The managers of the home have asked me to give you its individual and collective thanks for your kindness in allowing me to speak with you today.

The CHAIRMAN. We are very happy to have you here today, Mrs. McDonnell, and the new president as well and we wish you good luck in your continuing fine work.

Mrs. MCDONNELL. You will see her in the spring. She is not looking forward to it but I have told her that you are very considerate. Thank you very much.

(The statement follows:)

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Maude W. McDonnell. I am president of the board of managers of the Washington Home for Incurables, at 3720 Upton Street NW., in Washington.

We are deeply grateful for your committee's kind invitation to the home's board of managers to express its views on the Mass Transportation Survey Report and its proposals for a solution of the mass transportation problem in the National Capital region. The board has asked that I respond to this invitation with this brief statement.

We are, of course, aware that your committee's hearing is devoted to the organizational and financial aspects of the report as a whole. At the same time, we are deeply concerned about a single aspect of the proposed plan-the belatedly added proposal, by the National Capital Planning Commission, of the so-called Northwest Freeway, a radial freeway which would run from Tenley Circle across Rock Creek Park to the inner loop. The maps of the National Capital Planning Commission which have been made available to us, and which we have seen published in the Washington press, indicate that this freeway would cross Wisconsin Avenue just below Upton Street, passing between the Washington Home for Incurables and the Sidwell Friends School on its way to cross Rock Creek Park. This would mean that the freeway would cut through the present grounds of the Home for Incurables, probably destroying the home's present gardens, and passing dangerously close to the home itself-which at this point stands only 135 feet from the nearest buildings of the Sidwell Friends School. This, briefly, is our reason for great concern about the proposed plan, and our reason for wishing to comment on this single aspect of the plan.

As an active member of the Committee to Oppose the Cross-Park Freeway, the Home is in complete agreement with the statement being made to you by Mr. David Sanders Clark, the acting chairman of that committee. Subscribing, as we do, to the views expressed in that statement, we have preferred to let it speak for the home on the general nature of the plan, and to limit this brief statement to specific questions.

The Washington Home for Incurables, a quiet charitable institution which does not seek publicity, and which does not engage in fund-raising campaigns of the usual kind, is not well known except among those who love it and serve it. With your kind forbearance, I should like to explain as briefly as possible the character of the home.

The Washington Home for Incurables is the only nonsectarian institution of its kind in this area. It is a nonprofit institution which gives hospital care to 182 seriously ill or disabled chronic patients-men, women, and children. They suffer such chronic ailments as crippling arthritis, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, incorrectly knit bones following falls, paralysis from strokes, heart disease, and many others. These patients or their families pay what they can for this care: Many pay nothing, some a nominal amount, and a few the full cost of $260 a month. A medical staff and 85 nurses, with the help of 80 other employees, operate the home under the direction of its board of managers-traditionally made up of 35 outstanding Washington women. Its number. in the years since the home's founding in 1889, has included Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Mrs. Warren Magnuson, Mrs. Robert A. Taft, Mrs. Anne Archbold, Mrs. James Lawrence Houghteling, Mrs. Perle Mesta, Mrs. David Karrick, Mrs. Gordon Young, Mrs. Angus Dun, Mrs. Lister Hill, Mrs. Eric Johnston, Mrs. Tom Clark, Mrs. David Finley, and many other devoted women who have helped to make the home the Washington institution it is today. Their tireless efforts are essential to the home because it could not survive under the burden of its annual

deficit-which is usually in the neighborhood of $100,000-without the service they give.

Caring, as it does, for the chronically ill of all ages, all levels of financial responsibility, and all races, creeds, and colors, "for whom no other provision is made elsewhere" (to quote the home's original charter), this institution is of great service to the District of Columbia. It cares, for example, for 32 patients from the Medical Assistance Division of the D.C. Department of Public Health— patients who have nowhere else to go. Because of this, and because of other qualities of the home, we receive annual funds from the District of Columbia— a tradition begun in 1896, when the first appropriation was made by the Congress for the purpose, then called the "U.S. Treasury appropriation."

The 182 beds of the home are, of course, not enough to take care of all the chronically ill and the aged who would like to come to the home. The problem grows more acute every year, as the population curve changes, leaving us with ever-increasing numbers of the aged. Because of this easily-foreseen growth problem, the home owns additional property in its near vicinity. It owns the land which extends to Wisconsin Avenue in that block of Upton Street-the land on which the Safeway store and the U.S. Post Office's Friendship Station are located. The revenue from this property helps to reduce the home's annual deficit.

