By Tiffany Klaff
Following August’s summer break from meeting, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6D reconvened on Sept. 12. After taking care of some housekeeping, the Commission moved on to the bigger agenda items: the redistricting of the single member districts (SMDs) and the renaming of the Waterfront-SEU and Navy Yard Metro stations.
SMD Redistricting
The Ward 6 Redistricting Task Force submitted their initial proposal to the District Office of Planning early in September. At this meeting, the ANC expressed opposition to the Task Force’s map in favor of retaining more of the current boundaries and submitted an alternate map. Each SMD in the District is required to have approximately 2000 residents, not to exceed 5% more or less (minimum of 1900 and maximum of 2100). The Ward 6 Redistricting Task Force will now vote on the new ANC proposed map.
Metro Station Name Changes
Later, the meeting turned to discussing WMATA’s possible renaming of both the Waterfront-SEU Metro station and the Navy Yard station. DDOT’s Steve Strauss, Special Advisor on WMATA and regional transportation, explained to the Commissioners and attendees WMATA’s policies and procedures for making station name changes. WMATA sets parameters
on the number of characters, including dashes and spaces, for instance. This is because the new 7000-series rail car signs are limited to 19 characters. However, for transfer stations, the character limit is 13.
Considering that Southeastern University is now closed, it is expected that SEU would be removed from the Waterfront Metro station name. The ANC recommended this change, then moved on to a discussion surrounding replacing “SEU” in the title with “Arena Stage.”Arena’s Stage had already sent a letter requesting their name be added after “Waterfront.” The
ANC passed this resolution, with a secondary suggestion of changing the station name to SW Waterfront, if WMATA does not agree to the first choice proposal, which exceeds the 19-character limit.
There were also some suggestions to change the Navy Yard station name. Back in 2010, the Commission passed a resolution to add “Capitol Riverfront” to the station name as well as the National’s logo—the curly “W”. Tonight, the
Commission remade the motion. A representative from the Nationals attending the meeting to promote including the team logo, the curly “W,”—also the official logo of building housing Nationals Park that is owned by the District—in the metro station name. Stating that it would drive fans to the ball park and promote the use of mass transit, he also noted the same team logo was already used on Federal Highway Administration signs. Other suggestions included adding
the words “Ball Park” to the existing name.
The Commission decided to endorse adding the Nationals team logo , with a secondary suggestion of changing the station name to “Navy Yard-Ball Park,” in the case that WMATA rejected the first choice. The next regular business meeting of ANC 6D will be on Mon., Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. Location: District Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) office, 1100 Fourth St, SW, 2nd floor. For additional information or to get the meeting’s agenda ahead of time, visit the ANC 6D website at http://www.anc6d.org