Peter S. Craig: An Editorial Reply

From A Trip Within The Beltway:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/12/peter-s-craig-editorial-reply.html

The Washington Post Does Not Get It-
subverting transportation based upon lies

(excerpts)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

For more than two decades, Mr. Craig battled business interests, developers and members of Congress who wanted to build a bridge over the Potomac River to carry Interstate 66 into Georgetown and seven multilane highways, which would have destroyed more than 200,000 housing units, many in historically black sections of the city.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203176.html?sub=AR

CHRISTOPHER WREN, the great 17th-century English architect, whose many works dominated the London scene, had as his epitaph, "If you seek his memorial, look about you." Similar words might be fitting for Peter S. Craig, who died Nov. 26 at the age of 81, only in his case it would be what you didn't see that would mark his significance. ... [such as] a long-planned North-Central Freeway running through much of the eastern part of the city and over places where thousands of people live. In all, Mr. Craig and his allies succeeded in blocking about three-quarters of the interstate highway system once planned for the District....

There are still some who argue that the city made a major mistake when it blocked those highways. Most Washingtonians, we think, when they look about the city, with all its beauty and its history as community and national capital, would say otherwise.

The Washington Post reports he was a railroad attorney at Covington & Burling- something to think about concerning Washington, D.C.'s beauty, given the Posts' own expressed cluelessness convenient for diverting attention from the blight of to Washington, D.C. NE in the areas behind Union Station, with beauty in from, but ugliness behind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

Mr. Craig was working for the powerful Covington and Burling law firm in the 1950s, specializing in transportation regulation matters, when he became aware of plans to build a freeway from the Georgetown waterfront up Glover-Archbold Park and out Wisconsin Avenue into Bethesda, where it would have joined what is now Interstate 270.

Craig was also long involved with the “Committee of 100 on the federal City”- a private organization founded in 1923 by Frederic A. Delano, uncle to FDR and brother in law to Covington & Burling co-founder, railroad industry attorney Edward Burling. OK, so this law firm has a long history representing the railroad industry.

He got involved when planning was going to bring a highway near his residence in Cleveland Park.

Why- the logic of the Wisconsin Avenue corridor as the most commercialized corridor spaced roughly midway between the Potomac River and the B&O corridor, & the barring of a highway allowing trucks via Glover-Archbold Park, leading to a search of alternatives, with a brief consideration of a Cathedral Heights Tunnel, before a 1958-59 route via a split at the top of Glover-Archbold for a parkway not allowing trucks, with an I-70S continuation via a separate route known as the Cross Park Freeway starting as a tunnel just north of Fannie Mae and the northern edge of the Sidwell Friends School property to just west of Tilden Street, skirting the northern edge of Cleveland Park and entering another tunnel crossing east of Connecticut Avenue and emerging to cross Rock Creek Park via a highway arc bridge before continuing as an open depressed freeway through Mt Pleasant, starting at , crossing 16^th Street before turning south to parallel 14^th Street continuing to an interchange with the open trench I-66 along U Street.

This highway would have displaced 74 dwellings along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor, about 8 to the east in or near Cleveland Park, and 100s if not 1000s to the east of Rock Creek Park. Whereas the 1959 version added the two tunnel segments in the Sidwell Friends/Cleveland Park area in addition to the Tenley Circle underpass, it would fail to even consider tunnel segments anywhere to the east of Rock Creek Park, limiting any options to merely depressed with sloped embankments or depressed with vertical retaining walls. From a preservationist standpoint, the most sensible opposition was that to the east of Rock Creek Park, with the least sensible being Bethesda, Maryland which ended up tearing out and replacing most of its downtown business district anyway via WMATA Red Line subway induced denser development that could and should have included an underground highway.

Its effective cancellation via the 1960 – Act mandating a moratorium on free planning for DC NW west of Rock Creek Park – via political pressure from the area with the fewest impacts testifies to the dominance of political affluence.

This did not mean that Peter S. Craig necessarily opposed other freeways within Washington, D.C.

During the early 1960s he supported the concept appearing in the November 1, 1962 Kennedy Administration White House report of a “Y” route B&O railroad I-70S North Central Freeway.

Quote from report about reduced impacts

The B&O corridor makes perfect sense not only as a railroad corridor providing a band of lightly developed industrial property, but also with its placement roughly midway between the Potomac River and the eastern portion of the I-495 Capital Beltway in Maryland.

It was consistent with a philosophy embodied in proposals made via Craig cir. 1962. Not for not buildings the highways. But rather for building highways instead more via existing corridors/right of ways, occasionally coupled with the idea of some short segments of these highways as tunnel. I found two such proposals in perusing some of his papers and those of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City that are graciously made publicly available at the GW University Gelman Library Special Collections: constructing inside the Beltway Virginia I-66, not via the official route, but rather via a reconstructed fully grade separated Route 50 (already a major 4 – 6 lane artery generally flanked by service roads); and constructing the downtown D.C. north-south I-95 Center Leg (known today as the I-395 3^rd Street Tunnel), not via the official routing via a swath cut via clearing a swath of buildings between 2^nd and 3^rd Streets, but instead as a pair of cut and cover tunnels respectively beneath 2^nd and 3^rd Streets. Obviously, neither idea was adopted, and I did not find any evidence of any official consideration.

Craig at times expressed favor for this concept for the Georgetown waterfront via removing and replacing the elevated Whitehurst Freeway with a tunnel within the existing right of way; in 1968 the Committee of 100 briefly proposed extending that tunnel beneath the Potomac – a Three Sisters Tunnel – to Virginia; they soon abandoned that idea due to the costs of drilling a sufficiently long tunnel to accommodate a sufficiently gentle grade transition for trucks, with Craig’s idea for a shorter tunnel only along the Georgetown waterfront being coupled with the idea of it being sufficiently reduced in capacity not to preserve anything but rather so that it would be useful to fewer.

Such was followed by Elizabeth Rowe with the I-66 K Street Tunnel proposal.

The flip- said to have been guilted by Abbott. Since he strictly opposed freeways in NW, he would have to do the same elsewhere.

Its absurdity- was in response to a response to a bastardized program

Was done in the name of stopping white mans roads through black mans homes.

The idea of opposing “white mans roads through black mans houses” could make sense: as such meant a road that would go through a less affluent area rather then a more affluent area, or through the latter without the extra mitigation of tunnels seen in more affluent areas. Such example of this include the 1955 Inner Loop design for I-66 different treatments west and east of New Jersey Avenue- to the west as trench, to the east as an elevated berm, the 1959 NW Freeway that Craig stopped which would have taken fewer then 100 from the Maryland line to Rock Creek Park, but considerably more to the east, with tunnels only for areas to the west, and of course the 1964 NCF report’s options. [This led to some intelligent things as the I-66 K Street Tunnel proposal via Elizabeth Rowe in 1965-66. ]

But opposing such was hardly was synonymous as simply stopping freeways as that would simply kick the can elsewhere- a main consistency of the shifting polices of Craig and the Committee of 100.

He could have called for greater right of way efficiency and tunnelization for the highways within the western part of the inner loop.

He could also have done that with the NW Freeway proposing a different tunnel for its southern end. But AFAIK he did not.

