BETHESDA METRO

SOUTH ENTRANCE

DESIGN PROPOSAL

Check out this amazing, 3-D cutaway graphic of the proposed new entrance to the Bethesda Metro station, provided by the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center.

In this rendering, you are standing northeast of the intersection of Elm Street and Wisconsin Avenue. The Apex Building - home of Regal Bethesda 10 - is straight ahead, behind the above-ground entrance to the elevators.

These high speed elevators will provide a functioning entrance to the station, unlike the unreliable escalators we have now. They also will facilitate easier access to Metro from Bethesda Row, and to the eventual Purple Line station.

One interesting bit of trivia: this entrance was always planned for the future, and that part of the existing station - and its wall panels - were preconfigured for the south entrance, when the station was originally built.

This illustration is cool enough to make me dust off my childhood copy of David Macaulay's "Underground." Ah, the fine art, beauty and urban utility of a true subway. No mess at street level, no overhead wires and utilities. No creeping and crawling through busy streets, like trolleys and light rail.

That magic train arriving at the lower left is something special. Thanks to horrific mismanagement, many of us have forgotten how lucky we are to have this thing running beneath us in downtown Bethesda. If we can ever get the right people at the top at Metro, and on the board - and clearly they are not there presently - and complete the system, Metro can be right at the top of subway systems worldwide.

I believe it's possible, and if you do too, stop accepting mediocrity, and start speaking and voting your mind.

It's just impossible to believe that stations can be closed every weekend, for what seems like a year now, and have no results tangible to the rider. America could put a man on the moon in ten years, and it takes five to fix an escalator at Bethesda Metro Center?! "Give me a break," as Bill Clinton once said. To have the audacity to ask for more... More?! We need elected officials who are going to stop accepting excuses.

Meanwhile, I don't know what strategy lays behind the cynical ploy of some officials in MoCo to pit the Bethesda south station entrance against the developer-payoff of Wheaton "redevelopment." I believe it has backfired, as there is simply no comparison between the urgent need for a functioning Bethesda station entrance, and a Disneyfication of an already-great community in Wheaton, to benefit developers at taxpayer expense.

That is one nifty graphic up there. Can our elected officials make it reality?