America's Highways 1776–1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program/Part 1/Chapter 12

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America's Highways 1776–1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program
Federal Highway Administration

Events Leading to Enactment of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act

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Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, pages 154–196

3963224America's Highways 1776–1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program — Events Leading to Enactment of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway ActFederal Highway Administration

Events Leading
to the
Enactment
of the 1956
Federal-Aid Highway Act

Rapid Recovery of Motor Traffic to Prewar Levels

After the surrender of Japan, the American economy shifted from war to peace with remarkable speed. Huge wartime savings, some $44 billion, created an insatiable market for housing and for all kinds of goods, including new automobiles to replace the decrepit vehicles that had survived the war. Automobile production jumped from a mere 69,532 in 1945 to over 2.1 million in 1946, 3.5 million in 1947 and 3.9 million in 1948.^[1]

Reflecting this vast increase in vehicle production, registrations increased 22 percent, from the wartime low of 30.6 million vehicles to 37.4 million vehicles in 1947. (In this period trucks increased by 34 percent.) With the end of rationing and emergency speed controls, highway travel reached its prewar peak in 1946 and began a steady climb of about 6 percent per year that was to continue for decades.^[2]

The Nation’s highways were in poor shape to receive this traffic. Most of. the deficiencies disclosed in the 1941 survey of the strategic network still existed in 1946. Under wartime restrictions, the States could do little to remedy them, and, in fact, because of wide-spread operation of overloaded trucks and reduced maintenance, the State highway systems were in worse shape structurally after the war than before.

The Urban Traffic Problem

In and near the cities, hundreds of miles of highways were functionally obsolete because of narrow pavements, ribbon development and insufficient capacity. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, migration of the more affluent inhabitants to outlying suburban areas created expansive thinly spread residential communities surrounding the major cities. This movement to the suburbs, which began in the days of the steam and electric railroads, was greatly accelerated by the private automobile. As the street and highway networks expanded, more and more people found it convenient to live in the suburbs and drive to and from work, but the convenience decreased rapidly as the highways became congested with ever-increasing volumes of vehicles.

The city, county and State highway authorities tried to keep up with the traffic increase, first by widening streets and highways and then by providing special high-capacity roads such as parkways and expressways, commonly financed by bond issues.^{[N 1]} These special facilities expanded the radius of suburban development and attracted so much more traffic that they too became seriously congested.

↑ In the prewar period, the outstanding examples of such deluxe facilities were the Westchester County Parkways and the Long Island State Parkway System. The latter, begun in 1925, by 1947 had expanded into a 158-mile network of commuter arteries tying western Long Island to downtown New York.^[3] In the west, the Arroyo Seco Parkway between Los Angeles and Pasadena, opened in 1940, was a dramatic demonstration of what could be done to move large volumes of traffic to and from the suburbs.

With the postwar availability of VA housing and new automobiles, people began to move from the city to outlying suburban areas. Highway authorities tried to keep pace with the commuters, but the day was at hand for the rush-hour traffic jam.

An “origin-and-destination” survey.

Before the war was over, many of the State highway departments became involved with the large cities and urban counties in the planning of costly schemes for expanding highway capacities. Most of the Federal aid provided by Congress for postwar planning went into urban highways.

Federal Aid for Urban Highways

In its early days, the Federal-aid program applied strictly to rural roads, “excluding every street and road in a place having a population, as shown by the latest available Federal census, of two thousand five hundred or more, . . .”^[4] This exclusion was suspended in the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of 1932 and the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, and abolished altogether in the Hayden-Cartwright Act of 1934. Thereafter, the States enlarged their Federal-aid systems to include extensions of Federal-aid routes into and through municipalities and even new routes wholly within urban areas, but the main interest of the State highway departments was in the rural highway systems outside the cities.

Congress changed all this in 1944 by specifically earmarking $125 million annually for the first 3 post-war years for roads in urban areas. These funds were to be apportioned to the States in the ratio that their urban populations (cities of 5,000 or more inhabitants) bore to the national urban population. In the same Act, Congress established the National System of Interstate Highways and required that its routes should be selected by the States within the cities as well as between them. Thus, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 brought the State highway departments, and also the Public Roads Administration (PRA), actively into the field of city and regional transportation planning beside the city and county officials.^{[N 1]}

↑ The Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) had pioneered in urban traffic studies in the Cook County Transportation Survey of 1924, the first comprehensive study of traffic in an urban region including a large city^[5] and in the Cleveland Regional Area Traffic Survey of 1927. The latter was the first concerted study by all levels of government of the traffic problems of a single metropolitan region.^[6]

Urban Traffic Studies

Before they could designate the urban Interstate System arteries with confidence, the planners needed to know a great deal more than they already knew about the movements of traffic within cities and between cities and their suburbs:

Traffic within an urban area is more complex than on rural roads. Traffic volumes are larger, and arteries are much more numerous. Parallel streets offer many alternate routes of travel, and it is not possible to tell from observing traffic volumes alone where the drivers really want to go. Drivers often travel considerable distances out of their way to use exceptionally attractive routes, or to avoid congested or unattractive routes. Examples of this have been noted in numerous cities and origin-and-destination surveys have shown that the facts were sometimes quite different from assumptions made by engineers with long familiarity with the local situation.^[7]

The old techniques that had been developed in previous years during the cooperative State-BPE traffic surveys and the statewide highway planning surveys, such as driver interviews and postcard questionnaires, were too costly, too cumbersome or not sufficiently accurate. The planners needed a better method of estimating future traffic flows, and they found it in the “origin-and-destination survey,” a sampling technique developed in 1944 by the PRA with the help of the Bureau of the Census.^[8] The origin-destination surveys were made by interviewing a sample of the urban population at their homes and obtaining from each family in the sample detailed information on the travel habits of its members. Samples varied from as small as 1 dwelling unit in 30 to as high as 1 in 3, but averaged about 1 in 10.

During 1944 and 1945 the State highway departments and local officials, with the help of the PRA, analyzed the needs of 30 large metropolitan areas and 135 cities of 50,000 or less population.

