 temporary spaces by paving over a part of Anacostia Park (to be removed once additional parking was built at the terminus of the Green Line at Rosecroft). But residents resisted this plan as well on the grounds that too much traffic would clog local streets. (These concerns were resolved in March 1980.)Feaver, Douglas B. "Anacostia, P.G. Metro Issues Finally Resolved." Washington Post. March 14, 1980. By July 1979, despite the release of billions of dollars in construction funds by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Metro had pushed the construction of the Anacostia station to mid-1985 and the completion of the Branch Avenue Line to late 1986.Feaver, Douglas B. "U.S. Will Release Millions in Metro Building Funds." Washington Post. July 12, 1979. But construction deadlines continued to slip. Despite reaffirming its Branch Avenue Line construction deadlines in December 1979,"Dates Set for Subway Line Openings." Washington Post. December 2, 1979. in January 1980 Metro announced that completion of the Green Line terminus would be pushed back six more months to 1987."...And Fast Tracks for It." Washington Post. January 26, 1980. In January 1981, Metro admitted that the station would not open until 1990 due to funding constraints.Feaver, Douglas B. "Status of Future Metro Openings." Washington Post. January 30, 1981.
Controversies regarding the siting of the Green Line continued, however. In May 1980, a group of business owners sued Metro on the grounds that the decision to change the course of the Green Line was illegal because it had been undertaken without a public hearing (in violation of Metro's rules).Feaver, Douglas B. "DOT Warns Metro About Rosecroft Line." Washington Post. April 4, 1981. In February 1981, Judge Norman Park Ramsey of the U.S. District for Maryland ruled against Metro, Metro's appeal failed, and on March 16, 1982, Judge Ramsey barred Metro from spending any money on the construction of the Rosecroft Raceway route for the southern half of the Green Line. District residents also protested the siting of the route. Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6C (an elected local governmental body advising the District government on neighborhood issues) asked Metro to move the Anacostia Metro station from its proposed location on Howard Road between Firth Sterling Avenue SE and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue SE to the intersection of Good Hope Road SE and Anacostia Drive SE.Oman, Anne H. "Anacostia-Fairlawn." Washington Post. April 23, 1981. In May 1981, Metro changed its estimate for the opening of the Anacostia station to early 1988.Feaver, Douglas B. "Prognosis for Subways Is Later or Shorter." Washington Post. May 29, 1981. Metro estimated on December 9, 1981, that the Anacostia station would open in late 1989.Komarow, Steven. "Congressional Nursery Threatens Subway Stall." Associated Press. December 10, 1981.
Federal delays