He could have called for greater right of way efficiency and tunnelization for the highways within the eastern part of the east loop. Oddly to me, despite all of his opposition to say the Glover-Archibold Parkway I saw no indication he opposed the Northwest Branch Park routing for the I-95 Northeastern Freeway before he opposed the freeway outright, failing to apply the concept of reusing existing corridors in this instance with that giant PEPCO power line right of way to New Hampshire Avenue that would require only 13 retail strip properties, and clusters of 24 and 5 houses flanking a short jaunt through the open field of the Masonic and Eastern Star Retirement Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue NE to meet the B&O Route. Craig could have further applied such concepts to the B&O NCF. But AFAIK he did not.

Instead he took a course that would effectively be a “white mans road through black mans homes” – or area, depending upon if it displaced dwellings along the railroad corridor in Anacostia SE – via the Anacostia Freeway. If it had not displaced any homes, it would have simply been placing the traffic disproportionately through such areas by stopping both the NW Freeway and the NCF-NEF.

Craig's allies, the Committee of 100 did this with a 1968 proposal for re-routing inside the Beltway I-95 along a longer portion of the NWBP and Virginia 4 Mile Run

It was SE and in Virginia that Craig and the Committee of 100 would soon promote receiving even more of the burden, with their work to cancel the B&O Route North Central Freeway, supplemented by their 1968 proposal for a longer routing of inside the Beltway I-95 via Northwest Branch Park bringing it directly to the Anacostia Freeway, with the Baltimore-Washington Parkway reconfigured to come directly into the I-295 East Leg of the Inner Loop, and with I-95 continuing via the Anacostia Freeway extended somehow across the Potomac River to Virginia and continue via the 4 Mile Run corridor to the existing I-95 Shirley Highway.

Illustration: 1968 proposal, Brookland houses, ECTC protests

All to avoid 69 post WW1 townhouses targeted by the 1966 plans at the western edge of Brookland from the west side of 10^th Street NE to the railroad’s eastern side, all to the south of Monroe Street that crosses the railroad just to the south of Catholic University of America located immediately to the railroad’s west side along Brookland Avenue.

These 69 dwellings, a fraction of that targeted by the 1964 and 1960 proposals which would have decimated Turkey Thicket and Brooks Mansion which the 1966 and later plans spared, were colorfully protested by ECTC- the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis, even after this number of 69 was reduced to 34 by a 1970 D.C. Department of Public Works design modification realigning the freeway closer to the railroad, and/or substituting its eastern side sloped embankment with a vertical retaining wall. Internet writer Mark Bentley, in misc.transport.road noted:

Quote: numbers of houses, time on beltway x years

With only 34 rather the 69 that – figure becomes –

With only 11-14, that figure becomes --

I did not find any discussion on how a longer route via a longer route along a more sensitive watershed area of Northwest Branch Park was necessarily more worthy then a more direct route via the existing railroad-industrial corridor, nor consideration of tunnel segments. Nor did I find anywhere near the amount of consideration that lead to the B&O NCF route concept in 1962, regarding whatever they gave to the Craig-Committee of 100 flip, against the B&O North Central Freeway by 1966 reportedly in response to Sam Abbott shaming him into eventually opposing any proposed freeway, never-mind the actual designs and consequences, all based upon the B&O North Central Freeway’s bastardization which lead to the rush of popular opposition.

Indeed, the idea of “white mans roads through black mans homes” a great deal of sense for a NCF that would displace 720/590 with options going as high as 2770/--- on the heels of cancelling a NWF that would have taken fewer then 100 dwellings to the west of Rock Creek Park, as opposed to simply the 1962 Kennedy Administration B&O Route NCF that as per the 1966 supplementary study would have displaced 372 within DC, of these 69 for the I-95 segment. That slogan made far less sense against the B&O concept due to its central location and status as an industrial corridor providing a swath of lightly developed properties

Perhaps this was because such a mangling was required to stoke the opposition, hence the political need to use the righteous opposition to the 1964 plan to inflame the passions against any NCF.

Such appears to be the case, even after the release of the 1966 plan with officials waffling on the earlier plan through 1967 and as late as 1968

Quote: June 1967 Duncan Wallace letter.

Such was sufficient time to stoke the opposition to get the DC City Council and the U.S. NCPC to flip their support to opposition.

Quote USNCPC 1968

Such fit with the pursued legal strategy, of declaring the freeway illegal for lacking support of the legally required government entities for approving additions and subtractions to the Washington, D.C. road network.- even as this was untrue as the Council voted to approve .--- and USNCPC had voted … supporting the NCF and East Leg – positions they would only change after much colorful protest by ECTC – the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis disproportionately centered upon the 69 WW1 era houses in westernmost Brookland nearest to the B&O railroad this one portion of the I-95 NCF displacing houses – in comparison to the 600+ late 1800s houses as per the 1971 plans for its connecting segment to the built portion of the I-95 (now I-395) Center Leg (3^rd Street Tunnel) that was also required for the Route 50/logical I-66 east extension, and which remained on planning books for about a decade after the B&O NCF’s abandonment. Indeed it was the 69 – reduced by a 1970 DCDPW revision to 34 – where Brookland meets the B&O railroad immediately across from Catholic University of America, and at the site of the officially proposed I-266 Three Sisters Bridge practically pointing at Georgetown University that marked the two hot spots of latter 1960s-early 1970s anti-freeway protests.

Such strategy by the anti-freeway forces would be matched by such ostensibly pro-freeway forces as the Federal City Council – founded in 1954 as a sort of rival to the Committee of 100 – which in 1966 issued a report on the DC freeway system with a sufficiently heavy emphasis upon opposing delays sufficient to have it endorse building the NCF via the 1964 plan - good for saving perhaps a few weeks on the construction and perhaps cheaper if eminent domain is sufficiently abused by underpaying for properties then the additional retaining walls and tunnel roof segments of something true to the 1962 Kennedy Administration NCF – at the expense of literally splitting the town of Takoma Park Maryland.

Such useful blundering for increasing popular opposition to freeways in general continued not only via the 1964 reports betrayal of the 1962 Kennedy B&O NCF, and the waffling and support for the 1964 plan at least as late as 1968, but with the addition of new design objections with each subsequent official proposal useful for generating new opposition. The 1966 plan, though following the basic 1962 concept, changes the arcs of the roadway connections to and from the I-95 Northeastern Freeway to increase the footprint within Fort Totten Park- an issue that saw being brought up in 1966 just prior to the release of the supplementary study in November 1966 as a new objection. The 1971 plan does this same basic thing with its reconfiguration of the I-70S segment alongside the northwest edge of Takoma Park; though changing it to a cut and cover tunnel through the Takoma Station area between Piney Branch Avenue and Aspen Street, a definite improvement from the 1966 plan’s tightly aligned elevated segment flanking the existing elevated railroad, the 1971 plan places all 6 lanes of I-70S along the railroad’s eastern side, bringing it into direct conflict to displace the northernmost along the railroad’s east within Washington, D.C. landmark Cady Lee Mansion- something I found no mention within the Peter S. Craig and Committee of 100 papers, though nonetheless certainly a potential flashpoint for generating opposition. Further helping sustain this opposition was the slowness of the DCDPW in adopting the K Street Tunnel alternative for I-66.