By providing the means to estimate the traffic volumes that will use any specific route, these studies serve to evaluate the merits of proposals advanced by different groups within an urban area, and to bring together the various local agencies in the support of a single plan. Availability of the facts often permits harmonizing the views of differing factions, each of whose proposals, in the absence of facts, is of necessity based on opinions.^[9]

A Larger Share of the Highway Dollar for Non-Federal-Aid System Roads

As statewide traffic increased, so did gasoline tax revenues, and inevitably there was political pressure to distribute some of this revenue to the counties as State aid for their roads. In many States a considerable part of the State-collected road-user revenues was redistributed to the counties, and often in greater amounts than was generated within a specific county.^{[N 1]}

As the State contributions increased, most counties reduced their own support for local roads (the revenues being derived mostly from property taxation) so that by 1947 local governments were carrying only about 40 percent of the cost of construction and maintenance where 20 years before they had carried over 80 percent.^[11]^{[N 2]}

The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and the Hayden-Cartwright Act of 1934 had provided emergency funds that could be spent on “secondary or feeder” roads off the Federal-aid system “to be agreed upon by the State highway departments and the Secretary of Agriculture.” Although not required by the legislation, the Secretary, through the Bureau of Public Roads, insisted that these funds be spent on connected road systems in each State as a condition for his agreement.^[12] The States then, in selecting systems, for the most part, selected the roads carrying the most traffic, but not necessarily those most desired by the local officials. These systems totaled about 138,500 miles, and on them about $245 million of emergency relief and regular Federal-aid funds were spent by the States in the period from 1934 to 1943.

Nevertheless, there was widespread dissatisfaction with the county roads among rural residents, accompanied by an unwillingness to increase taxes to improve them. This feeling led to increased political pressure on the State governments for a larger share of road-user taxes and also pressure on Congress for direct Federal aid to the counties. In 1943 Senator A. T. Stewart of Tennessee introduced a bill to set up a Rural Local Roads Administration with $1.1 billion in Federal funds to be distributed among the counties without going through the State highway departments.^[13] This bill never emerged from committee, but its supporters were able to include a very generous measure of assistance for local rural roads in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944.

The Federal-Aid Secondary Road System

The 1944 Act authorized the appropriation of $150 million in each of the first 3 postwar years for projects on the “principal secondary and feeder roads” but required that the funds be spent on “a system of such roads selected by the State highway departments in cooperation with the county supervisors, county commissioners, or other appropriate local road officials, and the Commissioner of Public Roads.” The money was to be apportioned to the States one-third according to State area, one-third according to rural population and one-third according to the mileage of rural mail delivery and star routes, and the Federal share of any project was limited to 50 percent.

Congress imposed no mileage or percentage limits on the secondary system, and it soon became apparent to the State highway departments that their previously selected secondary systems were not nearly large enough to satisfy the local authorities. However, the PRA arbitrarily set guidelines for selecting routes which had the effect of limiting the mileage. First, these guidelines required that the State Federal-Aid Primary System and the selected Secondary System be integrated to form continuous networks. Second, the PRA limited the mileage it would approve to a system not larger than could be constructed and maintained with the funds that “might reasonably be expected to be provided” according to past performance in the area.^{[N 3]}

The system approved by the Commissioner of Public Roads in June 1946 totaled 217,073 miles, but this was just a beginning, as tens of thousands of miles of additional routes were then still under review. According to the PRA, “No route is approved without first assessing its importance by reference to the records made in the planning surveys showing locations of farms, schools, churches, and business establishments, type of existing road improvement, general population distribution, and the amount of traffic.”^[14] By June 1947 the Secondary System had increased to 350,809 miles and by 1948 to 377,622 miles. It reached 502,676 miles in 1955.

↑ In 1944 it was estimated that nationally, about 61 percent of road-user revenues was going to the State highway departments, about 26 percent to the counties and cities for their roads and streets, and the rest to nonhighway uses.^[10]
↑ In Delaware, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia (except for two counties), the highway departments are responsible for all roads outside of municipalities because the local governments succeeded in shifting the entire road burden to the State.
↑ Planning for the Federal-Aid Secondary Systems had the beneficial effect of forcing the States to reexamine and update their Primary Systems. Nationwide, about 40 percent of the Federal-aid secondary routes were already under State control or were immediately taken over by the States. The rest remained under local control.

The States Select Interstate System Routes

By the 1944 Act, Congress had limited the National System of Interstate Highways to 40,000 miles and had also provided that the routes should be selected by joint action of the State highway departments of each State and the adjoining States. All routes so selected were automatically to become part of the Federal-Aid Primary System without regard to previous mileage limits on that System.^{[N 1]}

In February 1945 the PEA requested each State to submit recommendations for the Interstate System routes within its boundaries. When these recommendations were all in, they totaled 45,070 miles—considerably over the legal limit and far above the 33,920 miles recommended by the Interregional Highway Committee.^[16] Two thousand miles were circum- ferential or distributing routes around the large cities. The PRA decided to defer consideration of these to a later date and concentrate on getting the States to agree on the main routes between the cities.

After weeding out the routes with the weakest justifications and adding a small mileage requested by the War Department, the PRA came up with a total of 37,324 miles for the main routes. In March 1946 the PRA sent each of the States a map showing this tentative integrated system and asked for their concurrence. The first State to concur was Nebraska, and by June 1946 acceptances had been received from 37 States.^[17]

It required a year for the PRA and the remaining 11 States to iron out their differences, but agreement was finally reached on a 37,681-mile System, including 2,882 miles of urban thoroughfares. Some 2,319 miles were reserved for urban circumferential and distributing routes, to be selected later. The Federal Works Administrator approved this System on August 2, 1947.^[18]

Interstate System Standards Adopted

While the States were selecting the Interstate routes, the PRA asked the American Association of State Highway Officials to propose standards to control the location and design of the Interstate highways. “There was no thought of requiring that every mile of the system be built according to a rigid pattern but it was believed essential that there be a high degree of uniformity where conditions as to traffic, population density, topography, and other factors are similar.”^[19]

The projected routes of the Interstate System as approved by the Federal Works Administrator, 1947.

