Introduction Credits:
Roger Mellen, Jim Safley, Zachary Schrag

Introduction Date:

Introduction Text:

In December 1969, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) broke ground for Metro, a 98-mile (later expanded to 106-mile) rapid transit system serving the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Part of Metro’s appeal to many residents was the hope that it would provide a gentle alternative to freeway construction, which destroyed homes and businesses and disrupted neighborhoods forever.

But subway construction is disruptive too. WMATA used its power of eminent domain to condemn some properties, either to use them in perpetuity for facilities or rights-of-way, or because it needed them temporarily for construction staging. And even when businesses and families were not displaced by Metro construction, they could still be inconvenienced by the arrival of earthmoving equipment and construction crews, who turned streets and sidewalks into vast, muddy pits.

Angry Washingtonians complained to the Authority. While they found a sympathetic ear in Cody Pfanstiehl, chief of community relations, the engineers in charge of the project were less sympathetic. General Manager Jackson Graham was a retired major general from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and he was more used to being obeyed than being questioned. So discontented Metro neighbors looked to other sources of authority, including the courts and members of Congress, for aid. Their struggles highlight a truth common to big engineering projects around the world: you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Some of Metro’s critics supported the project but wanted someone else’s eggs to be broken. Others simply asked that the pain of the construction be more evenly distributed. As one merchant wrote, “METRO is to serve everyone, but only the 75 to 100 small merchants are being called upon to absorb the business losses without one cent of recompense.” Everyone involved struggled with this question of basic fairness.