Such blundering would be the thesis of the antithesis of the openly opposing ever more doctrinaire anti freeway sentiment that under the guise of opposing “white mans roads through black mans homes” even opposed such things as an I-66 K Street Tunnel via some accompanying sentiment against people outside one’s immediate neighborhood – commuters – sufficiently parochial to have people forget how such an attitude would work against them anywhere they went out of their immediate neighborhood. …

In the middle were some people making an effort to serve the most by making design suggestions. The leader of the Shepard Heights[?] Neighborhood Association for instance questioned the need for a 3 sisters bridge while favoring new bridges connecting D.C.’s Eastern Avenue to SE and another to Virginia, and B&O I-95 which he proposed be redesigned to spare the 69 or 34 houses in Brookland via being elevated directly over the railroad, taking advantage of the area immediately to its west south of and by extension alongside CUA. The Urban Freeways Committee of the National Urban League would propose an alternative plan for the easternmost segment of the I-66 K Street Tunnel, by having it at Mt Vernon Square swing to beneath New York Avenue and continue to and east of the Center Leg (3^rd Street Tunnel), this New York Avenue Tunnel intercepting I-95 as well. Yet their voices were eventually drowned out in a environment being dominated by theatrics and threats with ECTC reportedly being to riot by Covington & Burling at DC City Council meetings.

Council and NCPC votes 1969 1970

The NCF was 1^st to disappear from official DC planning, though effectively remaining in that of MD until July 16, 1973.

Then I-266.

Then the I-66 K Street Tunnel

Then everything else but the Center Leg to New York Avenue and then the North Leg east tunnel to 1^st street NE. then that, and then the leaving only Center Leg to New York Avenue, completed in 1986 with a set of added walls reducing its capacity in half- while not saving a single dwelling. IOW, a message of lets benefit fewer people for the benefit of fewer people.

Cancelled under the name of opposing “white mans roads through black mans homes”, the D.C. freeway system as planned by 1971 would have displaced a small fraction of the earlier designs:

148, 600+, 172 for completing the full Inner Loop, plus 59 for B&O/PEPCO I-95 and 303 for I-70S.

Granted this could have been further improved significantly be redesigning the connecting segment along New York Avenue, as with my own redesign that reduces the displacement figure of 600+ residences along New York Avenue between New Jersey Avenue and North Capitol Street to as few as 34 all situated between New Jersey Avenue and 4^th Street, south of N Street., via a gentler radii tunnel arcing beneath the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and N Street and ultimately connecting to the Grand Arc Mall Tunnel.

Such would be a far better memorial in honoring the positive side of Craig’s actions in preserving neighborhoods – although I have yet to see an ECTC or the “Committee of 100” mention or protest of the 600+ residences along New York Avenue between New Jersey Avenue and North Capitol Street, nor show any interest in extending Washington, D.C.’s monumental core beauty to the area to the relative ugliness of the area to north of Union Station- as I guess can be expected from the sort of doctrinaire anti-freeway, anti-questioning existing railroad design emanating from an attorney and a law firm well connected to the railroad industry, Covington & Burling.

Washington Post Continues Lying About D.C. Freeways

The Washington Post continues its efforts to misinform the public about the feasibilities of completing the Washington, D.C. freeway system

From A Trip Within The Beltway:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/12/washington-post-continues-lying-about.html

From The Washington Post obituary of Peter S. Craig:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122002242.html

For more than two decades, Mr. Craig battled business interests, developers and members of Congress who wanted to build a bridge over the Potomac River to carry Interstate 66 into Georgetown and seven multilane highways, which would have destroyed more than 200,000 housing units, many in historically black sections of the city.

This 200,000 dwellings figure is something the Post repeats from its error ridden November 2000 article, which was refuted in the newsnet group misc.transport.road, by participants including Scott M. Kozel, and in a Post forum since made unavailable. It is something that the Post has simply ignored any requests for them to publish a correction, and something they grossly misreported with that November 2000 article's map with the false depiction of the I-95 Northeastern Freeway route.

The Posts' characterization is misleading not only in the number, but in presenting it as static, when in fact the proposed freeways underwent significant routing and design revisions to reduce impacts via the greater use of existing right of ways and of tunnels for pollution containment and land reclaimation. It mentions for instance a North Central Freeway routed via a new swath paralleling the Georgia Avenue corridor, displacing some 4,000 dwellings- in fact the variant of this 1959 proposal appearing within the initial North Central Freeway engineering report in 1964 with the most residential displacement was option #4 "Sherman, 8th Street, Ritchie, Sligo" with figures of 2,770 within D.C., and 440 within Maryland.

But it fails to tell the readers that such a concept was explicitly rejected by the Kennedy Administration, which instead proposed for that highway a tight alignment along the B&O Metropolitan Branch Railroad, which is Washington, D.C.'s sole north-south transport and industrial corridor located roughly mid way between the Potomac River and the eastern north-south portion of the I-494 Capital Beltway.

It fails to mention the 1962 Kennedy initiative, and blurs the history by failing to go into the history of the design evolution of the B&O Route North Central Freeway- for instance not mentioning how the North Central Freeway was effectively sabotaged via the initial engineering report -- dated October 1964 -- disregarding the Kennedy administration idea of the North Central Freeway strictly hugging the B&O railroad together by this report excluding it while presenting an upwards of 37 preliminary and alternative routes[- see plates] mainly nowhere near the railroad, with a recommended route that deviated sharply from the railroad through Takoma Park, Maryland, taking 471 houses in 1 mile where strictly following the railroad would be a fraction of that, that followed the railroad elsewhere just enough to help derail the highway altogether. It fails to mention that it took another two years for the supplementary report to appear that essentially followed the Kennedy idea, yet which was continually sabotaged by officials refusing to commit to it, and such highway "advocacy" as that of the Federal City Council, which only weeks earlier issued a report calling for the North Central Freeway's construction via the earlier 1964 design simply to save some time and money. According to a letter to Maryland Governor Spiro T. Agnew from Takoma Park resident Duncan Wall dated June 1, 1967- excerpt:

The re-studied proposal also tacitly admitted that the route first proposed was needlessly, even carelessly if not ruthlessly, destructive of our communities. The new version hugged both sides of the existing Baltimore and Ohio railway, thus avoiding a new swath of destruction to divide our communities and sharply reducing the number of homes to be taken.

The reduced, re-routed proposal was made public last year with endorsement of D.C. And Maryland highway authorities. The D.C. Portion was forced through the National Capital Planning Commission by votes of representatives of the D.C. Highway Department and of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. From this we concluded, reasonably enough, that the highway authorities of the two jurisdiction cons (Maryland and D.C.) had reached a firm understanding with the Bureau of Public Roads.

Many of us were therefore astonished and aroused to preparations for renewed protests when Washington newspapers recently reported that the Bureau has acted to open it all up again. We have not found the Bureau forthcoming with candid information, but the press articles intimate an intention to force Maryland to accept modifications of route or design ostensibly "cheaper."

The result is that the whole controversy, which had been somewhat quiescent, is beginning to agitate the communities again. I can assure you this is so, for although I recently resigned chairmanship of the Metropolitan Citizens Council for Rapid Transit and write this simply as an individual citizen who wishes your administration well, I do remain in close touch with neighborhood sentiment on transportation-related issues.

As Governor of our State, you are in position better than we as private citizens to require straightforward answers from the Bureau of Public Roads.

You can also insure that the Maryland State Roads Commission refuses to go along with divisive proposals which these communities will regard as cause for new protests.