AASHO’s Committee on Planning and Design Policies had been formed in 1937 to review and evaluate the immense amount of research and operational information on highways that had accumulated since the 1920’s.^{[N 2]} Between 1938 and 1944 the Committee summarized the existing knowledge of geometric design and good design practice in seven “Policies” which were adopted by the Association and became, in effect, the national design policies for highways. Because of this prior work, the Committee was able to recommend standards for the Interstate System by June 1945, and these were adopted by AASHO and approved by the Federal Works Administrator in August 1945.^{[N 3]}

Of necessity, the Interstate standards were a compromise. A few States thought they were inadequate, pointing to the provision permitting three-lane highways for traffic volumes intermediate between those requiring a two-lane highway and those requiring a four-lane divided highway. Some criticized the weak provisions permitting grade crossings with railroads and other highways for low-traffic sections of the Interstate System. In these respects, the standards fell far below those for existing parkways and turnpikes which had been held up to the public by many people as the ideal for the Interstate System.

To get wide acceptance of the standards, the Committee equivocated on other elements of design by setting up “minimum” and “desirable” levels of de- sign. Thus, for level country, a State could elect to use either a 60- or 70-mile per hour design speed. For right-of-way, the “desirable” width for divided highways was 250 feet, but in a pinch the State could get by with the “minimum” of 150 feet.

↑ The Federal-aid system (later the Primary System) was limited to 7 percent of each State’s total highway mileage by the 1921 Act. Congress, in 1932, allowed 1 percent increments to be added as a State improved 90 percent of the entire Federal-aid system in that State.^[15]
↑ Thomas H. MacDonald was chairman of this powerful committee from its inception until 1944. The Committee’s working staff of design experts was supplied by the BPR (and PRA) and functioned under Joseph Barnett, who was also secretary of the Committee.
↑ When the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act specifically called for adoption of uniform design standards for the Interstate System, these earlier standards were the basis for the new standards, permitting completion of the work in 2 to 3 months.

The lack of access control prevented free-flowing movement on this four-lane, undivided bypass of U.S. 101 in California.

Control of Access Recommended but Not Required for Interstate System

The most important deficiency in the standards concerned a matter over which AASHO had no control and little influence with the States. This was the control of access to the highway from abutting property. Two decades of experience had shown that new highways invariably attracted ribbon development by commercial enterprises catering to the traffic on the highway. Movements to and from these businesses disrupted the traffic stream on the highway and greatly increased accidents. Eventually, the ability of the highway to carry traffic was reduced far below its original capacity by the roadside activity. At the same time the cost of future widening was made prohibitive. Gradually, highway administrators began to realize that the only way to protect the capacity of the highway was to deny or restrict access to the road from the adjacent private property. This growing realization ran counter to the most deeply ingrained traditions of English common law and also most American statute law, which granted to abutters the very rights highway administrators now sought to take away.

The Bronx Kiver Parkway Commission acquired a broad expanse of parkland along each side of the parkway road. This practice effectively controlled access to the road while avoiding the question of the loss of access rights to abutting property owners. However, there was some doubt as to whether this was really sufficient, and the Westchester County Parkway Commission made it their practice to purchase access rights and specifically mention them in the deeds.^[20] The Pennsylvania Legislature in the act creating the Turnpike Commission gave the Commission the power to acquire access rights, by eminent domain, if necessary. However, very few State legislatures conferred such rights on their highway commissions. By 1945 only 17 States had laws permitting the control of access to State highways.

The Committee on Planning and Design Policies skirted this ticklish question by saying,

Where State laws permit, control of access shall be obtained on all new locations and on all old locations wherever economically possible. . . In those States which do not have legal permission to acquire control of access, additional right-of-way should be obtained adequate for the building of frontage roads connecting with controlled access points, if and when necessary.^[21]

Slow Start of the Postwar Highway Program

When the war ended, the States were well prepared with plans for the largest highway program in history. On the shelf ready to go were plans for $590 million worth of road improvements, and plans for another $2.5 billion worth of work were well advanced. A total of about $624 million in Federal aid was available from prewar and postwar authorizations, and most of the States had ample matching funds saved up during the war/^[22] Most highway departments anticipated some difficulty in obtaining trained engineers and building contractors, but this did not seem at first to be a great obstacle.

On October 2, 1945, Congress, by concurrent resolution, declared that the war emergency had been relieved to such an extent that the postwar road program authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 could proceed. About the same time most of the wartime restrictions on road building were lifted. Eager to launch the postwar program as soon as possible, and urged on by the PEA, the State highway departments advertised hundreds of jobs during the winter of 1945–46, some of them for very large bridges or urban expressways.

The result was, in some respects, a repetition of the 1920 experience. During World War II the inflation in road construction prices had been held to about 6 percent per year by price controls, and after 1943, by scarcity of work. A number of contractors had gone out of business, and those remaining were short of serviceable equipment and labor. The increased offerings of the State highway departments in 1945 and 1946 quickly saturated the available capacity of the construction industry and prices began to rise. At the same time materials scarcities developed, particularly in steel and lumber, which were in great demand for housing. The general uncertainty in prices and supplies resulted in higher bids, and by the end of 1946, the prices of highway structures had risen 24 percent over the 1945 level. Concrete pavement was up 12 percent.^[23]

The States began rejecting the low bids that were far above preliminary estimates in an attempt to stem the tide of advancing prices. By the end of fiscal year 1946, only 1,958 contracts for $298 million of construction had been awarded—less than a third of earlier expectations. Twenty-two percent of all low bids received had been rejected as too high.^[24] In some States, rejections ran as high as 30 percent of the low bids received.

This policy of rejecting low bids was ineffective, largely because the country was in the early stages of a building boom fueled not only by the State road programs, but also by large city expressway schemes, a huge increase in housing, and construction for industrial reconversion.

In August 1946, the Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion restricted highway construction to ease competition with the housing program for scarce materials. This restriction was lifted in October except for structural steel, but it had its effect along with rising prices in reducing State contract awards. Prices in 1947 reached a level 45 percent above 1945 prices and nearly double the prewar level. Unwilling to admit that prices had risen permanently to a new plateau, the States rejected 18 percent of all low bids received in fiscal year 1947.

Despite these difficulties, the States made a much better showing in 1947 than 1946, awarding contracts for 47,163 miles of road estimated to cost $817.7 million. Most of these were for rural primary or rural secondary roads and for simple projects such as repaving which did not require right-of-way or expensive plans.

The situation was quite different in the urban areas where most of the projects were arterial street widenings, new expressways or large bridges. Some of these schemes were very large indeed and required the acquisition and demolition of hundreds of buildings and the relocation of many families at a time when it was almost impossible to find other housing for them.

