Excerpt from Proceedings of the Twelfth National Conference on City Planning: Cincinnati, April, 19-22, 1920

With this ground-plan of action mapped out, the Commission proceeded to make the fundamental studies of the city which must necessarily constitute the foundation upon which may be built any enduring plan. Traffic counts were made at about 250 points to determine the trend of traffic: (1) foot passengers; (2) automobile trucking; (3) automobile pleasure vehicles; (4) horse drawn vehicles, and (5) trolley cars. This accurate count was charted on maps and tables and proved of immense value in draw ing up a major street plan.

The next step was to make a population map representing each five families with a dot. It ought to be emphasized at this point that this map, as all other studies representing the physical char acter and social activities of the city, included every square foot within the corporate limits of St. Louis. The process of map making was a very laborious and costly procedure, but the end achieved fully justified the means in labor and money expended.

It was interesting to note how invariably the population fol lowed closely the transit facilities provided by the street-car Sys tem of the city. It explained also why certain sections of the city lacked normal development because of the lack of such street car facilities and was an invaluable aid in developing a rational plan which provides equitable development for the entire city. This Transit Plan, as will be emphasized later, is now completely developed, has been tentatively approved by the officials of the controlling corporation with practically no modification whatso ever and will be published in the near future.

The recreational facilities and the use made of them were also charted by dots on the map, each one of which represented a per mit issued by the Department-of Public Welfare for playing tennis, golf, baseball, etc. It illustrated graphically the zone served by each recreational center, and proved, as nothing else could have done, the necessity for providing these facilities in all parts of the city, but especially their urgent need in the most populous districts which, generally speaking, remained unserved at the present time. This was constituted the basis of the Recreational Report which has been published by the Commission.

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