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Thomas Circle the way it should be

DC Metrocentric has an interesting post up in regards to Thomas Circle. They say:

“In 2006, DDOT carried out a $6 million renovation (of Thomas Circle). New lighting, crosswalks, bike lanes, and sidewalk were added. These days the Circle is looking pretty good, but is still missing one thing– life… The thing is, a few small additions could be made to make Thomas Circle a neighborhood destination in its own right. Benches would be a good start, giving pedestrians a place to sit and people watch from. New trees could provide shade on hot days. Removing the fence in the middle might also be a good idea, as it would allow pedestrians to utilize the statue steps as additional seating. While we’re at it, we might consider paving over the circular patch of grass at the center of the circle, which currently serves no purpose. This would create a larger pedestrian plaza area like in Dupont and Logan Circles.”

Additionally, commenters in the Metrocentric thread suggested adding food vendors and planting some border shrubbery around the edges of the park.

I agree with all those suggestions. In fact, I’ve had most of the same thoughts myself, as probably has just about anyone who has walked through the circle since its 2006 renovation. They’re pretty obvious ideas; it doesn’t take much imagination to see what amenities exist at Dupont and Logan that are missing at Thomas, after all. DDOT got a lot of things right in 2006, but they didn’t quite go far enough.

Metrocentric has a good photosimulation showing some of the suggested improvements. I took the sim a little farther with the third image below. Looks like a pretty nice lunch spot.

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Thomas Circle before 2006. Photo from coryindc.

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Thomas Circle now. Photo from Live Maps.

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Thomas Circle as it could be. Photo manipulation by Chris Loos for DC Metrocentric, with some modifications by BeyondDC.

April 29th, 2009 | Permalink
Tags: featured post, urbandesign



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