The State highway departments, usually in cooperation with the large cities or urban counties, started over a score of expensive expressway projects in 1947, each expected to cost in the millions. New York began clearing the way for the $34 million Cross-Bronx Expressway and the equally expensive Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Massachusetts began the Northern Circumferential Highway around the Boston metropolitan area, while Michigan launched the John C. Lodge Expressway and the Edsel Ford Expressway in Detroit, each expected to cost over $6 million per mile. In Chicago work began on the Congress Street Expressway, an eight-lane depressed freeway designed to accommodate 4,000 vehicles per hour in each direction, and estimated to cost $69 million. Expressways in Denver, Dallas, Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Oakland, Jacksonville, Miami, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh added to the huge total.

The shortages of contractors, labor, materials and equipment persisted through 1947, 1948, and into 1949. In addition, a severe shortage of highway engineers developed in 1946 and became worse as the highway departments expanded their programs. Most States had failed to raise their pay scales to keep in step with the inflation, and as a result, many engineers did not return to State service after the war or left for other employment in industry.

The Bronx River Parkway with controlled access and extensive parkland along each side.

Struggling against these handicaps and the continuing high prices, the States were able to obligate only 36 percent of their Federal-aid authorizations in fiscal year 1946, 62 percent in 1947, and 79 percent in 1948. It was necessary for Congress to extend the availability of the postwar authorizations by 1 year, and the unused backlog was so large that Congress made no authorization for fiscal year 1949 and reduced the authorizations for 1950 and 1951.

The Local Rural Road Problem

Although slow, there was improvement, and in 1949 the annual mileage of completed roads had reached the 1937 level of 21,000 miles, including about 14,000 miles of farm-to-market roads. But this did not satisfy the extreme rural road advocates.

The dissatisfaction in the counties found expression in two bills before Congress which would set up a Rural Roads Division in the Public Roads Administration with authority to dispense $100 to $200 million annually to the counties and local political subdivisions without going through the State highway departments.^[25] There was also some rural sentiment for doing away with all system restrictions on rural roads so that their benefits could be more widely distributed among the rural population.

In testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Roads on these bills, Commissioner MacDonald asserted that the proposed legislation would entail a “vast amount of costly supervision” on the part of the PRA to insure that the aided roads received proper maintenance. Rural roads, he said, were necessarily of light construction and required efficient and continuous maintenance to preserve their integrity. Past experience had shown that maintenance was the very aspect of road management in which the counties were weakest. Approval of the bills, according to MacDonald, would greatly dilute and weaken the fundamentally sound rural road program already in operation.^[26] In May 1949, the Subcommittee requested Commissioner MacDonald to make a study of the rural road problem and report back to the Subcommittee by January 1950.

This rural road was widened but is still too narrow for 1953 traffic.

The PRA’s study, made with the help of the Board of County Consultants^{[N 1]} and the State highway departments, did little to assuage the feelings of the extreme ruralists. The survey disclosed that of the 2.5 million miles of local roads in the United States in 1949, 323,000 miles were already on the Federal-Aid Secondary System. Another 100,000 miles carrying at least 100 vehicles per day could and should be transferred to the Federal-Aid Secondary System.^[27] Another 400,000 miles was described as “wholly nonessential.” To bring the remaining 1.8 million miles up to acceptable standards and provide adequate main- tenance over a 20-year period would cost the local governments about $894 million per year. Since the local units were already spending $835 million per year on roads, the PEA concluded “It is apparent that a relatively small addition, with efficient management, applied to a planned program would be sufficient to accomplish the satisfactory improvement of local roads in a period of 20 years.”^[28]

The report concluded that what local roads needed was not so much more money as improved administration. Federal cooperation and participation, the PRA thought, could best be achieved through coordination at the State level.

↑ In 1946 the Federal Works Administrator appointed a Board of County Consultants consisting of 10 county officials from the PRA’s 10 geographical administrative areas to advise the PRA on the secondary road program.

BPR “Driver Behavior” studies to measure speed, spacing, and lateral vehicle placement on the road, 1945.

Highway Needs Versus Financial Resources

In the early 1920’s some economists and even engineers predicted that the market for motor cars would become saturated. As the number of motor vehicles stabilized, road mileage and the need for road improvement would also stabilize. Eventually, the highway system would reach a state of “maturity” at which time there would be a diminishing need for capital expenditures, and most of the highway revenues would be used for maintenance.

This prediction was never realized. Instead, as national income increased, the automobile market expanded even more. The manufacturers were able to spend large sums on research, and they greatly improved the performance and reliability of motor vehicles. After World War I, motor trucks, which previously had operated only in cities, took to the highways and rapidly increased in numbers, size and speed.

As already noted, the highway administrators responded to this ever-increasing and continually changing vehicle population first, by upgrading the old wagon roads, and then by building improved new roads tailored to the motor vehicle. Finally, they invented new types of roads such as parkways and expressways to move huge volumes of traffic at high speeds. As the roads improved, the annual usage per vehicle increased, so that highway traffic built up faster than vehicle registrations in a self-reinforcing spiral. The highway system never reached maturity. The need for capital expenditures did not diminish, but increased enormously.

By the middle 1940’s, most States had accepted as a virtual certainty that their road systems would never be completed. They realized that they would have to plan highway improvements far into the future and establish a policy that would recognize future needs and provide for them:

Establishment of a highway policy that will result in adequate highway service in the future requires determination of the proper size and cost of systems of the different classes of highways needed. There must be an equitable plan for distribution of costs among highway users and general taxpayers, allocation of authority and financial responsibility among levels of government, and regulation of highway use to protect users and to obtain maximum service. Each element is so interrelated with others that complete facts on present conditions and most up-to-date results of transportation research are essential to develop an over-all analysis of highway needs to serve the interests of all in an equitable manner.^[29]

In 1947, the California Legislature created a joint fact-finding committee from both houses to study the highway needs of the State “and to recommend a policy and means of putting that policy into action.”^[30] The Michigan Good Roads Federation undertook a similar statewide needs analysis. Other States followed, and by 1950, 13 had published needs reports, and others were working on the complex studies for such reports.

