In addition to increased smog, dust, noise, oil, and other pollution in the area, the newly-built roadways threw up a barrier whose significance was not lost on Black and poorer residents. In a 2001 paper, Brett Williams recollects the words of Nap Turner, the East DC blues musician. Turner compares the construction of the Anacostia Freeway, completed in 1964, to the Berlin Wall. “It meant the about the same thing,” said Turner.
Proud DC residents often point to the establishment of Metro in the 1970s as a bulwark against transit inequality. It is true that Metro moves hundreds of thousands of commuters a year, many of whom live in households under Greater DC median income levels. Nonetheless, residents east of the Anacostia still face greater difficulties reaching the rest of the District compared to other parts of Greater DC. A Washington Post article from 2017 lays bare the disparities plainly and precisely. “While several wealthier neighborhoods and suburbs have relatively easy access to job centers,” its authors write, “many lower-income neighborhoods on the eastern side of the District and across the border in Maryland [Prince George’s County] are more difficult to reach.”
On a local level, the Anacostia separates DC Wards 7 and 8—colloquially called Southeast, more often simply referred to as Anacostia—from the rest of the District. Southeast DC is home to over 160,000 residents, a relatively high number of whom live in households making under $35,000 a year. Using data from the DC Department of Transportation, the authors note that residents of the almost entirely Black Ward 8 have the longest commutes among DC residents, totaling an average of just under fifty minutes during non-peak hours. Wealthier areas more geographically distant from the city center fare much better. A Red Line WMATA train from the Maryland suburb of Silver Spring in Montgomery County reaches the White House in less than twenty minutes during peak hours.
DC’s 1973 home rule charter prohibits local government from levying a “commuter” tax on automobile owners who drive into the city for work, cutting off potential revenue from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs. (Montgomery County to the northwest and Arlington, Fairfax, and Loudoun Counties to the southwest are home to some of the wealthiest households in the country, many members of which are federal employees.) Widespread, bipartisan political consensus in both states has blocked any attempts to amend the home rule charter, on multiple occasions. Because of disparities in population, among other things, DC has a limited tax base.
It remains to be seen what present outcomes for Southeast may be. The data used in the 2017 Post article seems to indicate structural imbalances are getting worse. DC Office of Planning data from 2010 indicates that, at that time, mean commute length from Ward 8 was just under forty minutes, considering both private and public transportation.