Evening star., 1961-11-26
Another RoudbIock

The expressions of citizen opposition
at the Commissioners hearing on the
Three Sisters Bridge fell into familiar
and well-defined categories. In part,
they represented the understandable
and inevitable outrage of property
owners. In part, they repeated the
arguments of few weeks ago over the
inner loop-a plea for a moratorium on
all freewayS until firm decisions on a
rapid transit system are determined.
Even more emphatically, the Three
Sisters project revived the bitter con-
troverSy over a four-lane road through
Glover-Archbold Park, which the High
way Department insisted must ulti-
mately be built If the city is to avoid
a diSruptive expresSway in the Wisconsin
avenue corridor.
And as the testimony made plain,
opposition to the Glover-Archbold Park
way has in no sense waned. If anything,
it has solidified over the years. For this
reason, it is possible that the District
may abandon any immediate plans for
the parkway and, for that matter,
abandon even the limited capacity
ramps which it has proposed from the
Three Sisters Bridge to Reservoir road
NV. Instead, it seems likely that in
creased attention will be given to an
alternative plan which was presented
by highway officials at the hearing, but
which received only passing notice.
This alternative calls for a large
interchange at the District end of the
bridge in the vicinity of Canal road,
Foxhall road and Macarthur boulevard.
In lieu of the Glover-Archbold Parkway,
the interchange would funnel north
bound traffic from the bridge and from
the Potomac River Expressway into
Foxhall road. This plan has not yet
been considered by the Park Service or
the Planning Commission, nor has there
been time for public reaction. Certainly
there are not yet sufficient facts to
render judgment on it.
In any event, the Three Sisters
project is far from settled. Before any
definitive decision can be reached,
Virginia authorities must conduct a
public hearing Of their own. In the
meantime, city highway officials must
prepare a specific recommendation for
the Commissioners to consider. And the
only certainty is that whatever they
suggest will be vigorously opposed, for
that is the inevitable result of urban
freeway proposals in any location.
All Of this must make the Com
misSionerS feel at times like throwing
up their hands in despair, like doing
nothing until traffic conditions become
so intolerable that public pressure forces
new construction projects. And surely
that would happen. In good conscience,
however, this is not choice the Com
misSioners can make.
AS do many of those who protest
the loudest against freewayS, we believe
that roads alone cannot perform the
total transportation job, and that some
form of rapid transit is essential. We
hope, therefore, that the National Cap
ital Transportation Agency will complete
a definitive and generally acceptable
transit plan, as it hopes to do, by a year
from now, particularly in order that
freeway and transit construction in
some instances may be co-ordinated
within single right of way In the
meantime, we do not believe that very
much Of the highway progress which is
scheduled for the next year will seriously
interfere with this goal, or that it should =,
be held up For freeways also are needed