Evening star., 1946-11-20
Outline Adopted
For EarIyStart
On Traffic Plan
Commission Soon
To Luunch Series
Of SpecioI Studies

The National Capital Park and
Planning Commission will start
work soon on comprehensive plan
to relieve Washington's transporta-
ton congestion.
AS the commission closed its
monthly meeting yesterday, Maj
Gen. U. s. Grant III, retired, its
chairman, told reporters that Har-
land Bartholomew, st. Louis PLAN
ming expert, had outlined the scope
OF the plan at the commissions re-
quest and that Mr.. Bartholomew
outline had been adopted.
1T will take time, labor and data !"
Gen. Grant said, adding that the
commission is handicapped by lack
Of personnel.
ID. c. Unit to Get Plan.
When finished, the plan will be
forwarded to the District Commits
sioners' Special Transportation
Committee for consideration. This
committee, headed by Highway Di-
rector H. G. Whitehurst, has been
striving for more than a year to
draft blueprint for mass transpor-
tation and vehicular traffic in the
Capital to replace the present con-
gested system.
The commissions plan will include
surveys of streetcars and streetcar
passenger traffic, especially in the
central business area; automobiles
and automobile passenger traffic,
buses and bus passenger traffic and
truck traffc, comparisons with other
cities, estimated traffic volume IN
1860, the relation of present traffic
volume to the estimated capacity
of major streets and intersections.
with heavy emphasis on the mid
city section.
The study also will embrace DOS
sible changes in city regulations and
minor improvements needed for i'm
mediate increase in capacity, in
Guiding parking regulations, light
signals, traffic islands and dividing
strips, turn restrictions and paving.
Includes Subway Study.
The survey will delve into the sub
Ject underground streetcars. Coupled
with the mass transportation will
be a set of suggestions for stream
lining major streets and providing
of street parking space.
Indications were that the survey
may be made under terms of the
Districts new slum clearance law,
which authorizes the commission to
make master plan of the District
before it drafts individual slum
clearance project plans. The act
authorizes the commission to seek
additional planning personnel, and
1t has announced it will ask for
Federal funds for this purpose at
the next session of Congress.
After the meeting yesterday, Gen.
Grant also told newsmen that:
The Public Buildings Administra-
ton had agreed to make the new
General Accounting ONCE, at Fifth
and G streets N.W.,s seven stories
high and to provide number Of
entrances and exits to q 50O-car
basement garage so that cars would
not have to make left turns entering |
and leaving the building.
Provide for Parkway.
A plan calling for changes in the
Anacostia Flats Reclamation pro-
gram to provide suitable right-of-
way for the proposed Baltimore
Washington Parkway had been COM
pleted and sent to Col Donald G.
White, Army district engineer for
the Washington area, for his guild
anoe. Col. White is in charge of the
reclamation program and had re-
quested the commission to recon-
mend needed changes.
The tour which the commission
had planned to make with the Dis
trict Commissioners yesterday after
noon to see the site for the proposed
Alexandria bridge and the land
being considered for slum clearance
projects, was postponed because
Commissioners Guy Mason and John
Russell Young were unable to go.
David Johnson, the commission's
new city planner, was named secre-
tary of the commissions Co-ordinat-
ing Committees group of repre-
sentatives of the District, National
Park Service, Army Engineers and
the Planning Commission