Myth: Georgetown Residents Fought to Keep Metro Out

Yeah, who's all elite NOW?

By WILL SMITH

Updated 12:02 PM EST, Tue, Oct 20, 2009

Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK

Newcomers to D.C. 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 from We Love D.C. 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 D.C. 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 D.C. 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.

More recent articles about D.C.-area real estate from UrbanTurf:

Photo courtesy Kmf164.