Evening star., 1950-02-19
Regional Highway Plan for Washington
By John NoIen, Jr.
Director Of Planning, National copitol Por
and pionnino Con,uiSxion

Director Of Pionnins, National CupitoI Pork
and Planning Commission.
The Washington Metropolitan
region is in need of a new type
of thoroughfare pattern keyed in
its overall purpose to the future
rather than to the exigencies of
the present.
The reasons are evident to any
one who thinks about the changes
which are under way in our living
working and travel habits.
The base for a new kind of
metropolitan community has been
laid by the automobile. Freedom
of circulation now becomes the
criterion for planning thorough
fares. The entire traffic fabric
must be loosened up and smoothed
out by strong web of free flowing
routes that will syphon off the
main streams and carry them
around and about congested CEN
terS, not merely to and from.
Paramount among the changes
that are taking place in the Wash
tngton area is an ever wider
spread of both population and en-
ployment. Thirty years ago only
one-fourth of the total population
lived outside the District. Now
three-eighths live in Maryland
and Virginia.
BY 1880 the National Capital
Park and Planning Commission
estimates approximately one-half
will live beyond District bounda-
ries. This spread will be brought
about by continuation of present
trends, accentuated and made
sound by a more conscious and
definite policy of decentralizing
Government activities.
Expansion Limited.
Authorities now agree that
Government employment in the
central area, west of the Capitol,
must be held at no more than
present levels. For expansion re-
quired by Government, new loca-
tionS must be found in the out
skirts, or beyond, if problems of
traffic congestion and absence of
parking space are not to multiply
in the central area.
Present traffic patterns will
change as new traffic generators
develop. The new employment
centers building up at Bethesda,
Suitland and elsewhere illustrate
the trend. 1t is already evident
that while some employees will live
in the neighborhood of their en-
ployment many others will be
forced to travel distances across or
around the city because of fam
lily and home ties or for financial
reasons.
Even with decentralization of
Government centers, with means
for improved mass transportation,
traffic flow will take on character
istics of a circular movement rath-
er than an in-and-out, reversing
flow.
Unless we wish to repeat the
mistakes and multiply the prob
lens of the past, we must design
our system to separate major
movements from the local land
off travel which now clogs the ex-
listing main routes. We need to
encourage suburban focal points
for balanced community life.
Radial System Is Basic.
These outlying centers need to
be by-passed as much as does the
congeSted central area. In short,
we must have a network of ring
thoroughfares with good radials
similar to the structure of spi-
der's web, with certain routes
more strongly emphasizing the
form of the basic structure.
/. Express highways and park
ways, for major movements both
radial and circumferential, with
uninterrupted traffic flow. Where
parkways are feasible or desirable,
commercial vehicles would be ex-
cluded. These radial and ring
roads would form the basic struc-
ture for the circulation system.
2. Major highways, as supple
ments to the eXpressway system
where such routes are not feasible
because of cost and location. Con-
tinuous flow would be possible by
grade separations at major inter-
sections and congested centers.
These highways would serve as
collectors and distributors for
feeding and diffusing traffic to and
from the network of expressways
and parkways.
Typical expressways will be the
Baltimore-W Washington Parkway
and the Northwest Freeway, each