Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1961-10-08
Cities
. and People
A Headline
Is Born
By ROBERT J. LEWIS

Ar EN- "A GO1NG Ody .
session that has yielded
nothing worth a headline, the
National Capital Planning
Commission finally takes up
what appears to be just an
other routine matter.
Planning commission
meetings are generally re-
Taxed affairs that drone on in
a soto Uoce monotone
scarcely audible beyond the
limits of the huge table
around which members are
seated.
This is a day, too, when
the windows are open. So
traffic noises seven floors
below mingle with the voices
of commission employees as
they give their views on
projects in the District gov
ernment'S 1868 public i'm
provement program.
The idea of all this is that
the planning commission vote
its approval, in time for a
public hearing next Tues
day on the District budget.
Suddenly punctuating the
drone is a small furry of
quiet words across the table.
A motion is made and car
ried. to withhold commits
sion approval of four parts
of the Inner Loop highway
system.
There's our story" a re-
porter says.
EVEN IF THERE had been
a less-controversial agenda
than that last Thursday, a
decision to take a new look
at the Inner Loop highway
system would have been Of
headline Importance.
1--WE watched the damage
done in other cities and I'm
wondering whether there
aren't better ways" Alex
ander C. Robinson III, a
member of the commission,
had said, referring to the
Inner Loop.
Il believe weare justified in
taking another look at this,
in the light of what is hap
pening elsewhere, and find
ing out whether we really
need all the Inner Loop prof.
ectS that have been proposed,
and whether we may not be
spelling the City of Wash
ington."
The fact that a majority
OF the commission quickly
agreed created a certain
amount of dismay among
commission employees. The
staff feels that the commits
sion is committed to a policy
of support for the Inner Loop
in its entirety, because 1t Is
a commission : inspired pro-
gram.
THE INNER LOOP scheme
of sunken, and elevated free
ways and expressways en-
circling central Washington
has much to recommend it,
staff planners believe, as a
means of making it easier
for cars to reach downtown
destinations more quickly,
and of siphoning off unnec-
eSsary street traffic.
Underlying the decision of
the Commission to pause for
another look appears to be
not so much a doubt that
the freeways will be efficient
as that they they may have
harmful side effects on the
city, in the same way that
modern wonder drugs some
times can have harmful side
effects on people.
Eight = lane and six lane
freeways are so new and I'M
tried in cities that their eff
fects as yet cannot be fully
measured or predicted. Per-
haps fears of them have be-
come exaggerated. But many
more questions have been
raised in recent years than
before as to the traffic they
engender, the land they use,
and the limits of their ulti-
mate usefulness.
To most people, it has be-
come obvious that freeways
are best used in conjunction
with rapid-transit lines.
AS the House District Com
mittee pointed out in approx
ing the National Capital
Transportation Act of 1860:
2. 1t is becoming in
creasingly evident that any
attempt to meet the areas
transportation needs by
highways and private auto
mobiles alone will wreck the
city-it will demolish resi-
dental neighborhoods, vio-
late parks and Fairgrounds,
desecrate the monumental
portions of the Nations Cap
ita1, and turn downtown
Washington into a concrete