WASHINGTON, LOOKING NORTH FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
Courtesy Army Air Corps
WASHINGTON, LOOKING SOUTH FROM SIXTEENTH STREET AND COLUMBIA ROAD
5. Since then the Surveyor’s Office of the District of Columbia and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which superseded the Highway Commission of 1893, have made an intensive study of the highway problems of the District of Columbia, including street railroad problems. This has required a differentiation of street functions, and an application of the best methods of modern land subdivision to the remaining undeveloped areas; also an attempt to restate the L’Enfant ideal in the terms of a motor age. The results achieved appear in the changes in the highway plan already approved by the Commission or being recommended to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia from time to time. Many changes in the highway plan have thus been made, each case having required careful study of effects on topography, trees, drainage, lot depths and sizes, etc. The acts of Congress of 1914 and 1925 authorized additional changes in the Highway Plan. The act approved December 15, 1932 (Public, No. 307, 72d Cong.), authorizes the Commissioners of the District of Columbia “to readjust and close streets, roads, highways, or alleys in the District of Columbia rendered useless or unnecessary.” The desirability of discontinuing streets which have never been opened and which exist only on a map and only part of which are in public ownership, when a better and cheaper way of giving the same traffic connection can be found, seems so manifest as to require no further justification.
GATEHOUSE BY BULFINCH WHICH FORMERLY STOOD NEAR THE CAPITOL
With a view to creating direct arteries in which the vital traffic flow of the community may freely move, a major thoroughfare scheme, extending into the metropolitan area of Washington, has also been studied. The District Commissioners have an interesting map illustrating the Highway Plan. The Highway Department of the District of Columbia has charge of upkeep and maintenance of highways in the District of Columbia. Out of 1,020 miles of streets in the District of Columbia 855 miles are paved.
Chapter XIV
THE McMILLAN PARK COMMISSION—THE PLAN OF 1901
In 1900 a great celebration commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the removal of the seat of government to the District of Columbia was held in Washington. The keynote of the celebration was the improvement of the District of Columbia in a manner and to the extent commensurate with the dignity and the resources of the American Nation. The population was 218,196.