Against this background, we have studied the proposal for the Northwest Freeway as carefully as we could do so, within the limits of the meager information available. Added almost as an afterthought to the mass transportation plan, this freeway has not been described in any great detail, and the descriptions and maps we have been able to obtain have varied so widely in details as to leave us puzzled. It has been referred to as an eight-lane highway, a six-lane highway, a freeway of 150 to 200 feet in width, with median strip and retaining walls, and a freeway of only 100 feet width. Our very real concern about its effect on the Home for Incurables, however, is no less real if we accept the minimum dimensions offered, and disregard the statement at the National Capital Planning Commission's meeting of June 4, 1959-that the right-of-way would be 150 to 200 feet wide. This, the maximum width we have heard about, would seem impossible in the 135 feet of space now existing between the home's main building and the nearest buildings of the Sidwell Friends School. But even the minimum width of 100 feet-which, conversely, seems impossible because of the estimated traffic demand-would mean that the edges of this freeway would pass within 17 feet of the home's main building. It is on this minimum width that we have based our study of the proposal, and it is on this estimate that we base our objections. These objections will be the more strenuous if the width is increased to the maximum dimension so far projected.

In studying the proposal, we have consulted our engineers (Karsunky, Weller & Gooch), our medical staff (headed by our medical director, Elbert T. Phelps, M.D., F.A.C.P.), and our financial and legal advisers.

Based on this study, and on the counsel we have received from such advisers, these are some of our objections to the proposal for the Northwest Freeway from Tenley Circle to the Inner Loop, as we have seen it depicted and described:

1. It would, at the least, destroy some of the home's property which could not be replaced: We have already mentioned the rental property which helps to reduce our annual deficit; this property might well be endangered or eliminated. Certainly, the home's own grounds would be reduced and its gardens destroyed. In an age when progress appears to be equated with concrete and automobile traffic, a garden may seem a small thing. But the home's garden is important to its patients. Grown slowly over many years, with the help of all the area's garden clubs, it offers not only an insulating space against noise, but the home's only contact with the outside world for many of its patients. In good weather, many of the patients are wheeled out into the garden, and this is an important part of their care. All the patients on the south side of our three-story building can look into the gardens: those on the other side find the trees and shrubbery of the building's front a solace and a protection against noise.

Our engineers tell us that even the minimum dimensions of the proposed freeway would make it necessary to move and relocate our present boilerhouse, which stands away from the home's main building at the southeast corner, directly in the path of the proposed freeway. There is no other possible location for it. 2. It would imperil the care of our patients: Our medical director, Dr. Phelps, has written the following letter on the subject of the effect on the patients:

"The available maps and data regarding the proposed Northwest Freeway, formerly called the Cross-Park Truck Freeway, indicate that the route will be via the south grounds of the Washington Home for Incurables.

"My feeling and the feeling of the medical staff of the Washington Home for Incurables is that the construction activity, the road itself, and the loss of the grounds for the use of the patients, will be deleterious to our patients. The noise of heavy machinery used during construction will adversely affect our numerous (about 180) patients sick with cancer and other incurable and terminal diseases. An open road with several busy lanes would be a constant noise irritant and possibly a health hazard. Even if the road is covered or made into a tunnel, the beautiful trees and shrubs and the fountain would be lost, at least for a long period of time.

"I therefore strongly urge you not to place this road through our grounds. "Sincerely yours,

"(S) ELBERT T. PHELPS, M.D.,
"F.A.C.P. Medical Director."

3. It would, if it made our grounds untenable, destroy a large part of the home's usefulness to Washington. It is wholly inconveivable that the Washington Home for Incurables should change its location. Even if any compensation we might receive would permit rebuilding in another place (and it is estimated that our present building would cost $5 million to replace), similar land is not available in Washington. But even apart from such an impossibility, there are many other cogent reasons why we could not change the home's location:

(a) The home could not carry on its work without the devoted help of its many volunteers-the Red Cross Gray Ladies, arts and skills personnel, nurses' aids, and others-including its visiting committee and the members of its board of managers. All these people, who give so generously of their time and their talents, help because the home is easily accessible to them.

(b) This reasoning applies also to our paid staffs, the nurses, practical nurses, and other employees. Any move away from the convenient bus and trolley routes which make it easy to reach the home would make it impossible for the home to obtain the services of the kind of skilled help we need on such favorable terms as we now enjoy.

(c) The home's convenient location also makes it easy for the families of our patients to visit them regularly and frequently. This is of the greatest importance in keeping our patients happy and as well as possible. The feeling, in a patient of the home, that he or she is not isolated is of the very greatest importance to a patient's welfare.

(d) Above all, the Washington Home for Incurables simply cannot afford, in any sense, a removal which would cost far more than we can raise. We already stagger, as we have said, under an annual deficit of about $100,000, which we meet painfully through bequests, endowments, and our single annual fund-raising effort, the house and embassy tour.

The Washington Home for Incurables is, in its 71st year, one of Washington's oldest and most useful charitable institutions. In its more than 70 years, it has won the affection and respect of every District of Columbia resident who knows of it, and the devoted service of hundreds of volunteers, as well as employees. It has earned and kept the high regard of the District of Columbia government and of the Congress, both of which have testified to this high regard for its service to the community in the enduring form of funds for the home's irreplaceable work among the chronically ill of the District. It is also aided by the Ford Foundation, and by the American Cancer Society-the latter because it is among the very few institutions accepting terminal cancer patients.