It furthermore fails to discuss the evolution of the I-95 Northeastern Freeway connection from the B&O Route to the I-95 'stumps' at the Beltway via the 195os decision to route it via the more sensitive closer watershed area of Northwest Branch Park in Maryland then that existing 250 foot wide right of way that conveniently parallels I-95 at and beyond the Beltway that would be ignored by official highway planning -- and apparently even the opposition -- until about 1971.

By so blurring the history, it increases the likelihood of confusion between say, 1,095, the figure for completing I-95 from the Maryland line to roughly along the B&O corridor though veering significantly into Brookland along 12th Street as per the 1960 proposal, with that of 1,166 for completing the entire system via the 1971 design, with figures of 148, 600+*, and 172 for the three areas along the downtown Inner Loop segment with displacement, and with a figure of 59 for completing I-95 from the Capital Beltway to just north of New York Avenue via the B&O-PEPCO combination. That figure of 59 includes the cluster of about 24 and about 5 along the northern side of New Hampshire Avenue flanking that large open field of the Masonic Eastern Star Home, just inside D.C., and the 34** at the western edge of Brookland. The I-70S portion of the B&O Route North Central Freeway as per the 1966 supplementary study would have displaced 303 dwellings [372 total NCF - 69 of I-95 segment] within D.C., and 163 *** in Maryland, a reduction from the figures of 720 and 590 for the infamous 1964 "recommended alternative" #11 "Railroad-Sligo East" proposal.

*the 600+ figure is reducible to as few as 34 via my superior alternative employing a some 1,400 radii transition cut and cover tunnel passing beneath the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and N Street, taking advantage of the convenient placement of the Dunbar HS building that seems to me as if it was situated for this very purpose, and transitioning to a multilevel tunnel beneath O Street to its junction with New York Avenue. This alternative entirely bypasses the stand of Victorian development extending from the southwest quadrant of New York Avenue and North Capital Street to New Jersey Avenue, minimally requiring displacement only within the area immediately west to the east side of 4th Street NW between N and M Streets, while sparing those prettier dwellings along M Street nearest to New Jersey Avenue, while providing a greater -- gentler -- tunneled turning transition radi then the 1971 design that had a 50 mph design speed.

**the 34 figure is reducible to about 11 if a portion of the highway is shifted to the railroad's immediate west side which has a generous amount of underutilized industrialized space. (However a development project just approved for this area includes a structure that is directly in the way -- IOW a 'demolition special' -- named the "Arts Walk". Meanwhile, further development along the railroad-industrial corridor promises to place 100s of new 'demolition special' dwellings, with official planning abandoning the idea of at least decking over a short stretch of the railroad.)

***the 163 figure is reducible qualitatively by a redesign that extends the idea of cut and cover tunnels that the 1966 supplementary study report shows alongside Montogomery Community College, further south beneath Takoma Avenue preserving the entire row of Victorian houses that face the railroad that both the 1966 and 1971 plans would have destroyed, along with preserving the sanctity of the landmark Cady Lee Mansion that the 1971 design displaced via replacing the 1966 plans configuration of 3 lanes in each direction flanking the railroad, with that instead placing both directions along the railroad's east side. (The 1966 plan's mainline would miss the houses to the north along Takoma Avenue but the open depressed design would push the replacement Takoma Avenue into the houses). However, the cir. 1966 construction of the Montgomery Gardens apartment complex -- located all the way up to the very edge of the RR's western side created a right of way chock at the expense of the Victorian structures that were built a century earlier with a sensible amount of set back allowing cut and cover highway tunnels.

Hence, if right of ways are preserved, and the designs are so further developed, completing I-95 through Washington, D.C. and all the way to the Capital Beltway in Maryland would displace as few as 74 dwellings- which was about the number that would have been taken for the D.C. Wisconsin Avenue corridor portion of the late 1950s NW Freeway.

How JFK's D.C. North Central Freeway Was Sabotaged

to effectively stay away from Catholic University of America,
and keep any such freeway far away from, let alone through the field of the Masonic Eastern Star Home on New Hampshire Avenue

As with anything, just connect the dots with the most influential property owners along a given route...

excerpted from:
http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/homeland-security-goal-would-be-better.html

1959

The cancellation of the NW Freeway led to the 1962 JFK Administration proposal of replacing the 1959 plan for three separate northern radial freeways with a 2 into 1 "Y" Route upon the B&O Metro Branch RR-industrial corridor that runs next to the campus of Catholic University of America. This was to occur with essentially the rail transit network that was built for WMATA.

1962

That plan would be effectively undermined politically via the subsequent 1964 North Central Freeway reports' failure to follow the JFK plan with up to 37 studied routes largely nowhere near this rr and with a recommendation running along the rr in some areas only to deviate significantly directly through old neighborhoods with far far higher local impacts -- 471 free standing dwellings for the 1 mile segment through Takoma Park, Maryland upon a route not only far more destructive but longer and less direct then JFK's B&O "Y" route.

1964

Veers about 1/2 mile away from the B&O railroad on new swath through old neighborhoods in Takoma Park, Maryland, taking 471 houses for the 1.1 mile segment, before rejoining the railroad immediately north of New Hampshire Avenue.

This route was longer and less direct.

Route #11 at New Hampshire Avenue, veering away from the B&O railroad into Takoma Park

1964

1966

It was not until 1966 that a "supplementary" North Central Freeway study with the JFK B&O route appeared; it eliminated the separate swath in Takoma Park by "hugging" the railroad's flanks at the edge of Takoma Park, with various sort tunnels to swing the highway to one side or the other railroad, such as alongside Montgomery Community College, with a proposal to effectively do the same alongside Catholic University and Brookland via "air rights" development.

1966

1971

The 1971 plan extends the highway cover southward to Rhode Island Avenue, yet inexplicitly deletes the northern segment alongside the main campus of Catholic University of America, continuing its traditional isolation from the east .

All of this was undermined by various politician's suggestions as late as 1968 in favor of the earlier route from 1964 as "less expensive".

So would a change in the route in the vicinity of Fort Totten to use more parkland, creating a new objection in the 1966-71 plan absent from the 1964 plan.

1964 plan which follows the railroad at Fort Totten

1966 plan which veers to the west at Fort Totten

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/11/ectc-1970.html

So conceivably did the 1971 plan's to bury the highway segment through Takoma, D.C., but with a catch: whereas the 1966 plan flanked the railroad -- that is a 3/RR/RR/3 configuration -- the 1971 plan placed both directions of the highway along the railroad's eastern side, thus placing it in direct conflict with the landmark Cady-Lee mansion on the corner of Eastern Avenue and Piney Branch, necessitating its removal, whereas the 1966 plan avoided this.

1966 I-70S
Cut and cover tunnels
Silver Spring, Maryland
alongside Blair Park/Montgomery Community College

1966 I-70S North Central Freeway
flanks the railroad
in Takoma, D.C.

1971 I-70S North Central Freeway
all on the eastern side of the railroad

No plan was drawn up via the authorities to tunnelize this segment of highway with highway carriageways flanking the railroad to preserve the Cady Lee mansion as well as the houses to the north facing Takoma Avenue. The Cady Lee mansion, built cir 1884, is the northernmost house within D.C. along the railroad's eastern side.

Cady Lee

Why add objections lacking in earlier plans?

Doing so would only continue to undermine this highway's political support, doing so pretty much by the time of the final re-routing with the change of the I-95 Northeast Freeway's route from Northwest Branch Park/Fort Drive, to the PEPCO power line/New Hampshire Avenue route.

