Planners look to give signs, maps on Mall more direction
By: Lindsay Perna
Special to The Examiner
March 6, 2009
Regional planning officials want to use improved signs and maps to help visitors on the National Mall better navigate the historic sites.
Detailed maps and uniform signs would be part of a twofold “wayfinding” system that will better direct foot traffic on the Mall, sign designers said Thursday at a presentation to the National Capital Planning Commission.
“Excessive, mismatched signage degrades our dignified memorials and monuments,” said T. Wayne Hunt, the principal designer of the renovated signs.
Hunt developed plans for updated signs around 68 historical hot spots on a 2-mile-long, 1-mile-wide National Mall. He wants to place in strategic spots along the Mall pillars with iconic images and pointers to historical sites. His plan would consolidate signage, reducing their numbers by nearly half.
Installation would be in three phases: around the Lincoln Memorial and parts of Constitution and Independence avenues; East and West Potomac Parks; and the Washington Monument and Grant Memorial.
Commission members said they were concerned about key attractions that Hunt didn’t include on his pillars.
“Those are the most visited sites in the federal city,” said Harriet Tregoning, director of planning for the District.
Tregoning said that under the proposal, visitors would be on their own to find the sites until they enter the National Park Service’s designated National Mall space.
“We shouldn't be defining the Mall by who has jurisdiction over proportions of it, except by its symbolic quality,” said Judy Scott Feldman, the president of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall.
After the commission meeting, Hunt and Stephen Lorenzetti of the National Park Service said they would compromise by including a wider coverage area on the maps, which also would designate mileage between sites.
Hunt’s team will rework its designs and present them to the commission next month.
