Evening star., 1949-09-29
Area Growing Pains

1tS0 StoW"S SsssS
The concern which the National Capital
Park and Planning Commission, the
Prince Georges County Civic Federation
and other planning and civic groups have
expressed over mushrooming housing prof.
ects in nearby areas is understandable.
Apartment and house projects continue to
spring up with amazing speed throughout
the Metropolitan Area imposing new and
sometimes seemingly insuperable traffic,
utility, educational and other burdens on
already overburdened communities Small
wonder that traff1c-harassed motorists cry
out for relief, that the planners suffer
from chronic headaches and that the
Prince Georges County Civic Federation
calls for freeze" on further apartment
developments.
Public Roads Commissioner Thomas H.
Macdonald this week described traffic
loads in the Washington area as "abso-
lutely impossible" He told the Institute
of Traffic Engineers that more persons
enter Washington across the Potomac
River each day than enter New York City
across the Hudson, with the Pentagon net
work alone handling 100000 cars q day.
Commission is seeking to have Arlington
officials reduce the size of the projected
Arlington Towers apartment-hotel on Lee
Boulevard, overlooking the river. The
commission fears the effects of such a
heavy additional traffic load on the Lee
Boulevard approach to Memorial Bridge.
Over In Maryland conditions are worse
than in Arlington. Whereas nearby Vir-
ginia benefits from the war-built Pentagon
network of roads, providing well-planned
and engineered approaches to the Me-
mortal and Fourteenth Street Bridges, and
from the new George Washington Me-
mortal Parkway between Key Bridge and
Lorcum Lane, nearby Maryland roads for
the most part are old and inadequate.
The State Roads Commission has con-
centrated It's limited funds on main high
ways since the war. Yet much of the
new housing construction has occurred
along secondary roads. Perhaps the worst
victim of impossible" traffic loads has
been Queens Chapel Road, In Prince
Georges County. Along this road or on
streets feeding into it have been built
an impressive cluster of apartment prof.
ects, with total of more than 1000 units.
The congestion on the roads in this area
during rush hours is maddening to drivers
VINO must contend with it. In Montgomery
County nearly 4,400 housing units have
been, crammed between Forest Glen Road
and Glenmont within the past three and
one half years. Viers Mill Village, with its
1000 homes, and nearby Twin Brook with
300, have posed new traffic and other
problems. Yet the only major traffic relief
project under way in the county is the
widening OF Wisconsin Avenue, with
Georgia Avenue due to receive similar
treatment next year. It is true that apart
ment builders are required to- leave broad
right-of-way strips for future develop
ment, but Maryland highway officials can
promise no early construction. 1t will take
years to catch up even with present-day
needs.
Both the Montgomery County and the
Prince Georges County Civic Federations
are on record as declaring that mass
production apartment enterprises of the
type that have appeared in such great
numbers since the war do not "pay their
own way" Montgomery Federation
committee reported that the tax return
from such apartments does not meet the
full cost of schools and utilities The
Prince Georges County Federation was
told that one apartment development con-
tributes tax revenues to the county OF
$1,000, whereas the cost of educating
children from that project amounts to
$16,712.
Yet the steam shovels continue their
digging, the carpenters continue their
hammering and thousands of units con-
tinue to sprout. The prospect is so
disturbing as to justify the alarm of civic
interests, planners and other worried
officials. The solution, however, does not
neceSsitate halt in construction of much
needed housing. It lies in finding some
way to provide the road, school and other
improvements required to keep pace with
housing progress, even If this should mean
higher taxes or readjustment OF the tax
load. 1t is high time that the suburban
areas begin facing this problem more ef-
fectively. Surely only chaos will result If
highway, school, utility and other services
cannot keep pace with the loads imposed
1Ypor them