D.C. I-95 Northeast Freeway routes
1960-1973

1960 report has I-95 in Maryland via Northwest Branch and entering D.C. passing alongside Catholic Sisters College, which was openly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church and the adjoining residential areas, leading to its abandonment.

The November 1962 White House report retains the Maryland Northwest Branch routing, while, for D.C. adopting the Fort Drive right of way between Galatin and Galloway Streets NE- which is the routing adopted by the subsequent 1964, 1966 and 1971 study-reports.

The 1971 study-report presents that option of the subsequent PEPCO Power Line right of route, in order to preserve parkland by instead re-utilizing the existing 250 foot clear cut power line right of way that extends from outside the I-495 Capital Beltway to some 1,600 or so feet from the Maryland D.C. line alongside New Hampshire Avenue, to then travel about another 1,600 feet to join the B&O railroad corridor.

Below is the most significent property along the connecting segment of B&O-PEPCO I-95.

-------

Masonic Eastern Star Home
on New Hampshire Avenue
between railroad and the Washington, D.C.-Maryland line

http://www.mei-futures-dc.org/campus

the beautiful, historic grounds of the Masonic and Eastern Star Retirement Home at 6000 New Hampshire Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20011.

The home was built in 1905 and has retained much of the original architecture throughout recent renovations.

This Masonic Order appears to possess an affinity for this side of Washington, D.C.'s New Hampshire Avenue, expressed with the early 1900s creation of the Order's Home on 6000 New Hampshire Avenue NE near the border with Maryland, quickly followed by the 1906 start of construction of what became its downtown headquarters new DuPont Circle, at 1618 New Hampshire Avenue NW:

http://wwwsouthcapitolstreet.blogspot.com/2008/09/appearances-of-power-ruminations.html

The Perry Belmont Mansion is one of Washington’s finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture. Designed by French architect Eugene Sanson [started in 1906] and completed in 1909, the house remains today much as it was when originally constructed and still contains many of the Belmonts furniture and objects d’art. Mr. Belmont was the grandson of Commodore Perry who negotiated the 1854 Treaty of Amity, which opened the ports of Japan for commerce. During the sixteen years that Jessie and Perry Belmont, who had served as US Ambassador to Spain, occupied the house, dignitaries from around the world were entertained there. The landmarked house was purchased in 1935 by the Order of the Eastern Star for use as its international headquarters. It serves also as the private residence of the Right Worthy Grand Secretary. The Order’s careful stewardship provides Washington with a remarkable example of its built heritage.

Formerly the Perry Belmont Mansion, it was started in 1906 and completed in 1909, at the then-extravagant cost $1.5 million. Perry and Jessie Belmont built the mansion for the specific purpose of entertaining not only notables of Washington, but also dignitaries from all over the world. The building was only used during the Washington party season (about two months each year) and special events. It was designed by Eugene Sanson, a famous French architect who had designed many grand homes and chateaus in Europe. He was renowned for his use of light and space, and for his beautiful staircases. Long before the acquisition of the building by the General Grand Chapter in 1935, it was a site of elegance, gracious and grand hospitality, of distinguished diplomats, world-renowned guests and romance.

The Belmonts entertained lavishly and had a staff of approximately 34 servants. They used the house from 1909 to 1925. It was then closed and put on the market for sale with the stipulation that it could not be altered for 20 years after purchase. The mansion stood empty and unused until 1935, when the General Grand Chapter purchased it. Mr. Belmont, being a Mason and happy to be selling it to someone who would take care of it, sold it to The General Grand Chapter for $100,000. As part of our agreement with Mr. Belmont, The General Grand Chapter law states the Right Worthy Grand Secretary must live in the Temple. So the building is still a working private residence as well as our headquarters. Many furnishings, including several Tiffany vases, 37 oil paintings, Louis the 14th and 15th furniture, china and oriental rugs were included with the purchase of the Temple and are still on display for our members and their guests to enjoy on tours. Chandeliers throughout are gold gilt and hung with hand-carved rock crystal drops – some with amethyst as well. There are eleven fireplaces, most with hand-carved marble mantles. All the marble in the house was brought from Italy, all the wood from Germany and all the metal fixtures from France.

-------

PEPCO/New Hampshire Avenue
1971- dropped by Maryland July 16, 1973

In my studies of numerous historical information sources regarding this highway planning, I have yet to encounter anything on the Order of the Eastern Star's opinions- for instance did they ever request making the depressed segment through their property as a tunnel to preserve the home's sanctity?

Likewise with that of Catholic University of America- did they for instance object to the proposed highway lid's shortening in the 1971 plan versus the 1966 plan which extended further north alongside the CUA main campus to Taylor Street?

The Washington Post would completely misrepresent this route
in its November, 2000 article "Lost Highways" by Bob and Jane Levey, with this map turning the I-95 Northeast route away from the field of the Order of the Eastern Star Masonic home property alongside New Hampshire Avenue between the RR and the D.C./Maryland line, and instead upon a highly destructive and fictitious route that appears in no planning documents

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/01/washington-post-lies-about-inside.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/10/roads-for-many-through-homes-of-few.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/02/sampling-of-attitudes-towards-dc-i-95.html

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/05/romish-masonic-religious-drive-against.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2008/12/who-really-stopped-washington-dcs.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2009/05/telling-deletion.html

Commuter Outrage R.I.P.

My take on the sudden disappearance of the blog Commuter Outrage, that I posted to the comments section of the Streetsblog article at:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2009/12/21/what-the-heck-was-commuteroutrage-com/#comments

Douglas Willinger

"So, that's it. That's the end of our story and, apparently, the end of CO.com as well. Sadly, we were unable to cobble together enough evidence to convince ourselves that CO.com was the product of an unholy alliance between the highway lobby and military intelligence and propaganda professionals."

If so, they were strangely silent about the incompleteness of the Washington, D.C. freeway system, and that in other areas, such as the lack of highway-railway tunnel connecting LI with Westchester County and New Jersey:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2008/07/homeland-security-goal-would-be-better.html

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2007/10/whatever-happened-to-idea-of-additional.html

But then again, perhaps not so strange:

"So, we started poking around the Internet for a xxx xxxxx and quickly found him. According to a LinkedIn account that has since been deleted, xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx graduated from Princeton in 200x. He studied at the University of Qatar and earned a master's degree from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He lived in a temporary corporate housing facility in Falls Church, Virginia and worked as a consultant for SAIC, Science Applications International Corporation. And in 2006, xxxxxx xxxxx was married in Loudon County, Virginia to xxxxxx xxxxx. "

Georgetown University through its law school (Georgetown Law Center) has been a prominent opponent of D.C.'s freeways for decades.

For instance see the story about D.C.'s most needed and least in displacement proposed freeway links -- the I-95 NE/NCF -- which was sabotaged politically with successive design additions to increase local opposition (most notably the 1964 NCF report's disregard of the 1962 JFK Administration proposal for the highway to strictly hug the existing B&O [Red Line] corridor; I have much at this on my blog "A Trip Within the Beltway" such as this:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1964-north-central-freeway-routing_08.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/search/label/highway%20routing%20mysteries

As with anything, just connect the dots with the most influential property owners along a given route...

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

December 21, 2009 at 9:55 pm Link # 29

As of 2AM, December 22, 2009, Streetsblog has allowed the appearance of additional 2 posts to this comments area, both dated later, while my comment above does not appear at all.

