The Office of Metropolitan Development is particularly interested in the growth aspects of our Metropolitan areas. The basic decisions that public bodies make to guide metropolitan growth and development are those concerning (1) transportation systems (2) public facilities and (3) open space. When these three aspects of metropolitan development are conceived of as parts of a single system and not as separate and distinct entities, they help to provide a rational basis for metropolitan development.

With relation to this proposed bill we wish to raise the following specific observations:

(1) We urge that direct consideration be given to means of protecting residential use over expressways against air pollution and undesirable side effects of noise, dirt, light, and glare. That such protection is necessary is demonstrated by the fact that tests conducted by New York City's Department of Air Pollution Control in the vicinity of the Washington Bridge apartment project have turned up pollutant levels in the air above the George Washington Bridge Expressway that are much higher than those recorded on a congested city street. [Engineering News Record, January 7, 1965, P. 76.]

(2) The bill states that height, bulk, and parking limitations and requirements determined by the Zoning Commission of the District of Columbia "need not be the same as those provided for properties not within airspace." The implication seems to be that limitations and requirements could be either more or possibly less restrictive than for similar properties not within defined airspace. While we recognize that unique opportunities for development presented in such highway construction may justify greater flexibility in development controls, we would urge that any design which might require relaxation of zoning restrictions receive the closest scrutiny. It may be that the intention of the bill is to provide the Zoning Commission of the District with the power to impose restrictions in addition to those contained in the zoning law of the District. The language of the bill or its intent in this request should be clarified. We would make one final point in connection with this proposed legislation : it is not realistic to expect to solve the problem of housing our low income families solely within airspace provided in conjunction to freeways. To date no Federally-aided public housing has been constructed in such an environment. The main thrust of the more recent Federal legislation in providing housing for low income families has been to experiment with leasing and purchasing of private standard dwellings. The rent supplement program is another attempt to provide housing in a non-institutional setting. It is believed that there are numerous benefits to be derived from placing low income families in an environment with self sufficient families in a racially and economically integrated neighborhood. These goals should be pursued.

In summary, we support the concept of multi-purpose use of freeway airspace embodied in this proposed legislation. We support S.1245.

Turning now briefly to S.1246, which authorizes the use of airspace in streets and alleys in the District, we support this proposed legislation for three reasons. First, it provides existing uses and future developers with a flexibility of design that can lead to more creative and convenient design solutions. Examples of this are the covered all-weather shopping street; pedestrian overpasses and underpasses linking parking to shops; and pedestrian overpasses connecting public facilities (particularly those serving children).

Secondly, it can provide for a unified type of development that permits separate properties to be integrated into a more functional and aesthetic design. Park Avenue in New York City, the Iverson Shipping Center in Suitland, Maryland, and the Charles Center Urban Renewal Project in Baltimore all have gained an added dimension in utility and attractiveness by using air rights.

Thirdly, the use of valuable airspace in those areas of the District of Columbia of intensive use and high property values can provide a financial return to the people of the District that would not otherwise be available to them.

We support this legislation, and we look forward to working with the District on future urban renewal projects which may utilize the authority that this bill grants.

Senator TYDINGS. Is there anything which you wish to stress in your statement?

STATEMENT OF DORN MCGRATH, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF METROPOLITAN AREA ANALYSIS, ON BEHALF OF PETER LEWIS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT, DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Mr. McGRATH. I would only like to make two clarifications, Senator.

First of all, I am appearing today in behalf of Deputy Assistant Secretary Lewis who is called before another committee meeting at this same time.

Inasmuch as you have incorporated our complete statement in the record in the interest of time, I would be glad to answer any further questions you might have.

I would only wish to add that we, as a Department, are also very interested in the concept known as the joint development concept, which we regard as a milestone within the framework of various economies. There are a great many difficulties associated with any multiple-purpose agency or multiple-purpose project such as highways. Our Department has recently undertaken research in an effort. to find the answers to these questions, and now we are conducting a study on planning for the development of joint project concept involving transportation in connection with other urban facilities and land

uses.

Senator TYDINGS. Do you have any specific amendments to offer in connection with your recommendations on pages 3 and 4?

Mr. McGRATH. No, sir; we do not.

Senator TYDINGS. Why do you not come up with some specific language with a memorandum attached to them, and we will see that they are given further consideration.

Mr. McGRATH. Yes, sir; we will be glad to do that.

Senator TYDINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. McGrath, and I appreciate your testimony and your appearing before us this morning. Mr. McGRATH. Thank you, sir.

Senator TYDINGS. We will now recess the hearing and hold the record open for 1 more week.

(Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the hearing was recessed.)

(The following material was received for the record :)

Hon. JOSEPH D. TYDINGS,

COMMITTEE OF 100 ON THE FEDERAL CITY,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Business and Commerce,

Senate Committee on the District of Columbia,

New Senate Office Building,

Washington, D.C.

July 27, 1967.

DEAR SENATOR TYDINGS: On July 25, 1967, during my testimony in hearings before your Subcommittee on S. 1245, S. 1246, and S. 1247, you questioned my

ability to document the statement that the proposed rail rapid transit system would meet all reasonable foreseeable peak-hour travel demands of the District of Columbia. This letter is submitted for the record in response to that inquiry. The question of future peak-hour travel inevitably involves traffic forecasting. In the past, when questioned about the accuracy and honesty of their projections, District Highway Department officials have strenuously resisted any attempted modifications by persons outside their Department. Their position invariably has been to assert that they alone possess professional competence and experience to make and evaluate traffic forecasts.1

Traffic forecasting, however, when rigidly confined by fixed assumptions, can become blind to variable factors affecting the community's travel habits. According to Arthur D. Little, Inc., an independent consultant chosen at the President's request, this error has cast serious doubt upon transportation planning in the District for the last decade.' Even apart from failure to consider social, economic, and cultural variables, the present plans for freeway extensions in the District were found to be "based on insufficient data, and on questionable assumptions and forecasting techniques."

