The high quality of the urban environment in Central Washington has been achieved with considerable effort. Diligent and concerted attempts have been made to assimilate each new development without diminishing the City's aesthetic appeal. Today, the visual quality of the District is receiving wide attention. Current studies being made of the Mall, Pennsylvania Avenue, and Lafayette Square strive to make Washington even more beautiful. Private initiative has enabled areas such as Georgetown to achieve a unique aesthetic character. Through redevelopment such sections of the city as the Southwest are experiencing a renascence. Highways are more than just physical elements in the urban landscape; they are also the vantage points from which visitors and residents see Washington. It is not enough to consider merely the aesthetics of landscaping in designing highways and mass transit facilities. How a city is seen must be stressed in locating routes and determining the character of the network of facilities. No single project public or private completed since the McMillan Plan of 1901 will have as much effect on the aesthetic quality of Washington as the proposed freeway system. Yet, the documents we reviewed give relatively little attention to aesthetics. The 1965-1985 Proposed Physical Development Policies report states: Concern for aesthetics can be an important feature of transportation policies. It would be inappropriate for the Nation's Capital to be dominated by its circulation system; therefore, improved streets, and freeways and the new rail transit system should be as unobtrusive as possible. Where feasible, these elements should be put underground. (p. 53) It notes that careful attention must be given to the aesthetic character of the District. We feel this lack of a strong emphasis on aesthetic values is a serious shortcoming in the report. There has been no evaluation of the relationship of the character and location of proposed freeways to the nature of the visual experiences the City provides. We conclude that the policies presented by the NCPC do not go far enough to insure Washington's attractiveness. METHODOLOGY AND ASSUMPTIONS Procedures The basic framework employed in both the MTS and NCTA studies, as well as in the Plan for the Year 2000 and 1965/ 1985 Proposed Physical Development Policies for Washington, D. C., was an orientation to target dates well in the future. Employment, population, development policies, and travel behavior were projected to particular target years. By then, key elements of the urban development pattern of the region and networks of proposed facilities were to be completed. The methodology for making projections has been reviewed in detail in Chapter III. The description of the relationship among the number of elements at some target date may be a useful tool for pointing out the types of concerns that should be included in current decisions and the directions in which development is desirable. Insufficient information is provided to form a basis for the scheduling of programs so that they can be undertaken at the optimum time either in relation to demand for services, the possibility of incorporating technological advances, or the timing of other public programs. Uncertainty in Forecasts Choosing a certain point in time as a target, and then seeking to forecast its qualitative and quantitative characteristics, creates a number of special difficulties. Unpredictable factors and uncontrollable variables such as future changes in values and behavior create wide ranges of uncertainty. The farther ahead the target date, the less precision and certainty is possible. Between the 1959 MTS and 1962 NCTA plans, a number of numerical forecasts for 1980 had to be revised significantly. Following the availability of the 1960 census, it was discovered that rates of development were increasing faster than anticipated, and the conditions forecast for 1980 were more likely to be reached in 1977. However, according to another study now underway, travel demands of the magnitude forecasted in at least one major sector may not be reached until 1985. The Effect of Uncertainty on System Design The difficulty of precisely forecasting characteristics such as population, employment, and trip behavior twenty years in the future makes it especially important that ranges as well as specific figures be considered as the basis for policy decisions. As pointed out previously, the methodology used in forecasting did not permit estimating these ranges and associated probabilities. In fact, many of the forecasts were presented in a misleading manner implying a precision that was totally unsubstantiated. This would have little importance if those utilizing this information for designing and scheduling proposals paid special attention to this problem and examined the significance of possible over - or understatement of forecasts for design or timing of the new facilities being proposed. There is no indication that this was adequately done. 60-856 O-66-5 ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS THAT HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED Alternatives Considered in the MTS Study Several alternative transportation systems have been considered in both the MTS and NCTA studies. (1) (2) (3) An auto dominant" one involving construction of an additional 263 route miles of freeways and parkways but no express bus service or rapid transit; An extensive "express bus system" operating on their own rights-of-way on thirteen freeways; and Two "rail transit" systems, one with eight routes radiating from the downtown area, and another having seven routes. The preliminary assignment for all three systems "... included the highway network that had been assumed in making the traffic projections as well as local transit service" (MTS, p. 40). Along routes where express bus or rail