WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 -- A pair of low pedestrian bridges across a narrowed and reshaped section of Pennsylvania Avenue would enable President Clinton-- or his successor-- safely to reopen the street he closed for security reasons five years ago, according to a new design, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Advocates believe the plan will remove an inappropriate "image of fortification" from the White House area, reconnect the east and west sides of downtown, relieve traffic on nearby streets and, at the same time, deter large-scale vehicular bomb threats to the building and its occupants, the Post reported.
Clinton closed the avenue between 15th and 17th streets NW on May 20, 1995, five weeks after a massive bomb in a parked truck destroyed much of the Alfred P. Murrah federal office building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
The design initiative was undertaken at the behest of the Federal City Council, an influential nonprofit organization of the city's business elite. The effort has the backing of D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mayor Anthony A. Williams, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., and other political leaders. The mayor issued a statement saying, "We want to work together with the Clinton administration to develop a solution that balances safety and convenience."
"There is no such thing as absolute security and there need not be," said Moynihan, who has called for a "national conversation" on the security issue. "These are able designers, able traffic people," he said of the proposal's authors. "They know what they are talking about, and they are right."