The legislative and other fact-finding committees depended on their State highway departments, assisted by the BPR, to supply the factual information for their studies. Most of this factual material came from the tremendous bank of economic and traffic data assembled by the statewide planning surveys begun in the middle 1930’s. There was also a large amount of research information on driver behavior and the vehicle-carrying capacity of urban streets and rural roads that had been assembled before and after the war by the BPR, the States and the Highway Research Board’s Committee on Highway Capacity.

The compilation of future needs was simple in principle, but laborious in practice. First, the analysts had to forecast the traffic that might be expected in a future year and then assign the future traffic to the various roads in the several systems. Then, knowing the present condition of these roads and the desirable standards to handle the forecasted traffic, they could compile a list of “deficiencies.” Finally, they would compute the future cost of the construction needed to overcome these deficiencies. The sum of these costs was the estimate of needs for the particular year studied.

These predictions of future needs were necessarily painted with a broad brush. First, they depended on the continuation of past population, economic, vehicle registration, and traffic trends. And then there was considerable difference of opinion among the States as to what the standards should be to accommodate the future traffic. Nevertheless, there was a broad general agreement that the past trends would continue or even be exceeded and that the AASHO standards would be adequate or at least tolerable. The needs estimates were widely accepted as being well within the accuracy required for long-range financial plans and also for arousing popular support for the increased taxes and highway imposts that would be required to realize those plans.

It is safe to say that most of the State legislatures were astounded and dismayed by the size of the backlog of needs as shown by the needs studies. The California legislative committee found that it would cost $1.7 billion over a 10-year period to bring the State’s roads up to a reasonable standard. The cost in Washington was estimated at $509 million and in Oregon at $468 million.^[31] The Michigan committee found needs that would cost $1.75 billion to remedy.^[32] Connecticut, one of the smallest States in area, found needs exceeding $400 million, and in Massachusetts the needs exceeded $700 million.^[33]

In 1950 AASHO made its own needs study and asserted that what was needed nationally to catch up with highway needs was a $4 billion annual program for 15 years ($1 billion for maintenance, $2.5 billion for construction and $500 million for interest, amortization and administration).^[34] About the same time the Congressional Joint Committee on the Economic Report set the immediate national road needs at $41 billion.^[35]

The reaction to the disclosure of these massive needs varied from State to State. The California Legislature immediately increased the gasoline tax by 1½ cents per gallon and radically amended the highway laws to speed up right-of-way acquisition and permit acquisition of land in advance of actual need to forestall speculative increases in land prices. Michigan raised its 3-cent gasoline tax to 5 cents per gallon and added 2 cents to the diesel fuel tax which, along with a hefty increase in the truck weight tax, raised an additional $135 million annually.^[36] Other States looked to Congress to make up the difference between what they needed and what they could raise without pain with their current tax policies. Still others thought the solution was to get the Federal Government to withdraw from the taxing of fuel so that the States, without lowering the total tax, could use the Federal 2 cents per gallon for their own needs.

But most States decided on some form of credit financing to close at least a part of the gap. The Massachusetts Legislature authorized a $100 million bond issue backed by road-user revenues to improve the main highways and began looking into toll financing for some highways.^[37] By a two-to-one vote, the voters of North Carolina approved a $200 million bond issue for rural roads. The bonds, backed by the faith and credit of the State, sold to yield an effective interest rate of only 1.52 percent.^[38]^{[N 1]}

↑ By comparison North Carolina sold its road bonds in 1920 to produce an effective interest rate of 5 percent.

Traffic was concentrated around the cities, but the need to upgrade rural roads also demanded that limited funds be spread across the State, resulting in pavement widening projects such as this.

In New York, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, despairing of ever completing the Thruway System from diversion-depleted current revenues, authorized a study of revenue bond financing backed by tolls. When this study showed that tolls alone would not carry the project, the Legislature created the New York Thruway Authority and empowered it to sell $500 million in bonds backed by the State’s credit.^[39]

Some State legislatures decided to wring as much as possible of the needed revenue from road users in the form of tolls on the theory that “every dollar that can be obtained from private sources to extend existing toll highways will mean a dollar of regular highway income released to match federal aid for highway building in some other part of the state.”^[40] Other States, notably New Jersey, switched from pay-as-you-go financing to revenue bonds backed by tolls to build their most expensive and heavily traveled arteries. Between 1950 and 1954, the legislatures of 19 States created independent toll road authorities or authorized their State highway departments to build toll roads.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1950 permitted the States to borrow funds in the bond market against future Federal-aid apportionments. However, this authority did not make any new money available to the States or enhance their credit or change their own constitutional debt limits; and further, Congress carefully disclaimed any obligation to provide the future Federal-aid funds that might be used to redeem the bonds. Consequently, only a few States availed themselves of the privilege, and these for comparatively small amounts.

The Financial Dilemma of the State Highway Departments

The prices bid for highway construction peaked in late 1948 and then stabilized at about twice the prewar level. Highway maintenance costs also doubled because of the war and postwar inflation. This put the State highway departments in a double price squeeze at a time when highway traffic, and particularly truck traffic, was increasing alarmingly.^{[N 1]} As the States put increasingly more of their income into maintenance, the money left for new construction, including Federal-aid matching, became less. The purchasing power of this remainder was only half that of the prewar period, yet the increased traffic demanded much heavier, wider and costlier roads than the prewar models.

Traffic growth was not uniform but was concentrated most heavily in the industrial States and, to a large extent, on a very small mileage near and between the large cities. Yet it was politically impossible for the highway departments to concentrate their funds on this small mileage. Their programs were designed to distribute highway work rather evenly over their States, and in a situation where all roads needed some improvement, it was not possible to deny some areas in order to build a few miles of costly superhighways near the cities.

Practically all of the States agreed that the most troublesome congestion was on the selected Interstate System routes. These had long been the most important traffic arteries and were now the oldest and most obsolete. Most of the highway departments made a determined effort to upgrade these old roads, and through fiscal year 1948 they channeled about 22 percent of their postwar primary and urban Federal aid and matching money, amounting to $384 million, into interstate projects. These totaled over 2,000 miles, including 800 bridges and grade separations, but this was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the obvious needs.