transit could provide better service than freeways or parkways, these systems were added and the freeways and parkways were adjusted to take into account the reduced traffic they would handle. - This approach is biased toward the freeway and parkway system proposed. It implicitly assumes that freeways and parkways will be the basis of additions to the transportation system only modified where express bus or rail transit can provide better service along particular routes. A more objective appraisal would have evaluated these modes on an equal basis. The major criticism of the approach followed in evaluating alternatives, however, is that too few different ones were tested. Only one express bus system and two rail transit systems were tested with essentially the same highway system. Alternatives Considered in the NCTA Study The National Capital Transportation Agency considered five alternative transportation systems for the National Capital Region. These were: (1) A very extensive highway system with no improvement in public transportation facilities; (2) (3) (4) (5) The system proposed in (1) supplemented by express A minimum highway system only those highways The 1959 MTS recommended plan; and A modestly expanded highway system with extensive The first system is essentially the same as the first one studied by the MTS; the routes shown are nearly identical. NCTA concluded, as did MTS, that this system alone could not handle projected traffic. The second proposal is similar to that proposed by MTS. It was rejected on similar grounds because of the problem of congestion on downtown streets. NCTA was also skeptical about how the express bus system would perform in practice. Regarding the third system, NCTA concluded that the transit system alone could not provide adequate service from downtown Washington to northern Washington, central Montgomery County and northwestern Prince Georges County. In addition, NCTA concluded that highway congestion might occur along some highway routes. However, none of these was based on complete analysis of the proposals. NCTA re-evaluated the fourth system, the 1959 MTS proposal, using up-dated population, land-use, forecasts, and travel forecasts essentially based on 1955 origin and destination data. New forecasting techniques were employed (the reliability of the models used is discussed in Chapter III). NCTA concluded that the pattern and amount of demand for highways and rail rapid-transit required a transportation system substantially different from that which had been proposed in the 1959 MTS study. Many of the links proposed in the earlier study were not required. These included a large part of the intermediate circumferential, and the Three Sisters Bridge. The North Leg was reduced in size and the East Leg relocated farther out. The "freeze" which had been enacted in 1960 prohibited construction of freeways in the Northwest section of Washington. The rapid-transit routes proposed in 1959 were modified slightly and extended; three additional routes were added. The current proposed highway plan differs significantly from either the 1959 MTS recommended plan and the 1962 NCTA recommended plan. There is no intermediate loop; the East Leg is again relocated, and the North Leg is restored, as is the Three Sisters Bridge. The first stage of the authorized transit plan is very similar to parts of both earlier plans, except that the East Leg crosses the Anacostia River farther north. No alternative highway systems were tested during the process of selecting the current system. Several links have been restudied and a few are now under study. The present system was not evaluated as an alternative in either of the two studies. While a similar system was subjected to a minimal evaluation for the 1965 Cost Estimate, this evaluation contained a number of highly questionable assumptions concerning future travel behavior and urban development patterns. Furthermore, the results of the analysis were not incorporated in the design of the present system. CONCLUSIONS A review of the alternative systems that have been evaluated by the MTS, NCTA and for current interstate proposals indicates that very few significantly different ones have been fully studied. Essentially, only one highway system was evaluated in the 1959 MTS study. This same system was restudied in 1962. Many parts of it were eliminated. A few were relocated. This system was further modified on a link-by-link basis to obtain the currently proposed highway plan. There have been two rapid transit plans. The routes for both have been very similar. The main difference between them is whether express buses or rail rapid-transit should be used on several of the routes. No additional alternative systems were tested in connection with the current proposed system. The currently proposed system would give Washington a freeway plan which is more dominated by radial routes than most American metropolitan areas of comparable size. Not less than nine new or enlarged radial routes are presently planned. Radial freeways carry two distinct disadvantages. First, they provide maximum competition with rail rapid-transit. Second, they make solution of the automobile problem at the center more difficult. Some radial freeways are necessary; however, an excessive number may not provide the best approach for coping with growing transportation needs. The proposed Interstate Highway System may bring considerable volumes of through traffic to the Inner Loop. Estimates indicate that only a small part of the traffic that would use the Inner Loop is destined for the area inside it. We have discussed earlier how the assumptions regarding urban development patterns and travel behavior prevented full examination of the consequences for over-all sets of proposals. Nonetheless, a rough measure of the importance of the marginal effects on traffic of |