UPDATE:

As of the following afternoon, my comment appeared in the proper order of its submission as #29, followed by the earlier approved subsequent two submissions, plus those made later- having grown at this writing on December 23, 2009 to 45 comments.

The article, which is certainly a landmark at Streetsblog -- which was the target of much criticism from Commuter Outrage, and is reproduced below.

It provides a good overview of detective work, though I could not find how they got the photo of
"xxxxxx xxxxxx: The face of CommuterOutrage"

Disturbingly, there is no word from xxxxxx xxxxx (the name in this Streetsblog article), or of Lewis Derkins, Judd Wiley and Alvin MacIntosh, the names that appeared in Commuter Outrage, nor from anyone knowing this individual or persons.

I thought the blog had great potential, but alas would veer off with silly things like attacking people for wearing tweeds while riding bicycles, while not dare to attack any of the lack of highway or railway links, nor any of the "chocks" of transportation corridors by misplaced, misguided 'new urbanist' real estate development.

Indeed, I left a comment at Commuter Outrage about the chocking of the N.Y. I-87 Major Deegan Expressway and of the Mott Have area in the South Bronx, by the thoughtless prioritization of a real estate development project to hem in the existing 6 lane elevated I-87 Major Deegan Expressway, placing some 10,000 new residents mere feet away from this exposed source of traffic pollution, and leaving less space to replace the freeway viaduct with a cut and cover tunnel equipped with exhaust filtration. There it remained, but I never saw any response. Should not a pro-highway entity care about such matters?

So "cute" how he Pentagon does not give a damn about improving our transportation network capacity, with "debate" crafted upon an axis of overly strict and hence socially destructive dogmas: aka we should ONLY build rail transit OR highways. It reflects for example from much of the "pro-highway" side of this "debate" for instance are those who spend far more time opposing seemingly any and all major rail transportation projects as a waste of money, while decrying the basic concept of transit oriented development with little discussion of context and even less discussion of design, yet failing to make a single specific highway proposal. It simultaneously reflects in the forms of such reflexes as groups opposed to any major transit investments in cities with many highways, and with such in reverse such as apologists for stopping planning for PEPCO/B&O Route D.C. I-95.

But such a silence is totally consistent with anything connected to our [Jesuit Order] Georgetown University possessed government with its ominous combination of no new highways but lots and lots of domestic surveillance supposedly making us safer.

Note Georgetown University's support for domestic surveillance -- it's where the PATRIOT Act was crafted -- and their opposition to highways near to them or other such major Vatican properties as Catholic University of America, where the B&O Route I-95 would have passed alongside.

See some of the history how this highway was politically sabotaged:

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2007/05/1964-north-central-freeway-routing_08.html

http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/search/label/highway%20routing%20mysteries

And note note the line of work of the person[s] reportedly behind Commuter Outrage:

(excerpt from the Streetsblog article- below)

SAIC is one of those gigantic federal government mega-contractors that you ought to know about but probably don't. With 44,000 employees and $8 billion a year in revenue, SAIC has more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. "No Washington contractor pursues government money with more ingenuity and perseverance than SAIC," investigative journalists Donald Bartlett and James Steele wrote in a 2007 Vanity Fair article. "SAIC currently holds some 9,000 active federal contracts in all. More than a hundred of them are worth upwards of $10 million apiece. Two of them are worth more than $1 billion."

SAIC offers its federal patrons a long list of products and services related to energy, infrastructure and national security. But its big specialty is intelligence. Boasting "information dominance" as one of its areas of expertise, SAIC is one of the major players in the brave new world of government intelligence out-sourcing (Yasmin's employers, CSC and Booz Allen, are two of the others). SAIC is the National Security Agency's largest contractor, and the NSA is SAIC's single largest customer. By 2007, SAIC had "virtually replaced the National Security Agency as the primary collector of signals intelligence for the government," according to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock.

In addition to the spy-for-hire work, the government also turns to SAIC to develop media and propaganda campaigns for the U.S. military. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon selected SAIC to run its Rapid Reaction Media Team. After the invasion, the Pentagon awarded SAIC an $82 million no-bid contract to establish the Iraqi Media Network, which "quickly devolved into a mouthpiece for the Pentagon," according to Bartlett and Steele.

It seemed completely far-fetched, but could it be that some member of the highway lobby had hired SAIC to run a domestic propaganda campaign around the upcoming federal transportation re-authorization and CO.com was the result? Was this what "information dominance" looked like when applied to domestic transportation policy? Preposterous! Yet CO.com's authors suggested that we sustainable transport "weenies" had merely glimpsed the tip of the CO.com iceberg. "Trust me," Judd Wiley wrote in a July 1 comment. "We've only just started. You clowns have no idea what's coming your way."

----

Monday, December 21, 2009 45 Comments

What the Heck Was CommuterOutrage.com?

by Aaron Naparstek on December 21, 2009

xxxxxxx xxxxxes: The face of CommuterOutrage.

Every rare once in a while we used to get e-mails from readers asking us if we saw what they're saying about Streetsblog over at CommuterOutrage.com. For the most part, we didn't. We had long since concluded that CO.com didn't have much of an agenda beyond trying to get Streetsblog's attention.

There was, however, a time in the summer of 2008 when these outraged commuters managed to do just that. That's when we noticed that a comment posted by one of their authors on Streetsblog originated from an IP address that traced back to the Pentagon's Office of the Secretary of Defense. We did a little bit of digging and, for a brief, thrilling moment we thought we might just have stumbled across a secretive new blogging division of the military-industrial-automobile-sprawl complex working down the hall from Donald Rumsfeld's old lair.

If you've never heard of CommuterOutrage.com then you probably want to go ahead and skip this story. But if you ever found your blood pressure rising as you slogged through a 3,000-word CO.com blog post filled with off-the-wall assumptions, cascading series of factual errors and childish personal attacks, then read on. The following 3,000 words were written for you.

* * * * *

CO.com popped up in the spring of 2008 pseudonymously authored by three guys calling themselves Lewis Derkins, Judd Wiley and Alvin MacIntosh. Their introductory "Rant" (still available in the purgatory of Google cache) announced that they were "fed up with the buffoonery" of the "lazy politicians and inept bureaucrats" who "say we should choose to live closer to the office or find alternative means of transportation." They were outraged over having to pay for tolls, gas taxes and short-term parking at the airport. They decried "entitlement spending" and "social engineering experiments" like congestion pricing and tax credits for hybrid vehicles (As for entitlements like free highways and social engineering experiments like exurban sprawl: No problem!) And they demanded that federal transportation dollars be spent on the "maintenance and expansion projects that benefit all of us."

If you've ever spent a bit of time in the right wing policy realm, a lot of that language will sound familiar. In the spring of 2008, lobbyists and advocates across the transportation policy realm were gearing up for the upcoming federal re-authorization. In transportation circles, the call to spend more on "maintenance and expansion" is often code for directing funds to roads and highways. You can't, after all, "expand and maintain" light rail and bus rapid systems, or walkable, bike-friendly communities or a national high speed rail system that don't yet exist.

CO.com was a little bit like Opposite Day Streetsblog. Day after day, its authors tried to make the case that Americans love and demand automobile sprawl, mass transit is filled with perverts and run by incompetent bureaucrats, and bike commuters are sociopathic anarchists who ought to be licensed. But more than anything, CO.com was about, well -- us. Lewis, Judd and Alvin were obsessed with Streetsblog, Transportation Alternatives and the livable streets movement. Though none of them seemed to live there, they were outraged by any effort to make New York City a more hospitable place for pedestrians, cyclists and transit riders. And they were intent on exposing livable streets advocates as frauds, liars and socialists.