↑ In the 4 years from 1947 to 1950, registrations of privately owned vehicles increased by 11.2 million units—to a total of 48.60 million.^[41] Annual vehicle miles of travel by passenger automobiles increased by 21 percent and by trucks 37 percent. In 1950, about 48 percent of the travel was in urban places, the rest on the rural roads.^[42]

Congress Orders Reevaluation of Defense Highway Needs

As the States struggled to keep up with continual traffic increases, Western Europe was approaching economic collapse, and relations with the Soviet Union were deteriorating to a state of “cold war.” In 1947 Congress acted to provide massive military and economic aid for Turkey and Greece to help them resist Communist aggression. In April 1948 Congress approved the $17 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. In June 1948 the Soviets blockaded Berlin, and the United States responded with a massive air- lift to break the blockade.

In the tense atmosphere of these events, Congress became more conscious of the growing inadequacy of the country’s highways, and particularly the Interstate System to sustain a possible remobilization. It added a provision to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1948 requiring the Commissioner of Public Roads to study the needs or potential needs of the Interstate System for national defense in cooperation with the Secretary of Defense, the State highway departments and the National Security Resources Board and report back to Congress not later than April 1, 1949.

The study began with a detailed inventory which disclosed an amazing diversity of geometric standards, widths and types of pavements, and dimensions and strengths of bridges among the 37,800 miles of existing roads in the System. The average age of the road surfaces was 12 years and 13 percent were more than 20 years old and nearing the end of their useful lives. In the rural sections, 6,000 miles had surfaces less than 20 feet wide and only 4,147 miles had more than two lanes. On 6,273 miles, the shoulders were less than 4 feet wide. There were 1,262 grade crossings with main line railroads and another 785 with branch lines and spur tracks. Of the 12,048 bridges on the System, only 677 were found to be below AASHO’s H 15 capacity, but there were many more of inadequate width, including 52 one-way bridges less than 18 feet wide. Of the existing bridges, 1,245, aggregating 29 miles in length, were of wooden construction.^[43]

The PRA and the States measured the traffic using each section of the System and estimated the cost of upgrading each section to handle this traffic according to the standards proposed by AASHO for Interstate highways. They found that many sections would have to be completely relocated to meet the design speed, sight distance and gradient requirements and that the relocations would shorten the total length of the system by about 641 miles. All together, the investigators found that it would take an investment of $11.3 billion at 1948 prices to bring the Interstate System up to an acceptable standard to handle 1948 traffic. To meet this need in a 20-year period would require an investment of at least $500 million per year, according to the PRA’s report.

However, the report stated that the needs of the national defense would require a “substantially more rapid improvement,” and it pointed out that tremendous benefits to the civilian economy would flow from a faster rate of modernization. Rather than stretch out the work over 20 years, the PRA suggested credit financing with appropriations sufficient to amortize the bonds in 20 years. To this end, the report recommended that Congress consider permitting the States to borrow capital now to complete their sections of the Interstate System and use their future Federal-aid apportionments to repay the borrowings. To further promote rapid completion, the report suggested that Congress increase the Federal share of the cost of Interstate projects and also earmark funds specifically for the Interstate System. These earmarked funds should be apportioned so that the improvement of the System would proceed at about the same rate in all the States.^[44]

In March 1950 Representative William M. Whittington of Mississippi introduced a bill to increase Federal aid for fiscal years 1952 and 1953 to $570 million per year, of which $70 million would be earmarked for the Interstate System, to be matched 75 percent Federal to 25 percent State. Whittington’s bill would also increase Federal participation in right-of-way costs to 50 percent and permit the States to use future Interstate apportionments to repay loans incurred to finance Interstate projects. This bill had the support of AASHO, except that AASHO had asked for $210 million for the Interstate instead of the paltry $70 million.^[45]

Not all the State highway people were behind AASHO in this support. Led by the influential chief engineer of the Pennsylvania State highway department, the Association of Highway Officials of the North Atlantic States (AHONAS) passed a resolution opposing any further increase in Federal aid to the States, any further earmarking of funds for particular Federal-aid systems and any increase in the Federal share of projects. Increase in the Federal share would, AHONAS asserted, lead inevitably to more Federal control and intervention in State affairs.^[46]

Other bills in the 2d session of the 81st Congress would have boosted Federal aid to $870 million annually with $100 million going directly to counties and townships. In the end, despite the continued unsettled conditions in Europe and the outbreak of war in Korea in June 1950, Congress left the road program substantially unchanged except for an increase of $50 million to restore the 1946–48 level of $500 million per year. There was no increase in the Federal matching share or any earmarking of funds for the Interstate System. The only important changes were raising Federal participation in right-of-way costs to 50 percent and the granting of permission for the States to use future Federal-aid apportionments to retire the principal of bonds issued to finance improvements on the Primary System, including the Interstate System.

Nearly 2 years passed before Congress took any further action on the PRA recommendations. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1952 increased Federal support for the Primary and Secondary Systems to $550 million each for fiscal years 1954 and 1955 and also authorized $25 million for each of these years for the Interstate System. This token amount was to be apportioned according to the original Federal-aid formula and matched 50-50 by State funds.

Two years later in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954, Congress increased the whole Federal-aid program to $875 million per year, earmarking $175 million in fiscal years 1956 and 1957 for the Interstate System and increasing the Federal share to 60 percent on Interstate projects.

The reluctance of Congress to provide adequate funding for the Interstate System can be explained in part by a rising sentiment against the principle of Federal aid, and voiced by the 1953 Governors Conference which recommended that there be no further increases in aid, and that the Federal Government withdraw from the taxation of motor fuel.^[47] However, the best excuse for congressional inaction was a strong indication from a number of States that they were well on the way to removing their worst traffic-bottlenecks by building roads without Federal assistance.

The Second Toll Road Era

The Pennsylvania Turnpike operated at a loss during the war years despite increased traffic. In 1944, 1.04 million vehicles used the turnpike and paid $1.78 million in tolls, yet the Authority lost $500,000 and had to draw on the reserve built up in 1940, 1941 and 1942.^[48]

After the war, traffic increased rapidly, and this, with increased toll rates, quickly restored profitable operation. By 1948 the turnpike’s net operating revenue was $5.6 million per year. With the financial security of its original investment assured, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the Turnpike Commission to extend the turnpike 100 miles east to Philadelphia at an estimated construction cost of $75 million and 60 miles west to the Ohio State line for about $55 million.^[49] The Commission had no trouble selling its bonds to eager investors.

