The street-planning process has experienced several stages of development.

1. The narrow streets of Georgetown are typical of the first stage.

2. The wide avenues and streets of the area included in the L’Enfant plan are appropriately referred to as outstanding proof of the value of proper planning. The merit of this generous street plan was never more widely appreciated than at present, when other cities are spending millions of dollars to have their streets widened to meet traffic requirements.

3. The dark days of the National Capital, as far as its circulation system is concerned, were those during which, outside the city planned by L’Enfant, streets were dedicated without reference to any comprehensive plan. This period was from about 1866 to 1893. The lack of authority to enforce a plan allowed land-owners, insensible to the superior qualities of the L’Enfant scheme, to do as they pleased. Prior to 1893 no city plan existed beyond the original city limits. Streets could be created entirely at the will of the subdivider by the simple recording of a plat, for there was no authority to control or coordinate subdivisions. Sixteenth Street was blocked at Florida Avenue, just as Seventeenth Street is today. Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Tennessee Avenues were ignored. Widths of important streets were reduced, and a method of land subdivision came into vogue wholly out of keeping with a capital city.

4. The reaction brought the so-called highway plan outside of the original city limits of Washington and Georgetown. It was in effect an extension of the plan of the original city to apply to all parts of the District of Columbia, with such changes as were influenced by the topography. All subdivisions subsequent to 1893 conform, by requirement of law, to this official plan. This highway plan, first made effective in 1898, was a belated but praiseworthy effort to extend the L’Enfant plan with its scheme of streets and avenues beyond the old city. Considering the period in which it was prepared, and the state of city-planning science at the time, it was a notable achievement. The work was done by a board on street extensions, with a membership entirely ex officio, known as the Highway Commission, established by the act of Congress of 1893.

5. Since then the Surveyor’s Office of the District of Columbia and the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, which superseded the Highway Commission of 1893, have made an intensive study of the highway problems of the District of Columbia, including street railroad problems. This has required a differentiation of street functions, and an application of the best methods of modern land subdivision to the remaining undeveloped areas; also an attempt to restate the L’Enfant ideal in the terms of a motor age. The results achieved appear in the changes in the highway plan already approved by the Commission or being recommended to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia from time to time. Many changes in the highway plan have thus been made, each case having required careful study of effects on topography, trees, drainage, lot depths and sizes, etc. The acts of Congress of 1914 and 1925 authorized additional changes in the Highway Plan. The act approved December 15, 1932 (Public, No. 307, 72d Cong.), authorizes the Commissioners of the District of Columbia “to readjust and close streets, roads, highways, or alleys in the District of Columbia rendered useless or unnecessary.” The desirability of discontinuing streets which have never been opened and which exist only on a map and only part of which are in public ownership, when a better and cheaper way of giving the same traffic connection can be found, seems so manifest as to require no further justification.

With a view to creating direct arteries in which the vital traffic flow of the community may freely move, a major thoroughfare scheme, extending into the metropolitan area of Washington, has also been studied. The District Commissioners have an interesting map illustrating the Highway Plan. The Highway Department of the District of Columbia has charge of upkeep and maintenance of highways in the District of Columbia. Out of 1,020 miles of streets in the District of Columbia 855 miles are paved.