Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1936-01-26
BUILDING CONTROL
HELD TRAFFIC KEY.
Piecemeal Remedies Offer
Temporary Relief, but
Prove Expensive.
BY JOHN IHLDER.


Member Board Ct ooyernors; .. Amerieosfn ,
hcer and Secretary. District Alley
Dwelling Authority.
Trafic Is today the greatest force
IN the molding of cities. 1t builds up
and it destroys. Attempts to deal win
It piecemeal, to provide temporary
expedients that will ease present dis
comfort. lead to no permanent solu-
ton. Instead they are likely to make
conditions progressively worse. Illus
trative Is the proposal to construct
subway. Specifically considered, a
subway should diminish the present |
trafic congestion in the central area |
by inducing many persons who use
surface vehicles to travel underground. |
This, Of course. is on the false as
sumption that every one who may
wish to 60 downtown is now going
downtown, and that an alternative
route will divide the number of pas
sengers. Such an assumption is naive.
All experience is to the contrary. The
downtown daytime population in
creases as facilities are. provided, If
there are downtown objectives to at
tract it. OF course, there comes a
time when 1t no longer is possible.
physically or financially, to provide
the detectives. Then the travel falls
CT.
In other words, whether recognized
or not, there is relationship between
the traffic facilities provided by the
community and the traffic require
ments Of building. group of build
ings, or section of the city. When
this relationship gets out of balance
property values suffer.
Several Proposals Offer.
One may base this relationship on
Q variety Of proposals. One may as
sumo that there will be a certain
density of building and that the build
ings will require certain traffic facili-
ties. With a given density of building,
surface traffic facilities will be ade-
quate. With a greater density OF
building, subways will be necessary.
Then comes the question, will
profits derived from the greater build
ing density pay for the cost OF sub
ways?" No one has yet proposed, in
New York or elsewhere, that the cost
of subways should be borne by the
skyscrapers served by the subways. If
that were done there would be no
skyscrapers. They could not foot the
bill.
The sounder proposal is to plan
traffic system that will serve the needs
of the community when that commu-
nifty is fully built up; that will provide
for through, heavy volume trafIlc be-
tween different sections of the COM
munity; that will provide for local
traffic both while in movement and
when loading or unloading or parked
terminal facilities are a. essential to
. traffic system as is right OF way
and that will then regulate building
construction and use IN accordance
with the facilities provided. These
trafic facilities would Lot all be de-
veloped Immediately. Their develop
ment would come gradually as needed.
The point is that provision should
be made for them so that they may be
developed when needed. OTHERWISE
We always shall have the congestion
and the makeshifts with which we now
are familiar.
Needs Should Be Key.
The proposed trafiic system may be
entirely on the surface or 1t may
include elevated or sub-surtace supple
ments. il it is determined that these
supplements would be in the public
interest. But whatever traffic facih-
ties are proposed, they must have a
recognized relationship to building
density end use. Therefore building
must be regulated. Otherwise we shall
have increasing traff1c as increasingly
large buildings that shelter many
workers and patrons are crowded closer
together.
without building regulation, traffic
facilities always will lag behind build
ing construction until the limit OF
mechanical ingenuity, or the limit OF
municipal Indebtedness, has been
reached.
In planning surface traffic facilities,
the first question is the economic width
Of roadway. Simply to widen occa-
sional streets because present traffic
Is contested leads to no solution and
IS likely to prove extravagantly ex-
pensive. Any proposal to provide for
more than four lanes of moving free
wheel trafic. two in each direction.
Is on the defensive. It may be de-
Tended IN the case of such thor
oughfare as Constitution avenue,
which is essentially ceremonial
street. It may be defended in the
cases of arterial, through traffic ways.
But in such cases there should be di-
vision between opposing lanes and
there should be buffer strips on either
side to protect abutting property.
Loading and Parking Woes.
The second question in planning
surface trafic is due to the need for
loading or unloading and for parking
or storage. Surface traffic may con-
sist of several kinds of vehicles, among
them street cars, buses, private pas
senger cars, trucks and delivery cars.
All must stop for longer or shorter
periods and their stopping in traffic