Meanwhile Maine was pushing plans for a toll road to be built a few miles inland from U.S. Route 1 between the New Hampshire border and Portland. This road was expected to attract most of the summer traffic bound from New York and New England to the Maine resorts and thus take some of the pressure off congested Route 1. The Legislature thought this traffic would not mind paying a small toll to avoid the congestion on the old road.

As soon as wartime restrictions were lifted, the Maine Turnpike Authority sold $15 million of revenue bonds to finance the 47-mile road and began construction. Although the bonds were secured only by the future earnings of the turnpike, they sold readily at a net interest rate of only 2.64 percent. When the turnpike was opened in 1947, traffic exceeded estimates, and after some initial difficulties, the road operated in the black on a toll of about 1½ cents per mile.^[50]

Building the New Jersey Turnpike.

With the completion by Massachusetts of a free expressway to the New Hampshire line and the opening of the Maine Turnpike, traffic congestion became intolerable on New Hampshire’s 15-mile portion of U.S. Route 1. Unable to obtain an increase in the gas tax from the Legislature to finance major improvements for the old winding road, the Highway Commission asked for authority to build a toll road financed by State bonds. The bonds, backed by the faith and credit of the State, sold for a net interest rate of only 1.58 percent. The toll road, built in only 1 year, opened to traffic in 1950 and was enormously profitable from the outset—so much so that the Legislature decided to build two more toll roads in other parts of the State.

In 1945 the New Jersey Legislature authorized a system of free expressways and parkways to relieve congestion in the densely settled New York–Philadelphia corridor. The system was started in 1946, but in a few years it became evident that highway revenues were insufficient to complete the system in any reasonable time. The Legislature then set up the New Jersey Turnpike Authority in 1949 to build the principal artery between the George Washington Bridge and the Delaware River, a distance of 117 miles. By-passing the New York bond houses, the Authority sold its revenue bonds to a consortium of 53 insurance companies in February 1950. It then embarked on a round-the-clock construction program that finished the $285 million toll road in less than 3 years.

From the opening of the first section in 1952, the turnpike was a resounding success and by 1953 was returning six times the operating expenses for a net operating revenue of $18.2 million per year. Traffic was 22 million vehicles during 1953 of which only about 12 percent were trucks and buses.

In 1947 the New York Legislature authorized Westchester County to collect a 10-cent toll on the Hutchinson River and Sawmill River Parkways provided the county reimbursed the Federal Government for the $2.15 million of Federal-aid funds spent on these parkways.^{[N 1]}

The Toll Road Bandwagon Begins to Roll

The Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire and New Jersey Turnpikes showed rather conclusively that the public was impatient with obsolete, congested highways and was willing to pay handsomely for modern freeways.^{[N 2]} Other States, equally short of capital funds, began to consider credit financing schemes backed by tolls. Oklahoma in 1953 completed the 88-mile Turner Turnpike between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. New York, which had started its thruway as a free expressway, switched to toll financing in 1954 to accelerate construction. And West Virginia completed a 2-lane toll road from Charleston to Princeton in 1954. Colorado built the 17-mile Denver-Boulder Turnpike in 1952.

↑ The Hayden-Cartwright Act of 1934 authorized the expenditure of Federal-aid funds on “such main parkways as may be designated by the State and approved by the Secretary of Agriculture as part of the Federal-aid highway system.”
↑ In 1953 the average State gasoline tax was about 5 to 6 cents per gallon, and the Federal tax was 2 cents per gallon. Thus, the States and the Government were collecting ½ cent per mile for providing and maintaining the public highways. On top of this the toll roads collected about 1½ cents per mile in tolls so turnpikes cost their users about four times as much as free roads. There were, of course, offsetting economies in time, operating costs, and distance savings which made the turnpikes attractive.

New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway, one of the early examples of excellent design for high-speed, access-controlled roads.

Toll road authorities were created in Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia. By the end of 1954, these authorities had 1,382 miles of toll roads under construction at costs estimated to total $2.3 billion, and they were making plans and studies for 3,314 additional miles estimated to cost $3.75 billion. The 1,239 miles of toll roads already completed as of January 1955 represented an investment of $1.55 billion.^[51]

With few exceptions, these toll roads followed the routes selected by the PRA and the States for the Interstate System, and they represented the heaviest trafficked portions of that System outside the cities. At the height of the toll road boom, the turnpike authorities were investing their funds in interstate highways at about three times the rate of the State highway departments.

It is not an exaggeration to say that most of the motoring public first learned the safety and comfort of driving on access controlled roads on the turnpikes. The toll roads provided the example that later led to mandatory control of access on the Interstate System. The toll roads were high-speed divided highways with wide rights-of-way. Their geometric standards equaled or bettered AASHO’s “desirable” standards for the Interstate System. In addition, the turnpike authorities spent considerable sums to provide amenities for their users—rest areas, landscaping, built-in safety features. A few, notably New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway and portions of the New York Thruway, were planned with the two roadways totally independent of and largely concealed from each other—an advanced technique of highway design pioneered by the PRA and the National Park Service on the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. Most toll roads, however, were built in the monotonous tradition of long tangents that had dominated highway engineering for decades. Nevertheless, the toll roads, as a class, set a high standard of excellence that was hard for the State highway departments with their limited budgets to match. They provided highly visible yardsticks by which to measure the glaring inadequacies of the public highways and whetted the public appetite for better free roads.

With the great success of many of the early turnpikes, their excess capital was used to build and support less profitable roads, appearing to establish a never-ending requirement for tolls.

Tolls Forever

The feasibility of the original Pennsylvania Turnpike was assured by Federal grants of $29.5 million which greatly reduced the part of its cost that would have to be financed by revenue bonds and recovered in tolls from the road users. The success of the turnpike convinced many proponents of toll roads in and out of Congress that the much-needed improvement of the main interstate highways could be achieved by Federal subsidy of toll roads, especially those with marginal revenue potential, or even by a system of federally owned toll roads. A bill was introduced in the 80th Congress to permit the use of Federal funds on toll roads, along with the perennial bill to authorize transcontinental Federal toll expressways.^[52]

These proposals were opposed by the PRA and a long list of organizations representing highway users. The PRA’s argument was that toll roads were wasteful and solved only a part of the problem. To reduce the cost of collecting tolls, the access points had to be spaced far apart, denying the use of the road to local and short haul traffic^{[N 1]} The States or counties would have to build duplicating parallel free roads to handle this local traffic at greater total expense than it would take to build a free expressway originally.

