Evening star., 1954-10-04
Fringe Parking Lots

Congratulations to the people and
groups responsible for setting up the
fringe parking lot at South Capitol
street and Firth Sterling avenue.
It is an excellent example of imagi-
native and constructive thinking about
two of Washington's most difficult
problems-downtown traffic and park
ing.
We are looking forward to the estab-
lisiment of another lot in the Sousa
0iiose area Thomas ID. Laney.
Manager. Naylor Gardens.
Is fringe" parking lot, to be To-
Gated in the midst Of an area. where
traffic is already congested. more i'm
portant than the recreation and well
fare Of the older people and the very
young people of Washington?
Engineer Commissioner Prentiss has
suddenly urged that the Industrial
Home School site on Wisconsin avenue
long ago promised to the Recreation
Department-be converted into a
fringe" parking lot.
One building on the site had been
set aside to become center for older
citizens of the area, under the auspices
of the Department Of Recreation, the
UCS Committee on Aging, and the
Foundation for YOU, with the blessing
of the Board of Public Welfare. We
of the National Society of Seniors have
supported the efforts of the Foundation
for YOU and the UCS Committee on
Aging to obtain a real center for older
people in Washington.
We think that site and building
promised for the important purpose of
providing a center for older people and
a playground for the young should be
used as planned and not made into an
unsatisfactory non-fringe parking lot
in an area where access streets are al
ready too crowded most of each day
and night.
Washington has Jagged behind other
cities of the same size in developing a
municipal program for older citizens.
Now that start has been made toward
such a program, the District Govern
ment should carry the plan through
and not scuttle it with hasty and
ill-advised conversion of an unsuitable
lot to parking purposes.
Reed Harris, President.
National Society of Seniors, Inc.
X
All Of this hullabaloo about fringe
parking really gets my goat. In my
opinion, fringe parking is not even
worth trial. If people have to be
forced to ride the mass transit system,
it indicates that there Is something
wrong with that system. 1t seems to
me that there is an effort here to re-
make Washington in the image of New
York. New York, however, has not
solved it's traffic problem either. in
spite of one of the most extensive mass
transit systems in the country.
suggest that what is needed Is a
truly arterial usage of existing streets,
with free parking off the arterial streets.
To go around abolishing parking spaces
in order to force people to park in the
fringe area reminds me of King Canute,
who exercised his kingly prerogative by
standing by the sea and ordering the
waves to go back.
If all of the authorities who have
anything to do with this problem
would bend their efforts towards get
ting more free parking spaces instead
of less, it would be a step in the right
direction. The automobile is here to
stay, and the public officials, the mass
transit officials, and the physical city
itself have no other choice than to
adjust to its presence. 1t cannot be
legislated away.
Thomas o. Mcfarland