Letter to the Editor

March, 2000

Dear Editor:

For a community that got so exercised over a traffic light on Canal Road for Georgetown University, I find amusing the passivity with which the members of our Palisades Citizens Association have greeted a new traffic light on MacArthur Boulevard at Reservoir Road for the principal benefit of the Lab School.
Critics of the light on Canal Road claim it will slow our access to Whitehurst Freeway and Key Bridge, although that remains to be proven.
But there can be no doubt that the new light for Lab School will slow traffic on MacArthur Boulevard, particularly when school lets out.
The new light is designed to permit cars exiting the Lab School to go straight ahead and make a left-hand turn on to MacArthur.
There are a couple of differences between the Lab School and a new traffic light for Georgetown University on Canal Road. The Lab school will pay—as much as $250,000—for installing the new light and reducing the triangular island at MacArthur and Reservoir to permit a straight-ahead lane out of the Lab School.
Using funds appropriated years ago by Congress, The Federal Highway Administration will pay for the light on Canal Road that will permit four-way access to the Georgetown campus.
Georgetown University and the Federal Highway Administration held many public hearings to explain plans for the light on Canal Road.
The Lab School and the DC Department of Public Works gave no public notice on plans for the new traffic light.
It leaves one wondering whether there is another difference—that some in our community have one attitude toward Georgetown University and another toward the Lab School that has very little to do with traffic lights.
-- John Finney

Long-time Palisades resident John Finney is a professor at Georgetown University.