While Streetsblog-types tend to argue in a wonky, policy-oriented style, Lewis, Judd and Alvin seemed to be schooled in the Karl Rovian Swift Boat style of political discourse. Calling themselves the "Streetsblog Truth Squad," they frequently called out individual advocates by name, published their photos online, and piled on the personal insults and schoolyard taunts. Referring to advocates as "weenies" was a favorite. Few Streetsblog items escaped their wrath. Even a funny, little throw-away Streetfilm on Portland, Oregon's new bike boxes merited a lengthy "debunking" by Lewis Derkins.

There were clearly some brains behind CO.com. The writing could be smart and funny. And they certainly knew how to get under the skin of livable streets advocates. Given the intensity and frequency that Lewis, Judd and Alvin were blogging when their site first launched, it seemed conceivable that CO.com was someone's day job. They aggressively promoted their links in the comments sections of other blogs and by May 2008 they started to get some traction in local New York City media, occasionally picking up links from blogs like Queens Crap, Village Voice, Gotham Gazette and even the New York Times' City Room.

For a time, Lewis, Judd and Alvin slugged it out in Streetsblog's comments section until they deemed our automated spam filter an infringement on their First Amendment rights. Likewise, Streetsblog readers did battle in the CO.com comments section until they realized that, aside from a renowned bike crank and the last of the urban highway advocates, Lewis and the gang didn't actually have much of a readership. Our server stats confirmed that. Despite the constant links, CO.com drove virtually zero traffic to Streetsblog.

Then it got interesting.

On July 22, 2008 we posted an item called "Highway Funding: The Last Bastion of Socialism in America." Not surprisingly, the article's hyperbolic title outraged Lewis and Alvin and they voiced their displeasure in the Streetsblog comments section. WordPress lets us see the IP addresses of our commenters and after Alvin MacIntosh published a comment during weekday work hours we clicked through to see if it might reveal his place of employment. It did. Alvin, apparently, worked here:

OrgName: The Pentagon



OrgID: THEPEN



Address: OPN-BM, Pentagon



Address: Rm BE884



City: Washington



StateProv: DC



PostalCode: 20310



Country: US

CO.com's "Alvin MacIntosh" was blogging out of The Pentagon!

Now, that was interesting. We already had this lurking, paranoid suspicion that CO.com was, perhaps, being funded by some highway lobby interest. Could it be that a top-secret section of the U.S. Department of Defense was publishing a pro-automobile, pro-suburban sprawl web site bent on the destruction of Streetsblog? In the waning days of the George W. Bush Administration did someone at The Pentagon consider the livable streets movement a threat to national security? How cool would that be?

Excited, we called a couple of our favorite tech geeks and asked if they might be able to help us dig up any more information on Lewis, Judd and Alvin. It was summer and work was kind of slow. So, a small group of us decided to spend some time taking a closer look at CO.com.

First, we looked at their domain name registration. It was purchased on April 4, 2008 by xxxxxx xxxxx. It looked like xxxxxx initially tried to register the web site address anonymously but somehow wound up with her name on it. Though Google turned up a few xxxxxx xxxxm's, the one that stood out was a public relations professional at Booz Allen Hamilton. She graduated from Princeton in 2002 then got a masters degree in "strategic public relations" from the USC Annenberg School for Communications in 2004. Prior to Booz Allen, she worked for CSC, Computer Sciences Corporation.

Next, we took a look at CO.com's source code. There we found "xxxuxes" listed as the Client I.D. on an advertising widget embedded in the web site's sidebar. That was the clue that opened the floodgates. A Google blog search for "pxxxxxx" uncovered a set of April 9, 2008 test blog posts on CO.com, one of them titled "Test xat." Though the test posts had been deleted from the live web site, they still showed up in Google's cache.

So, we started poking around the Internet for a xxx xxxxx and quickly found him. According to a LinkedIn account that has since been deleted, xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx graduated from Princeton in 200x. He studied at the University of Qatar and earned a master's degree from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He lived in a temporary corporate housing facility in Falls Church, Virginia and worked as a consultant for SAIC, Science Applications International Corporation. And in 2006, xxxxxx xxxxxx was married in Loudon County, Virginia to xxxxxx xxxxx.

CommuterOutrage.com, it seemed, was xxxxxx xxxxxs's web site. We had our man.

* * * * *

SAIC is one of those gigantic federal government mega-contractors that you ought to know about but probably don't. With 44,000 employees and $8 billion a year in revenue, SAIC has more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. "No Washington contractor pursues government money with more ingenuity and perseverance than SAIC," investigative journalists Donald Bartlett and James Steele wrote in a 2007 Vanity Fair article. "SAIC currently holds some 9,000 active federal contracts in all. More than a hundred of them are worth upwards of $10 million apiece. Two of them are worth more than $1 billion."

SAIC offers its federal patrons a long list of products and services related to energy, infrastructure and national security. But its big specialty is intelligence. Boasting "information dominance" as one of its areas of expertise, SAIC is one of the major players in the brave new world of government intelligence out-sourcing (xxxxxx's employers, CSC and Booz Allen, are two of the others). SAIC is the National Security Agency's largest contractor, and the NSA is SAIC's single largest customer. By 2007, SAIC had "virtually replaced the National Security Agency as the primary collector of signals intelligence for the government," according to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock.

In addition to the spy-for-hire work, the government also turns to SAIC to develop media and propaganda campaigns for the U.S. military. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon selected SAIC to run its Rapid Reaction Media Team. After the invasion, the Pentagon awarded SAIC an $82 million no-bid contract to establish the Iraqi Media Network, which "quickly devolved into a mouthpiece for the Pentagon," according to Bartlett and Steele.

It seemed completely far-fetched, but could it be that some member of the highway lobby had hired SAIC to run a domestic propaganda campaign around the upcoming federal transportation re-authorization and CO.com was the result? Was this what "information dominance" looked like when applied to domestic transportation policy? Preposterous! Yet CO.com's authors suggested that we sustainable transport "weenies" had merely glimpsed the tip of the CO.com iceberg. "Trust me," Judd Wiley wrote in a July 1 comment. "We've only just started. You clowns have no idea what's coming your way."

So, we did some more digging.

* * * *

We found that in February 2008, xxxxxxx xxxxx took a course with SPS Training at EEI Communications in Alexandria, Virginia so he could learn how to use PD2, a software application used for Defense Department procurement. In his paperwork, xxxxxxx listed his organization as "the Office of the Secretary Defense" and his email address as xxxxxxx.xxxxes.ctr@osd.mil.

CO.com frequently pulled photos, links and text from Transportation Alternatives' web site, so we asked T.A.'s tech guys if we could take a closer look at their server logs. We quickly noticed that someone with a Defense Department IP address often rummaged around T.A's web site in the hours prior to CO.com blog posts that used T.A. material. For example, we found that someone using a computer at this IP address: 214.16.41.245, dns1.bta.mil, had been doing Google image searches for "Wiley Norvell" just hours before Lewis Derkins published a blog post featuring a photo of T.A.'s Wiley Norvell on July 16, 2008.

