Evening star., 1945-05-17
Back
And Oppose
Twin Bridges
Rood Group Stresses
Need of Units to
Handle Future Traffic

LIE FOCOLldG fIlV6T 10 replace CQe
Did Highway Bridge was attacked
and defended today by witnesses
before House subcommittee as it
continued hearings on the Randolph
bill to authorize postwar construc-
ton Of the two bridges.
The controversy was laid before
the committee as spokesmen for the
Public Roads Administration in
sisted two structures were needed to
carry future traffic loads, and
member Of the National Capital
Park and Planning Commission
contended the two bridges of eight
lanes would overload the District
road and highway system.
The commissions spokesman,
Henry B. Hubbard, landscape archi-
tect and a city planner of Boston,
insisted a single six-lane bridge,
by the commission, was
the answer to the problem, and
would be adequate for the future.
Engineers Approve Plan.
For the War Department, c. C.
Burger, head Of the Rivers and
Harbors Division of the Office Of
Chief of Engineers testified there
was no objection on the part of the
division, which must approve all
bridges over navigable streams. He
also told the committee the Budget
Bureau had no objection, since it
had made no change in its approval
of a similar bill previously before
Congress.
Representative Chapman, Demo-
crat, of Kentucky, chairman of the
Bridge Subcommittee of the House
Interstate and Foreign Commerce
Committee, said its members wanted
to hear complete presentation of
arguments for both the twin bridges
and a single bridge. He asked wit
nesses a number of questions.
The committee plans another
hearing tomorrow morning on the
controversy. Other officials of the
Park and Planning Commission who
are opposing the twin bridges can
celed the morning session of their
monthly meeting to attend the hear
ing today. They included Mai. Gen.
U. S. Grant III, John Nolen and
others.
Officials Outline Opposition.
Three officials of the Public Roads
Administration outlined their rea-
sons for opposing the single bridge
of six lanes and why two bridges Of
fNllr lannS aonh uyif1 hr,I
carrying one-way traffic, would be
the only facility capable of carrying
the expected heavy vehicular traffic
OF the future.
Thomas H. Macdonald, commits
sioner Of public roads, said the first
proposal in 1943 for a single eight
lane bridge was rejected on the
basis of experience elsewhere and
because OF engineering difficulties.
The concentration of traffic in
eight lanes on one bridge, he de-
clared, would be a decidedly bad
feature to introduce into the design
for the Capital City" This was par
ticularly true, he said, in this city
where traffic in the summer is aug
mented greatly by the number Of
tourists who pour into Washington.
Herbert S. Fairbank, deputy COM
missioner of public roads, presented
a technical report based on exten-
sive surveys of the origin and desti-
nation of people driving over the
three city bridges to support his
contention two structures provide
the only answer to the load of
traffic expected to cross the Potomac
River in 1865.
50 Per Cent Raise Predicted.
BY 1865, he said, conservative es-
innate indicated that vehicular traf-
fic across the Potomac would have
increased by SO per cent to total of
1873, 900 vehicles a day. OF this total,
he predicted 425 per cent would use
the Highway Bridge, or $4,000 We
hicles day, which exceeds by far its
present capacity. One bridge of six
lanes would not adequately take care
of this load, he said.
Joseph Barnett, chief OF the di-
vision of urban highways of PRA,
said other cities had found tVo-way
lsix-lane bridges had failed to carry
heavy traffic. Officials in both New
York City and Boston, he testified
had found so much confusion and
traffic congestion, even with the aid
of traffic policemen, on two-way six
lane bridges that in each city certain
of such bridges had been changed to
one-way traffic, with great success.
i One principal objection to the six
lane single bridge over the Potomac
he said, was the difficulty sure to be
encountered on the Virgfaia end
when southbound traffic attempted
to make a right-hand turnAthrough
a "clover-leaf" structure. Expert
ence had proven, he said, that rapid
| ly moving passenger vehicles in the
center lane attempting to make a
right turn caused traffic congestion
by trying to thread through the
slower-moving but substantial vol.
ume of buses and trucks on the ex.