Speakers and audience members highlighted ways the facilities and appearance of the National Mall can be improved at a National Park Service-sponsored symposium Wednesday, addressing the lack of restrooms and the deterioration of the Mall's lawns.
"We're all here today because this is important to our citizens, our nation and to the National Park Service," said Vikki Keys, National Mall and Memorial Parks superintendent. "Our goals are to understand the scope of challenges and to examine some ways to address them."
NPS set up the symposium, which included presentations on the historical background of the Mall, examinations of practices at other large city parks and a speech by Mayor Anthony Williams, as another way for citizens to offer criticism and suggestions for improvement. The National Park Service plans to complete the drafting of an improvement plan for the Mall by the end of 2007.
NPS also set up an online comment system on the NPS Mall planning Web site. At the time, NPS had received more than 300 comments through the system, Keys said.
The new plan will focus on improving facilities, the Mall's appearance and visitors' experiences, Keys said. The plan will not include planning for any additional museums or memorials within the bounds of the Mall.
Congress declared that the Mall would be a "completed work of civic art" after construction is finished on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Center and the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it amended the Commemorative Works Act in 2003, according to NPS documents. Congress passed the Commemorative Works Act in 1986 to limit construction of new memorials and museums on the Mall.
The need for additional restrooms in the area is a major issue the Mall faces, according to Susan Spain, National Mall Plan project executive.
NPS maintains fewer than 100 restroom facilities on the Mall, all of which are found west of the Washington Monument. The museums that line the Mall's eastern end provide an additional 750 restrooms. However, Spain said, these restrooms are not accessible when the museums are closed, and they can be difficult to reach because of new security measures.
Building bathrooms and other facilities on the sites of memorials was a controversial subject in the past. When the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission was planning the Jefferson Memorial, some agencies did not want to build any on-site restrooms, Spain said.
"It was seen as totally inappropriate for a memorial," she said. "I think today everyone realizes that if you're bringing people to a location, you have to meet their human needs."
Spain said another major problem at the Mall is the deterioration of features like the Tidal Basin sea walls and the Mall lawns. Heavy foot traffic in the area will be a major obstacle in restoring the Mall's appearance, she said.
"Visitor-created trails or spill-off next to walkways makes it very difficult to re-establish turf grass," she said. "That level of use is really without precedent here. But we can certainly apply lessons that we've learned from others that can mitigate the impacts of use."
Michael Heaney, senior director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said the problems the Mall faces could be fixed and the improvements maintained if they enacted the right policies. Heaney referred to the policies and practices of large urban parks in New York, London, Atlanta and other cities in his presentation.
According to Heaney, NPS could prevent the creation of "social trails" and other heavy wear on Mall lawns by distinguishing the barrier between walkways and the grass. If NPS bordered the walkways with cobblestones or a low fence, people would not be as likely to use the lawn areas as alternative walkways, he said.
