D.C. Freeway Revolt and the Coming of Metro Part 2 Official Challenges to the DC Freeways Table of Contents Mass Transportation Survey ........................................................................................................... 3 Transportation Plan for the National Capital Region-1959 ............................................................ 6 Highways and Transit ................................................................................................................... 11 Introducing Peter S. Craig ............................................................................................................. 23 The I-70S Hearing ......................................................................................................................... 25 National Capital Transportation Act of 1960 ................................................................................ 33 NCTA Gets Underway .................................................................................................................. 41 President Kennedy’s Interest ......................................................................................................... 42 Thinking About the Future ............................................................................................................ 45 Defining the District’s Freeway Network ..................................................................................... 49 Transition at NCTA ...................................................................................................................... 50 The Cost of Right-of-way ............................................................................................................. 54 Awaiting NCTA’s Report ............................................................................................................. 58 Battle over the Inner Loop Freeway .............................................................................................. 60 Trying to Get Started ..................................................................................................................... 66 The Switch .................................................................................................................................... 73 Enter Chairman Natcher................................................................................................................ 85 A Blistering Report ....................................................................................................................... 89 A Matter of Jurisdiction ................................................................................................................ 91 National Capital Transportation Agency Submits Its Report ..................................................... 126 Trying to Sort Out the Freeway Battles ...................................................................................... 131 Implementing the Year 2000 Plan .............................................................................................. 135 The Darwinian Theory of Transportation ................................................................................... 137 In the Wake of the NCTA Report ............................................................................................... 139 Debating the NCTA Data ............................................................................................................ 143 Responding to NCTA ................................................................................................................. 146 President Kennedy’s Decisions - Delayed .................................................................................. 154 The President’s Recommendations ............................................................................................. 159 Congress Considers the President’s Report ................................................................................ 162 The Commissioners’ Views ........................................................................................................ 166 Chairman Natcher Takes a Stand ................................................................................................ 168 Chairman Fallon – To The Rescue? ............................................................................................ 178 The New Engineer Commissioner .............................................................................................. 199 Searching for a Solution .............................................................................................................. 200 Appropriations 1964 ................................................................................................................... 208 Senate Considers the Appropriation Act, 1964 ........................................................................... 211 Waiting For Hearings on NCTA’s Transit Plan .......................................................................... 216 Transit Program for the Capital Region ...................................................................................... 220 While Whitener Considers the Options ...................................................................................... 250 The Freeway-Transit Link ........................................................................................................... 257 The Bobtail Plan ......................................................................................................................... 260 The House Debates the Bobtail Plan........................................................................................... 267 In the Aftermath .......................................................................................................................... 275 Locating the Three Sisters Bridge ............................................................................................... 279 The North Central Corridor ........................................................................................................ 285 Part 2 Official Challenges to the DC Freeways During the 1940s and 1950s, District officials, BPR, and National, Maryland, and Virginia road and planning officials struggled among themselves to plan a freeway network that would address the city’s chronic and growing traffic congestion while minimizing impacts on parks, historic sites, homes, and businesses. Maryland and Virginia highway officials had their own problems developing highway plans, but their concerns often were directly affected by the District’s ever- changing plans. Citizens expressed their views, generally to protect their homes, businesses, and communities. Highway officials believed they must try to minimize harm, but the road network was too important to be blocked. In the interest of the greater good, as they saw it, they continued with their plans. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, many officials and government organizations turned against the highway plans in favor of transit, especially rail rapid transit. In many cases, the issue was no longer where to build Interstate expressways but whether to build them at all. Mass Transportation Survey NCPC and the National Capital Regional Planning Council established a Joint Steering Committee for the survey. The committee identified four major study areas: (1) planning the future region, including land use, the economy, population, and employment; (2) the region’s future travel demands; (3) design of physical facilities to meet the projected requirements; and (4) design of machinery for financing and administering the proposed transportation system. For this work, the committee engaged several consulting firms and undertook a traffic survey with the cooperation of Maryland, Virginia, and District of Columbia highway authorities and BPR. In 1955, BPR had completed studies, based on home interviews, of employees’ place of residence and mode of travel to work as affected by the decentralization of government employment centers in the Washington area. The study found that the residents who were employed in the central area lived throughout the city and region “in the same proportion as general population distribution”: However, as agencies are relocated at increased distances from a central point, a larger number of employees have residences in the area of the new office location, with a secondary group having residence in the area of greatest population density near the central business district. When place of employment is removed approximately 8 to 10 miles from the central business district, most of the employees live in the vicinity of employment or in the semirural area beyond. As the distance from the central business district increases, there is a corresponding increase in the proportion of the work trips made by automobile. [Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1954, Bureau of Public Roads, Department of Commerce, page 35] The traffic surveys helped BPR and State and local officials develop the initial plan for Interstate highways in the metropolitan area. In General Location of National System of Interstate Highways, released in 1955 and referred to as the Yellow Book because of the color its cover, BPR displayed a map of the Washington area showing an extensive Interstate network similar to the plan outlined in the Comprehensive Plan of 1950. An inner belt surrounded the White House and central core, with the Potomac River occupying one segment. A second, outer belt, later named