Capital Moves to Ease Strain of Heavy Traffic

The District of Columbia is in the midst of a valiant attempt to overcome the perils and delays which long have been inflicted upon traffic by the capital's world-celebrated street circles and at the same time avoid serious impairment of their arboreal beauty. Under one of them is being dug the national capital's first subway, which, it is hoped, will start general remedy of one of the most trying traffic problems of a city having more than its share.

The confluence of two highly important avenues and two streets in the heart of busy downtown Washington, Thomas Circle, is the scene of this experiment. Here an underpass which will cost $550,000 and take a year to complete is being constructed to carry the extremely heavy traffic of Massachusetts Avenue.

It was almost 150 years ago when Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant was commission by George Washington to prepare plans for the permanent capital of the infant republic, that Washington's circle traffic puzzle had its genesis. Graduate of a French Military Engineering school who had preceded even LaFayette to America to help the fighting colonies. L'Enfant had become a major of engineers in charge of building fortifications. It was in recognition of these services that the first President names him to lay out the capital.

Imbued with boundless idealism and vision, L'Enfant soon found himself confronted with many difficulties. However, he bequeathed a plan, which many years after his death in poverty, was adopted in all essential details. So much so that eventually his remains were rescued from an obscure grave on the outskirts of the capital and reinterred with ceremony on a high knoll in Arlington National Cemetery overlooking the city he had dreamed. The tomb is surmounted by a slab bearing in bas relief his prophetic map of Washington.

L'Enfant insisted that the United States have a capital built as such, quite unlike Old World capitals which in many cases had merely grown out of villages and small cities. So, although he studied maps of foreign capitals supplied him by Thomas Jefferson, who had gathered them in his diplomatic service abroad, he did not allow them to influence him. And the legend that he was inspired by magnificent Versailles has never been substantiated.

The highest point in the projected city was selected by L'Enfant as the site of the capital. At the suggestion of President Washington, L'Enfant placed the White House at some distance from "The Hill" so Congress should not be too greatly under the domination or influence of the executive branch of the Government. Then upon a checkerboard of east-west and north-south streets the planner of the capital superimposed a crisscross of avenues.

It was at this moment that many of the traffic woes of modern Washington were born. L'Enfant said "the need is to unite the useful with the commodious and agreeable," but he could not foresee many thousands of automobiles and motor trucks rushing about the streets and avenues. Accordingly, he never dreamed that his oblique avenues would, by the creation of squares and circles, accomplish exactly the opposite by bringing into being a daily peril to life and limb. However, that is just what the years brought forth, making it imperative that this generation do something about it.

Being a military man, the legend is that L'Enfant designed the circles deliberately, upon the theory that in the event of invasion or rioting, artillery could be mounted in them, commanding several thoroughfares simultaneously. The value of such an idea has never been tested. For the only invasion by the British was in 1814, when there were only two cannons to oppose them and the capital has never had a riot of any historic consequence.

Selfish political and property interests hampered real adoption of the L'Enfant plan for decades. Thus it was not until 1901, when the McMillan Commission, composed of eminent architects and city planners, brought about definite action. Even then the now annoying street circles presented no great problem, for the "horseless carriage" was only beginning to appear and the circles didn't bother leisurely paced horse-drawn traffic.

Increasingly since the dawn of this century, however, as motor vehicles multiplied at an amazing rate, the circles created real hazards until today, in a city having the greatest per capita car ownership in the world, the circles represent hazards encountered probably nowhere else. These are bad enough for residents, but the huge number of motorists visiting the capital annually are even more harassed by them.

Dupont, Scott and Thomas Circles, in the center of which are memorials to those three heroes of '61, are the worst offenders. All interrupt the flow of the tremendous traffic of Massachusetts Avenue, particularly, and other important thoroughfares in comparable degree. Located in the heart of a great fashionable residence and shopping area, Dupont Circle is probably the greatest culprit. There a stream of trolley cars went its way partly around the circle in the wrong direction, consequently in the path of oncoming motor traffic. But efforts to have a subway built there have been thwarted by powerful interests of the neighborhood pending results from the Thomas Circle experiment.

At Scott Circle, a measure of relief had been brought about by concrete islands which channelize traffic. Thus it is that, currently, Washington's interest in the city's latest attempt to cut down traffic casualties and delays is centered on Thomas Circle.

Start of construction of the underpass at this point was not without difficulty and delay. Even after Congress, which governs the capital, gave authorization, business and residential interests of the region launched a vigorous fight on the plan. Even louder, however, was the protest which always arises against any project which necessitates removal of any of the city's famous trees. These objectors even carried the battle to the White House, but, after thoroughly reviewing the situation and need for action, the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, to which President Roosevelt referred the matter, authorized the District to proceed with the tunnel. In the meantime, District officials calmed the tree enthusiasts by pledging that the 100 lindens which would have to go would be replaced as soon as possible in locations near the vacated spots.

The underpass of Thomas Circle will extend under Massachusetts Avenue for two long blocks, from Fifteenth to Thirteenth Streets. It will have two lanes in each direction, with a dividing strip between them to prevent accidents. Its walls will be tiled and latest scientific lighting will be employed. Construction will necessitate widening the avenue from its present 50 to 92 feet (a circumstance which doomed the lindens), for in addition to the main lanes, there will be lanes on either side for traffic turning off or coming into the tunnel.

In construction of the underpass, an engineering feat which is attracting national attention from city planners and traffic experts, the face of Thomas Circle itself will be altered. The fine equestrian statue of Major-General George H. Thomas will still dominate the scene, but the diameter of the circle will be extended 19 feet and the whole split into three parts. The heavy Fourteenth Street traffic, motor and trolley, will run through the circle instead of around it, as at present.

It is the conviction of District of Columbia highway and traffic engineers that the Thomas Circle subway will be so successful as to have an historic effect upon traffic control developments in Washington. They believe future efforts to tunnel under Dupont and Scott Circle will be unopposed, making possible swift passage clear through Massachusetts avenue, main artery to the west. In addition, resident and visiting motorist will be able to approach the circles without deadly fear.