9 3

One of the documents relied upon by Arthur D. Little, Inc. was a monograph, "Forecasting 1985 Transportation Requirements" (February 26, 1966), which had been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission on behalf of the committee of 100 on the Federal City by its author, Peter S. Craig. The monograph revised the District Highway Department's predictions sharply downward. For example, Mr. Craig demonstrates that, contrary to an assumption made by the Highway Department's forecasters, the rate of population growth in Washington's suburbs does not serve as a reliable guide in estimating the growth in peak-hour travel. Travel demands at the District line will probably be far less than the increasing numbers of suburban residents would lead one to suppose. Current statistics are proving Mr. Craig's projections to be valid. For example, on November 4, 1964, the Virginia and District Highway Departments submitted to the Planning Commission a "Supplementary Report on Interstate Route 266," claiming that the peak-hour travel from Virginia to Washington was 45,000 in 1964 and would increase at the rate of 2,500 per year to 1985. According to this projection, peak-hour travel should have been 50,000 in 1966. Mr. Craig's studies pointed out not only that the figure of 45,000 had never been reached, but also that the 1966 total would be in the neighborhood of 42,000. The District Highway Department's own study for 1966 (D.C. Cordon Counts, May 1966) reported the total to be 42,223.

In commenting upon the Transportation Section of the National Capital Planning Commission's Proposed Comprehensive Plan, we prepared a supplementary exhibit to Mr. Craig's monograph, applying his methods to the population growth and employment projections contained in the Comprehensive Plan. This exhibit, Attachment A to this letter, indicates that the reasonably foreseeable increase in peak-hour travel at the District line from 1965 to 1985 will be in the neighborhood of 62,800 persons. A map showing the rail rapid transit system proposed by the National Capital Planning Commission is Attachment B to this letter. If the modest total of 40,000 persons is used as a "rated capacity" for each of the rapid transit lines entering the District," the total rated capacity of the rapid

1 See, e.g., Hearings Before the Senate District Committee on H.R. 11487, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965), pp. 210-11.

2 Arthur D. Little, Inc., Transportation Planning in the District of Columbia, 1955 to 1965 (March 22, 1966) pp. viii-x.

Id., p. x. See pp. 39-52. For further criticism by a consultant retained by the National Capital Planning Commission, see also Henry M. Bain, Jr., Transportation in the Comprehensive Plan (December 21, 1965).

By any standards, Mr. Craig qualifies as an expert in transportation matters. He graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in economics in 1950 and graduated near the top of his class from Yale Law School in 1953. After serving for a year as a special assistant to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Monopoly Power, he entered private practice, specializing in transportation law, including the forecasting of travel and shipping needs. He was first drawn into civic activities in 1960, and since that time has become Intimately familiar with transportation problems in the District. In May, 1967, Mr. Craig was appointed Associate General Counsel in charge of litigation for the Department of Transportation.

The theoretical maximum capacity per line is 96,000: 40 trains per hour (90-second headways); 8 cars per train (75 feet-number limited by station platforms); 300 persons per car (80 seated, 220 standing).

transit system (without regard to existing capacity for automobile and bus commuters) in 1985 will be:

Not only is the proposed rapid transit system capable of absorbing one hundred percent of the reasonably foreseeable increase in rush-hour travel, it will also substantially reduce the current crush of vehicles entering Washington."

6 This conclusion is corroborated in part by the Smith-Voorhees Report to the National Capital Planning Commission (April 1966), which reconsidered traffic forecasts for the proposed North Central Freeway. It concluded that the total increase of peak-hour travel in the corridors potentially served by the North Central-Northeast Freeway (the "Columbia Road" cordon line from Rock Creek Park on the west to Minnesota Avenue east of the Kenilworth Freeway on the east) between 1965 and 1985, based on population growths, will be 19,000. This is less than one-half of the subway capacity programmed for the Silver Spring and Bowie rapid transit lines in the Comprehensive Plan.

Very truly yours,

ATTACHMENT A

ROBERT M. KENNAN, JR., Chairman, Roads Subcommittee.

REVISED PROJECTION OF PEAK HOUR PERSON-TRIPS ENTERING WASHINGTON, 1985 (BASED ON REVISED POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT PROJECTIONS IN NCPC PROPOSED COMPREHENSIVE PLAN)

Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia,
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: The Department of Transportation would like to volunteer a report concerning S. 1246, a bill "To authorize the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to enter into leases for the rental of, or to use or permit the use of, public space in, on, over, and under the streets and alleys under their jurisdiction, other than freeways, and for other purposes."

This bill has been proposed in order that the District of Columbia may make available for public and private purposes such space above, on, or below a street or alley as the Commissioner of the District of Columbia shall find is not needed for the purpose of travel by the general public. The bill defines such space as "public space."

The Department of Transportation supports the use of such "public space" in in the District of Columbia. We believe that the imaginative and wise use of such space could, to a large extent, offset the loss of the building space required for the