Three Sisters Bridge
[5] In September 1852, determined to get a bridge built at the Three Sisters, Georgetown city officials commissioned a study from engineer Charles Ellet.
Although the Mayor of the District of Columbia also supported this plan and legislation was introduced in the United States Congress to give it effect, the bill was not acted on and the bridge never built.
The following year, the highway was renamed the George Washington Memorial Parkway by Congress, which authorized its extension to the Great Falls of the Potomac.
The idea for an enlarged parkway honoring George Washington came from Representative Louis C. Cramton, who introduced legislation in January 1929 to construct a larger system of roads and parks in the D.C. metropolitan area.
The act appropriated $13.5 million to acquire land and build a parkway on the Virginia shoreline from Mount Vernon to the Great Falls of the Potomac (excluding the city of Alexandria), and to build a parkway on the Maryland shoreline from Fort Washington, Maryland, to the Great Falls of the Potomac (excluding the District of Columbia).
The terrible overcrowding and traffic jams in the city convinced many that not only was a subway system needed, but that vastly enlarged and improved highways were required as well.
[14] In 1946, a consultant's study laid out a plan for a hub-spoke-and-wheel system of limited access highways for the D.C. metropolitan region, centered on the White House.
In 1957, Senator Clifford P. Case introduced legislation that would require the District of Columbia to build a bridge across the Three Sisters connecting D.C. and Virginia.
The House Committee on Public Works (many of whose members had close ties to the highway construction industry) supported the Inner Loop and Three Sisters Bridge plan.
Natcher pressed Brigadier General Charles M. Duke, the United States Army Corps of Engineers member of the D.C. city commission to build support for the D.C. highway and bridge program.
Representative John C. Kluczynski, chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads of the House Committee on Public Works and a strong supporter of the highway industry, was angered by the decision.
Kluczynski secured passage of an amendment to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 which required the city to disregard the court's ruling and build the Three Sisters Bridge, Potomac River Freeway, and portions of the Inner Loop.
[32] In December 1968, the NCPC released a study showing that construction of the bridge and highways would flood downtown D.C. with so many cars that gridlock would occur.
But Nixon was committed to D.C. self-government, was alarmed at the city's existing traffic jams (which Metro would help alleviate), and feared that bridge and highway construction would spark rioting by African Americans.
[citation needed] The mayor and city council had no real power to stop the bridge, and Natcher and Kluczynski refused to yield.
[41] However, on April 7, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 did not free FHWA from holding a design hearing on the Three Sisters Bridge.
[42] Sirica declined to do so (as a second trial was due to begin in June on a separate issue), but on August 3, 1970, ordered the foot-dragging city to hold the design hearing.
[45] Transportation Secretary Volpe testified in court that political pressure had not entered into DOT's decision to build the bridge, but his claims were contradicted by a letter which President Nixon sent to Representative Natcher in which the threat of Metro defunding was clearly the uppermost factor.
[57] But as Natcher continued to withhold construction funds through 1971, citizens of Maryland and Virginia began to think that the money they had invested in Metro would be wasted.
[59] Republican Representative Joel Broyhill, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee and vocal advocate against home rule for the District of Columbia, proposed denying D.C. any appropriation in 1971 if it did not build the Three Sisters Bridge.
[60] Scared by a narrow re-election win in 1970 and by the 1971 accusations of impropriety, Broyhill turned against Natcher and demanded that Metro funds be released.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 required D.C. officials to report by December 31, 1970, on the construction status of the Three Sisters Bridge and Inner Loop.
Working with Giaimo, Krogh helped put together a coalition of "liberal Republicans and Democrats, White House loyalists, and the Congressional Black Caucus" to oppose Natcher.
(Natcher told Ford he would release the Metro funds if the U.S. court of appeals would rehear en banc its October 12 decision.)
Conte then rose and told the House that, moments before, the court of appeals had rejected a Department of Justice request to rehear the October 12 decision.
[71] At the direct order of President Nixon, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court of the United States to hear its appeal on the Three Sisters Bridge case on January 17, 1972.
[74] After the humiliating floor vote on December 2, 1971, Natcher never again threatened to withhold Metro funding in order to win construction of the Three Sisters Bridge.
[75] The House inserted legislation into the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1972, requiring construction of the bridge and that of the rest of the Inner Loop.
The following month, a study by the consulting firm of Howard, Needles, Tammen and Bergendoff for the Virginia Department of Transportation concluded that Three Sisters Bridge was "inextricably linked" to the construction of I-66.
[81] The D.C. City Council held hearings in June 1975 intended to lead to a formal withdrawal of the bridge project from the Interstate Highway System.