BTA.MIL is the domain name for the Pentagon's Business Transformation Agency and we found that, among its thousands of federal government contracts, SAIC had a consulting team working for the Pentagon's Business Transformation Agency in Virginia. We also noticed that people who worked for the BTA often had osd.mil e-mail addresses, just like xxxxxxx xxxxes.

Was "Lewis Derkins" actually xxxxxx xxxxxs? Lots of evidence seemed to point that way. But the big question was whether CO.com was official Pentagon product or merely xxxxxx's hobby. If a Defense Department contractor with a specialty in "information dominance" were producing a right-wing, pro-autosprawl, climate change-denying, attack-blog bent on "exposing" the New York City livable streets movement, that was a pretty good story. If CO.com was just some bored Pentagon contractor's side-project, well, that wasn't exactly "60 Minutes" material.

Still, it was nice just to know the name of at least one of the anonymous authors behind CO.com. Even if CO.com was xxxxick's hobby, it was notable that a guy who proclaimed himself to be a watchdog over waste, fraud and ineptitude was using the Defense Department's computer network and your federal tax dollars to produce his personal blog. Likewise, it was also somewhat incredible that a guy who worked for one the nation's preeminent contractors of outsourced spy services wasn't competent enough to maintain the anonymity that he so clearly desired. If this were a CO.com story, they would probably say that xxxxxx xxxxxx was just another inept, money-wasting private contractor leeching off the American taxpayer.

* * * * *

While it was fun to imagine that such a thing as the military-industrial-automobile-sprawl complex existed and that it members were sitting around the Pentagon thinking about ways to counter the growing influence of Streetsblog and the livable streets movement, a number of clues piled up during our brief investigation that led us to believe that CO.com was, in the end, nothing more than a hobby for xxxxxxx xxxxes and some pals.

The first most obvious clue was the quality of the blog itself. If someone had hired CO.com's authors to advocate for more highway spending -- or anything, for that matter -- they didn't seem to be getting their money's worth. If SAIC, the nation's premier provider of private spy services was running CO.com, how were they making mistakes like the one that allowed us to grab that photograph of xxxxxxx xxxxxx off their server? It didn't add up to a professional operation.

Lewis Derkins, in particular, came across as a desperate undergrad eager to show that he was the smartest kid in class by proving, quantitatively, how stupid everyone else was. Putting aside his inability to make an argument free of sophomoric personal attacks, Lewis's blog posts were so consistently filled with errors it would have taken a full-time fact-checker just to correct them.

We'll give you one example pulled randomly from the first post we chose. On July 2, 2008, Lewis Derkins wrote a 3,200-word term paper criticizing the "bizarre analysis" and "misinterpretation of facts" in Charles Komanoff's seminal work, "Killed by Automobile" [PDF]. Derkins wrote that from 1994 to 1997, "465 people were killed in fires in New York City. That's two and a half times more people killed in fires than all pedestrians and bicyclists killed in NYC by cars. Are we going to launch an initiative to ban ovens in kitchens to combat this menace next?"

As was often the case, if you were familiar with the subject matter that Lewis Derkins was writing about, then you noticed that his numbers were completely wrong. "Killed by Automobile" repeatedly states that 947 pedestrians and bicyclists were killed by cars between 1994 and 1997, nearly twice as many as the 465 that Derkins says were killed in fires. Lewis's assertion that fires killed two-and-a-half times more New Yorkers than cars was off by a factor of five. It's a small mistake. But CO.com blog posts were jam-packed with errors like these, one snowballing atop the next. Lewis Derkins often built entire arguments around these kinds of errors. CO.com was simply too amateurish to think that some corporate interest was paying for it.

There were other circumstantial clues suggesting that CO.com was probably just xxxrick's hobby. Our favorite was Hiss Kaag.

We noticed that, in the early days of CO.com, a character named "Hiss Kaag" often showed up in the blog's comments section. In his comments, Hiss came across as a kind of bureaucratic manager caricature, like the Pointy-Haired Boss in the Dilbert cartoon, but with an inexplicable obsession for the International House of Pancakes. A typical Hiss Kaag comment went like this:

Hiss Kaag May 15th, 2008, 8:55 am

Lewis,

Only one complaint about your posting: Too damn long! Who has time to read all this poo at work?

Myself, Hiss Kaag that is, will not allow any of my staff to experience joy, happiness or the general feeling that their work matters.

I like making them change charts for no g-d damn reason, and spend my whole day managing up and kicking down.

That's the Hiss Kaag philosophy my friends. Use it too and you'll end up a lonely shriveled up sad excuse for a man.

G-d Bless.

SEE YOU AT IHOP.

Mr. Kaag

As we were clicking around through xxxxxx xxxxxxs's LinkedIn profile we noticed that Pxxxxx was connected to a guy named Kris Haag working at the Pentagon's Business Transformation Agency. Haag's resume showed that he was older and more senior than Pxxxxx, he was a government employee, not a contractor or consultant, and he appeared to hold a management job at the BTA.

That's when it clicked: Maybe Haag was xxxxxxxx's boss at work. Perhaps this Hiss Kaag character was xxxxxxx-and-friends way of mocking the pancake-eating federal bureaucrat who tasked them with making charts all day. Or perhaps Haag was in on the joke and was one of CO.com's other authors. (Or maybe Kris Haag has nothing to do with any of this, in which case, we apologize for mentioning your name here, Kris.) Either way, would this Hiss Kaag character be making appearances in the CO.com comments section if it were an official Pentagon product?

All in all, it seemed a lot more likely that the blog was being produced by one or more SAIC consultants slogging away in obscurity at a boring, bureaucratic job in the Pentagon.

* * * * *

Unlike CO.com, if we're going to write about you on Streetsblog, we generally like to call you first, check our facts, understand where you're coming from and give you an opportunity to tell your side. So, last week we did quite a bit of reporting on this story.

Calls to SAIC's switchboard confirmed that xxxxxx xxxxxx works in the company's Intelligence Security and Technology Group. But Melissa Koskovich, an SAIC spokesperson, insisted that CO.com is not produced by the company. "I can tell you right off the bat this is nothing we'd be involved with," she said. "We might have an employee blogging during work time."

Likewise, the Department of Defense said it is not responsible for CO.com. "By definition there's nothing that we do that is 'dot com.' We are either 'dot gov' or 'dot mil,'" Pentagon spokesperson Darryn James said. "The Pentagon is a small city. There are 25,000 people working here. So, this could be some contractor working in his off time."

We reached out to Kris Haag and xxxxx xxxxx but never heard back from them. After a number of calls and e-mails, xxxxxx xxxxxs replied on Thursday to say that he had received our note and was open to a conversation. We have been unable to reach him for an interview since then. Also on Thursday, the CO.com web site was taken offline and obliterated.

So, that's it. That's the end of our story and, apparently, the end of CO.com as well. Sadly, we were unable to cobble together enough evidence to convince ourselves that CO.com was the product of an unholy alliance between the highway lobby and military intelligence and propaganda professionals. In the end, all we think we managed to do was put a name to CO.com. Though, after months of non-stop anonymous attacks, that's kind of satisfying. Commuter Outrage.com was xxxxxx xxxxxs's blog. If nothing else, xatrick is now free to come out of hiding and add his voice to the vigorous public debate over 21st century transportation policy and urban sustainability. May he now enjoy the same high standard of accountability that he seemed so eager to impose on others.