Evening star., 1932-04-03
Staggered Hours and Parking.

Staggered Hours and Farklng.
Memories OF the war days of 1917
and 1918 are revived by the suggestion
of the Traffic Advisory Council to the
| District Commissioners. and forwarded
| by them to the Chief Clerks Association
! of the Federal departments, that the
| Office hours of the departments be
staggered" in order to relieve the traf-
| fic congestion in the streets of the
| Capital Fourteen years ago a much
more serious condition prevailed III
Washington than now. The Govern
ment's working force had been trebled.
Many thousands of people had been
brought here from the States for de-
partmental service. The travel accom-
modations were greatly overtaxed. There
| were then far from the number OF
motor cars in use than at present, but
the street railways were swamped by
the morning and afternoon rushes. 1t
was proposed then to schedule the
hours of the Government workers so as
to spread the movement over longer
periods. Two of the departments, In
terror and Commerce, undertook to fol-
low the plan, and for a time to some
Slight degree the congestion was re-
lieved through this expedient. But
the other branches of the public sery-
ice continued on the nine-to-four-
thirty basis and the pressure on the
transport facilities was actually too
heavy to be borne.
The Commissioners have, of course,
no Jurisdiction over this matter. They
can only appeal or propose to the heads
of the departments, or to the clerical
bodies, to adopt a system of stag
gered hours" that will spread the traffic
over longer periods. The problem now
does not relate to the street railway
accommodations, as in the war time,
but to the use of the streets by motor
lists going to and from their places of
occupation. The Commissioners point
out in their letter to the Chief Clerks
Association that on every business day
II ,6e3 Federal workers, $500 District
workers and 1881 non-Government
workers pass through the central area
of the city between eight-thirty and
nine o'clock in the morning and four
thirty and five o'clock in the afternoon,
a total of 156,074 in twice-daily transit
! within a space of one hour.
| Only through voluntary action of the
employees of the departments, unless the
heads Of those departments themselves
arrange and enforce schedule of stag
gered" hours, can this load of traffic
| be spread. 1t was found in war time
that there was great reluctance on the
part of the employees and likewise on
the part of their chiefs to adopt such
an expedient. The habit of long usage
in the nine-to-four-thirty schedule was
| too strong to be changed, except in the
! case of the two departments named
and they adopted the amended schedule
I reluctantly and only for a short time
The real problem, however, is not
the actual traffic movement which so
heavily concentrates during the half
hours preceding and following Depart
mental service, but the storage of motor
cars during the working day. Although
the matter has been fully discussed for
long time, nothing had been done to
provide proper parking space for the
cars of the Government workers. Vari-
Gus plans have been advanced. only to
be ignored after brief study Whether
the hours remain as they are or are
staggered in accordance with some
schedule that may be devised, the
static congestion in the streets will
continue, ard in fact will be spread
over a longer time as the hours them
selves are changed
| This is the problem that requires
/ solution, and not especially that of the
moving traffic morning and afternoon.
| The Commissioners cannot in Justice to
those who use the streets for trans
portation permit the pre-emption of ad-
ditional street space for parking OF the
cars OF the Departmental workers.
/ They should, in fact, lessen the space
devoted to that purpose, and eventually
! clear the downtown streets of all-day
/ parking altogether.