The home, already making a valiant effort to continue and improve the kind of community service which has won it this kind of affection and esteem, must not be destroyed for the sake of a roadbuilding program of this kind.

It is our hope, Mr. Chairman, that you and your committee will join us in our long effort to preserve and improve the Washington Home for Incurables, and in our shorter but no less determined effort to prevent its destruction by the proposed Northwest Freeway.

The board of managers of the home has asked me especially to give you its individual and collective thanks for your kindness in allowing us to express our feelings in this matter.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Mr. Leeman, attorney for the Federation of Citizens Associations.

Mr. Leeman, we are always glad to welcome you.

STATEMENT OF HERBERT P. LEEMAN, WASHINGTON, D.C., FEDERATION OF CITIZENS ASSOCIATIONS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. LEEMAN. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. We know very well the fine work that your citizens association does here in the District of Columbia.

Mr. LEEMAN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Herbert P. Leeman. I reside at 1609 Hobart Street NW., Washington, D.C., and I am here representing the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia.

First, I want to say that the Federation of Citizens Associations is on record for amending the charter act which requires the complete abandonment of street railways in the District of Columbia by 1963.

Several of our street railway lines are necessary to serve our citizens with some measure of comfort and convenience, particularly during the rush hours. The replacement of these streetcars by an adequate number of buses would greatly increase traffic jams, slow the movement of traffic, and increase the air pollution which is already excessive. Our present streetcars and the railway system is an excellent one, with many remaining years of useful service and can be useful when a rapid transit system is installed.

I would like to add to that, Mr. Chairman, that our federation has a number of times directed the attention of both the Senate and House committee of the desire of the citizens for the continued use of our street railways, and in view of what Chairman McMillan said yesterday, that he had received 5,000 requests for them to be continued, I know that in the case of the Senate committee they must have received an equal number.

The CHAIRMAN. We didn't make a head count but it is pretty heavy. Mr. LEEMAN. I, with long years of experience in District affairs, must say that I am very much surprised that we have not received the consideration which I am satisfied the majority of the citizens of the District of Columbia want. They want some action on the amending of that charter.

I might say that I am surprised that our President of the Board of Commissioners has not been more responsive to what he must know is the wishes of the people of the District of Columbia, and our Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, they indicate that what is in that charter is final.

It has been suggested to them that they have a discretion, but both the President of the Board of Commissioners and the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission disclaim any rights under that! matter, and say that it is up to the Congress, and we are confronted i with a serious situation affecting all of our citizens, and I say to the committee all you have to do is to get out during the rush hour, either the morning or the evening, and see the necessity for retaining these streetcar lines for the time being. Mr. Flanagan, when he said it was a shame, was very modest, and there is nobody in the District of Columbia any more familiar with it than Mr. Flana

gan, because he was Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission. when the transit service was investigated under Wolfsohn, and I attended those hearings and I am somewhat familiar with our equipment and the conditions in Washington, and I say to you, Mr. Chairman, that it is imperative when Congress convenes that some action be taken to alleviate that situation so that we can get the many years of service that are left in a very excellent street railway system. Coming to the question before this committee, speaking on the transportation plan for the National Capital region a committee of the federation has made a careful study of this plan and its proposals and has obtained such information on transportation and studies thereof for other areas.

The Federation of Citizens Associations has considered the information which we have gathered and adopted the following recommendations at our meeting last night.

1. Every study reviewed indicates the imperative necessity of adoption and construction of a rapid transit system from adjacent areas and within this District of Columbia.

2. Action to plan and construct an adequate system including gradeseparated rights-of-way and modern, efficient equipment is required now, and it cannot come from private sources because of the legal problems involved in absorbing existing facilities and in guaranteeing costs.

3. Movement by rail in large units from collecting points located in population centers is the only solution of the rush-hour concentrations required by business contacts of the passengers.

4. Supplementing motor arteries for bus movement used jointly with private-car facilities may precede construction of subway or elevated facilities on routes of light population.

5. A single Federal authority is required to coordinate State rights and ambitions and to establish confidence in debt-financing plans.

6. The presently proposed transportation plan for the National Capital region contains so much data and suggestions of greatest value to a properly constituted National Capital regional authority and deserves careful consideration by that body when it is established.

7. Separate regulation of surviving private enterprises from the authority must be preserved, but the ultimate system must recognize the need for subsidy to preserve the flow of population through the expanded industrial, commercial, and residential areas.

We urge congressional action this year in accordance with the above recommendations.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Leeman. We appreciate your statement.

The next witness is Mr. Phillip E. Barringer, president of the Hearst PTA.

STATEMENT OF PHILLIP E. BARRINGER, PRESIDENT, HEARST PTA, ACCOMPANIED BY MRS. JEWELL R. MAZIQUE

Mr. BARRINGER. Mr. Chairman, I am Phillip E. Barringer, president of the Parent-Teachers' Association, Phoebe Hearst Elementary School.

I have with me Mrs. Jewell Mazique, our legislation chairman.