The Greyhound Bus Terminal is no more. And no one’s shedding any tears over it.

The First Street NE site, as the Post describes, has been home to shootings, fights, and plenty of loitering. It’s also an eyesore in a neighborhood that’s got its fair share of transit-related eyesores.

The development of NoMa is moving swiftly along, but it’s hindered by impediments from a bygone transit era. The Greyhound terminal has long been inconvenient to get to; now it’s moving into Union Station, alongside Bolt and Mega and its other brethren. The old terminal is set to be demolished and converted to offices, apartments, and retail.

And Union Station itself is set for a massive overhaul. The project has its skeptics—-and its financing and bureaucratic challenges—-but it also has huge upsides. From a station perspective, you get wider platforms, underground concourses, more exits and access to the north, and a revamp of the awful Metro station. But from a community perspective, the most important change is covering the huge tangle of tracks extending northeast from the station and creating easier and more pleasant passage between what are now two segregated neighborhoods: the NoMa/Mount Vernon/Chinatown area west of the station and the H Street NE corridor to the east.

We’ll see if the $7 billion project gets carried out as intended, but if it does, then together with the redevelopment of the Greyhound Terminal, it ought to make Near Northeast a more pleasant place to live, work, and stroll through.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Transportation