Can Georgetown University see the forest for its own trees? A new test is underway.

GU, with its long record of irreverence for its western front with Glover Archbold National Park, is proposing to build a road that would intensify traffic along its steep border with the forest.

The east-west road, part of GU’s 2017-2036 Campus Plan proposal, would cut across the north side of the university, which faces Reservoir Road. It would serve as a conduit for traffic from Gate 1, on the northeast corner of the university hospital complex, all the way to the national park, and then along the border to Gate 4 at GU’s extreme northwest.

GATE 4. Georgetown University proposes to increase use of the entrance on the far northwest corner of campus, next to Glover Archbold National Park at Reservoir Road. All Photos Credit John A. Bray

It would mean, according to GU, that Gate 4, which now mainly accommodates users of the garage there, would go from handling about 6 percent of Reservoir Road gate traffic to about 25 percent.GU calls the shift a more even distribution.

Even, maybe, but not necessarily equitable.In essence, GU proposes an exchange. In conjunction with construction of a six-story, $560 million hospital east wing, GU envisions the Gate 1 entrance to include a verdant, tree-lined esplanade encompassing the adjacent parking lot. The national park border at Gate 4 would get an additional burden of boiling vehicle congestion.

GU Campus Plan 2017-2036, Exhibit EE, Proposed Vehicular Circulation and Parking Facilities.

GU admirably seeks a green path out of what has seemed to me an increasingly packed campus. But GU’s green gain plan comes with risk of public expense at the national park border, and, for me, an uneasy sense of déjà vu.

In 2010, as part of its campus plan proposal at the time, GU sought to finally realize its ambition of a north–south passage on its western perimeter. GU proposed constructing a “Loop Road” that would go from the top of the university’s south entrance on Canal Road to link up with the Gate 4 entrance road.

WATCH

University GUTS commuter buses were to course along the “Loop Road” every few minutes.It appeared not to matter that in 2003 the university granted to the United States a “scenic easement” along its side of the national park border.

The deed, which involved no actual transfer of land, counted as the private contribution needed to leverage millions of dollars in federal taxpayer money to expand GU’s south entrance.

The Park East-side perspective was not shared by people in Park West-side Foxhall Village, at least those who saw nothing scenic about heavy buses grinding on the rim of a fragile national park. Facing a range of criticism on all fronts about its campus plan, GU reeled in its “Loop Road” proposal.

A bigger picture.

A Foxhall Village neighbor of mine objected when I characterized GU’s current parkside road proposal as “Loop Road” redux. A reasonable judge might sustain, in part, and overrule, in part.

GU now aims to push traffic against about a third of its western front, not its entire length. GU’s proposed campus plan, which faces regulatory review, states that the new east-west road “will be designed and sited appropriately in light of its location in proximity to Glover-Archbold Park and the nearby Foxhall neighborhood.”

In the wake of the 2010 uproar, GU has made substantial strides in its relations with villagers on its flanks (See, GU’s Better Neighbor Push). Unfortunately, GU’s treatment over the years of its national park border – dumpster corral, rubble and trash alley, storm water runoff vent — has not inspired confidence about its respect for the public parkland.

When all alternatives are examined, GU’s nouveau loop road might be unnecessary or temporary. Or it might be ingeniously designed to have negligible effect on the national park. Or it might just be another strangling twine around our arboreo-pulmonary trunk. The test, as becomes ever clearer, is timed.

© 2016 John A. Bray

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