Aerials of Washington, DC and some of its suburbs
 

A couple of weeks ago I flew from BWI to Charlotte. The plane did a giant loop around the western half of DC, so I took what pictures I could. Here they are.

Washington, DC from almost directly north. This is zoomed in quite a bit. We'll get much closer down the thread.




Looping around the western suburbs. Now you can see both sides of the river.




Ahha.




Even better.




There it is.




I tried several zoomed-in shots, but generally they didn't turn out. This is the best they got. You can very clearly see the Capitol and Washington Monument.




OK. Now let's look at some suburbs.

This ribbon of orange is a new interstate highway under construction in Montgomery County. It is the ICC (InterCounty Connector), which when complete will run from Gaithersburg to Laurel.




Speaking of Gaithersburg, here it is.




And a very quick, very blurry picture of downtown Rockville and its Metro station. Almost missed it.




Oh hai, Arlington. Several interesting things in this picture. Prominent at center-left along the river is Reagan National Airport. Immediately below the airport you can see the Pentagon and Crystal City. Below that, running in a line beginning across from that island in the river and running straight right across the screen you can see a series of TODs along the Metrorail Orange line.




Another view of central Arlington. You can see the airport, Crystal City, the Pentagon, and the first three Orange line TODs, along with Arlington National Cemetery (the green space at center) and two of DC's most famous monuments. The Jefferson Memorial is the white building immediately on the DC side (left) of that cluster of three bridges that begin near the Pentagon. The Lincoln Memorial is the building in the middle of the circle that's immediately on the DC side of the darker-colored bridge near center-left.




A similar view, zoomed in. You can more clearly make out the Lincoln Memorial at upper left (inside the circle road) and the Kennedy Center (the large squarish building at upper left), as well as Rosslyn and part of Courthouse (the first two Orange line TODs)




The plane is flying almost due south now, so we have wrapped around Arlington and how have a more clear view of National Airport, Pentagon, and Crystal City. The highway running through the image is I-395. Across the river is Bolling Air Force Base, in DC. The left side of this image also clearly shows the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.




Continuing south, here is an overview of Alexandria. Old Town is at center, along the river. The cluster of tall buildings near center is the TOD around King Street Metro station. The bridge is the Wilson Bridge and the highway is the Beltway (I-495). The cluster of buildings you see on the eastern bank of the river at top-right is National Harbor, a big "new downtown" development in Prince George's County, Maryland.




All the same things, but closer. At this scale you can also more clearly make out the Braddock Road Metro TOD, the cluster of tallish buildings near center-left (it's quite a bit smaller than the King Street TOD closer, which is closer to the center of Alexandria).




Zoomed in on Old Town Alexandria and the King Street TOD. The TOD is the big cluster of tall buildings at lower and center-right. Old Town extends from there up to the Potomac River.




That's it for the DC area, but here are a couple of bonus shots from further south on the same flight:

Downtown Greensboro, NC.



High Point, NC.



And finally, for all you NASCAR fans, the Charlotte race track.




I'll post pictures from Charlotte and Greenville, SC later.

Cool shots, Cirrus. I don't think I've ever seen aerials of the DC area before. Fascinating!

WOW!!!!!! Great shots, D.C. is looking great as usual:tup: :tup:

You can see my digs in Crystal City. Nice shots man.

Thanks, Cirrus.

Nice overview. DC is much more compact than I realized.

It is amazing how small DC really is when you see it from the air. Really cool shots, great job!

Hey where's Frederick??? - j/k
Actually Frederick is mostly Dulles traffic. Every once in a while I will see Southwest going towards BWI.

Great shots especially the close up of Downtown DC. It looks just as dense from above as is below.

Thanks for sharing. :cheers:

hahahahaha, the Triad.

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Shakman, If I'd have been on the other side of the plane I would have gotten more distant views of Frederick and downtown Baltimore, but I'd say the side I ended up on was the winner.

Awesome views! I like the Charlotte Speedway shot, even if you don't like Nascar, they are still a site to see from the air.

Cool :tup:

Wow Crystal City looks very large and dense!

What is it like on the street level?

Like 1975 ;) Great shots.

Not good. Arlington County is trying to improve it, but part of it is due to the era in which it was developed, the late 60's to 80's when street life wasn't a high priority. There's a unique to the area "underground city" in Crystal City w/ shops. It also houses gov't agencies that have higher security standards for setbacks, street level retail/mixed uses and whatnot. Also, it wasn't very residential, but that too is improving over time. Arlington, in general, is a nice place to live, albeit not a raw urban experience like DC.

DC is compact, but it can be misleading, b/c the buildings are all 12 or so stories and the blocks are relatively large in the downtown area. But the compact size of DC has helped its urban development and transportation IMO.

That was fun. Reagan/National looks larger than I expected (in that first shot) in relation to the rest of the area.

Thanks for the pics Cirrus.

A city perfectly scaled for walk-ability. Most cities should not be much larger, and aren't, if the sprawl factor were not one at all and decent urban planning wasn't circumvented by the automobile.

I suppose that all depends on how far you want to walk. I lived in DC for many years and I definitely felt confined in such a small area. It has nothing to do with good urban planning or favoring walkability over driving. The Federal City was only granted a very limited amount of space to build. The sad reality of DC for me is that I was actually forced to drive out to places like Falls Church and Adelphi/Langley Park to find the kind of ethnic diversity in shopping and dining that you would typically associate with a large city because of the lack of space. Believe it or not, there was actually a time when "Chinatown" actually had mainly chinese businesses and residents but they were priced out and had no where to go but suburban VA. As far as planning based on the automobile goes, look at every single community that makes up the DC area. Textbook sprawl. Really cool photos though, you really don't see a lot of DC aerials. I was able to pick out one of my old apartment buildings!

Thanks for sharing! I've flown from BWI to Charlotte and back a couple times the last few years, some nice sights.

Nice aerials, I love the density, as well as all of greenery surrounding the metro.

Thanks for sharing.