GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Hon. JOHN L. MCMILLAN, Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Washington, May 13, 1966. DEAR MR. MCMILLAN: In response to your request made at the hearing on May 4, 1966, relative to H.R. 12119, I have had the Highway Department engineers review thoroughly the desirability of constructing a six or eight lane bridge in lieu of the proposed four lane structure which would replace the old 14th Street Bridge. The construction of a four lane bridge in the 14th Street corridor is required primarily to accommodate the flow of traffic between the improved Shirley Highway corridor in Virginia and the freeway system in the District of Columbia. The improved Shirley Highway, when completed, will carry five lanes of traffic in the peak inbound direction and pick up a sixth lane from the George Washington Parkway at the Virginia shore line. A similar situation also exists in the outbound direction. Thus, the existing 14th Street Bridges provide four lanes of capacity in each direction and the new bridge will provide the additional two lanes in each direction required to accommodate the six lanes of traffic to and from Virginia. The District of Columbia approaches are presently designed to accommodate a maximum of six lanes of fast moving traffic directionally from the bridges, with three lanes distributed to 14th Street and three lanes to the Washington Channel Crossing. The street system which these facilities connect into simply cannot accommodate more traffic lanes. The proposed four lane bridge will provide proper lane balance and optimum continuous traffic service across the Potomac River in the 14th Street corridor. A bridge of greater capacity would not provide greater service unless all the approach roadways and the adjacent street system were drastically revised. This would be extremely costly and impractical both from an operational viewpoint and from the aesthetic impact of increased traffic capacity through this monumental area. Both the recently completed D. C. approach network and the approach network on the Virginia side of the river would require alteration, and it would involve park lands. I recognize that your primary concern is to construct a bridge of such capacity that would preclude the possible need for another bridge in this same corridor for the next ten to twenty years. In this regard, the Highway Department has advised me that we will have achieved an optimum traffic-carrying facility in this corridor with the construction of the new four-lane bridge, and consequently, any new traffic demands that may be generated in the future should be diverted to the planned rapid transit system and highway facilities in other corridors in order to achieve proper balance for our total transportation network. Therefore, based on operational, aesthetic and proper lane balance consideration, a new structure of greater width than four lanes for the corridor would not be justified. Accordingly, it is our opinion that a four lane bridge is the correct design for this facility and it would be impractical, if not impossible, to design for greater traffic capacity by adding additional lanes to the proposed four bridge lanes. With kindest personal regards, I am Sincerely yours, C. M. DUKE, Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Engineer Commissioner. GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Hon. JOHN L. MCMILLAN, Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia, EXECUTIVE OFFICE, Washington, May 19, 1966. DEAR MR. MCMILLAN: There is pending before your Committee H.R. 12119 89th Congress, a bill "To authorize the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to reconstruct the substructure and to replace the superstructure of the existing Fourteenth Street or Highway Bridge across the Potomac River, and for other purposes." On April 1 the Commissioners set forth their view that existing law provides sufficient authority for them to undertake the construction of the proposed bridge, that H.R. 12119 is but a restatement of that authority, and that for the foregoing reasons they had no objection to the enactment of the bill. However, after reflecting on the testimony presented at the hearings on April 27 and May 4, 1966, before Subcommittee No. 5 of your committee, the Commissioners are of the opinion that legislation authorizing the construction of bridges between the District of Columbia and Virginia, as distinguished from legislation authorizing the construction of the District of Columbia highway system, would remove any questions concerning the expenditure of District funds for the construction of a facility part of which will be physically located in Virginia. Accordingly, the Commissioners now advise you that the enactment of H. R. 12119 is desirable, and ask that their report of April 1, 1966, be modified to reflect this more recent view. The Commissioners hope that their present view of the matter will be in consonance with that of the members of your Subcommittee No. 5, to the end that work on the urgently needed facility can be expedited. The Commissioners have been advised by the Bureau of the Budget that, from the standpoint of the Administration's program, there is no objection to the submission of this report to the Congress. Sincerely yours, /s/WALTER N. TOBRINER, President, Board of Commissioners, D.C. (Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the hearing in the above-entitled matter was closed.) O |