By 1948 business was so good on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that toll collections were running far ahead of the requirements for retiring the bonds. When the Legislature authorized the 100-mile extension east to the Delaware River, the Turnpike Commission merged the financing of this extension with that of the original toll road by floating new bonds, part of which were used to pay off the original bond issue. Later other extensions were all financially tied together so that revenue from the profitable sections of the system supported the weaker sections.

This pattern of financing, long used by the Port of New York Authority,^{[N 2]} was copied in other States. Connecticut placed the income from the Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways and the Charter Oak Bridge in a revolving fund to support the bonds for a new toll expressway from Greenwich to Killingly. Maine applied the income from its first turnpike to finance a northern extension to Augusta.

This trend alarmed many State highway administrators who foresaw a situation of perpetual tolls on their main highways. In 1950 the Deputy Director of the New York Department of Public Works warned that the proliferation of toll roads would stifle free transportation and injure the national welfare.^[53] The Engineering News-Record cautioned against the danger that toll authorities would perpetuate themselves long after the original excuse for their existance (shortage of funds) has passed. “As a result, the publicly owned toll highway of today can become just as pernicious an evil as the privately owned toll road of a century or more ago.”^[54]

↑ On the Maine Turnpike the distance between access points averaged 11 miles.
↑ Tolls on the Port of New York Authority’s enormously profitable Holland Tunnel were set at a rate far higher than was necessary to retire the bonds, and the extra income was used to finance other undertakings.

Congress Sets National Policy on Toll Roads

In 1954 the New York Thruway Authority and the New Jersey Highway Authority agreed to connect the thruway and the Garden State Parkway at the State line. However, trucks were prohibited on the parkway, which meant that southbound trucks on the thruway would have to exit at the State line and continue their journey on the public roads. Critics of toll roads pointed to this decision as one of many examples of uncoordinated regional planning by the toll authorities. The connection, they said, should have been made to the New Jersey Turnpike instead of the parkway, and the decision as to where to connect should have been made by the State highway authorities in Albany and Trenton rather than by the toll road authorities.^[55]

There was also widespread criticism of allowing the toll roads to preempt the Interstate highway locations and thus condemn the free roads in those locations to a generation of inadequacy.

The Bureau of Public Roads had played a decisive role in coordinating the regional planning of the Federal-aid system by the States. However, the BPR had no influence with the toll authorities since they had not received any Federal funds. One of the reasons advanced by proponents of Federal aid for toll roads was that such aid would give the Government some control over them—at least to the extent of requiring that the roads be freed of tolls after the bonds were paid off.

The 83d Congress (1953–1954) considered the thorny problem of Federal aid for toll roads but left it unsettled by directing the Secretary of Commerce to make a study and report his recommendations to the next Congress. This report, Progress and Feasibility of Toll Roads and Their Relation to the Federal-Aid Program submitted to the 84th Congress in 1955, showed that on January 1, 1955, there were 1,239 miles of completed “arterial toll roads” in the United States, plus 1,382 miles under construction and an additional 3,314 miles authorized.^[56] Many hundreds of miles in the third category had not been studied, and their possibilities for revenue bond financing were unknown.

The BPR analyzed all highways, toll or free, that were not already adequately improved for future traffic up to the year 1984 or definitely scheduled for such improvement. The analysts found that about 6,900 miles of heavy-traffic roads were feasible for revenue bond financing, and of these, 6,700 miles were on the Interstate System routes.^[57] Whether there could be additional self-supporting toll roads, therefore, would depend upon the policies of the Federal Government and the States in the use of public funds to improve the Interstate System. “Assurance of public funds to provide reasonably early completion of the system would soon spell the end of revenue-bond financing of roads in the system. Continuation of the present inadequate allocation of funds to this system, however, can only serve to increase the mileage that would be potentially feasible as tool roads.”^[58]

The report then went on to describe the inadequate local service given by toll roads and the resulting need for parallel free highways. “Thus, even though a toll road may be readily self-liquidating, it can never relieve some public agency from the responsibility of continuing to provide local service . . . On the other hand, a properly located and designed free road can serve both the through and local traffic.”^[59]

The Secretary recommended that there be no Federal support or encouragement of new toll roads but that Congress permit the integration of existing toll roads into the System where they followed Interstate routes and met Interstate standards and where there were available reasonably satisfactory alternate free roads. No toll roads should be permitted on any other Federal-aid system.

Congress incorporated these recommendations in the new law, and also authorized the use of Federal funds on approach roads connecting acceptable toll roads to the free portions of the Interstate System. This last was conditioned on the State’s agreement to free the benefited section of toll road after retirement of the original bonds.

New Leadership for the Bureau of Public Roads

When Commissioner MacDonald reached the statutory retirement age in 1951, only a handful of the oldest employees could remember a time when he had not been in charge of the Bureau of Public Roads. The Bureau’s budget had increased from $69 million in fiscal year 1919, when he assumed control over what was then a minor bureau in the Department of Agriculture, to $485 million in 1951—about half of the Commerce Department’s total budget. In those 32 years, MacDonald had supervised the spending of over $6.6 billion of Federal aid and forest highway funds without a hint of impropriety, although not without controversy at times. He had served under six Presidents and up to that time had the longest continuous tenure of any important policymaking officer of the Government.

Under “the Chief,” as he was known for most of his career, the Bureau of Public Roads had grown from a small but capable and dedicated group of road experts to the most prestigious highway organization in the world.

When the Korean emergency developed into a national crisis, President Truman recognized the confidence MacDonald enjoyed with the Congress and with the State highway departments by persuading MacDonald to continue as Commissioner for the remainder of his Administration.

Commissioner MacDonald retired in March 1953. In his farewell remarks to the press, he emphasized the importance of continuing the traditional Federal–State partnership:

‘first, it is a workable plan to accomplish a continuing program that involves both local and national services; second, it sets a pattern in harmony with the concepts of federal government.’
The original Federal Highway Act of 1916, he said, ‘recognized the sovereignty of the states and the authority retained by the states to initiate projects. All through the legislation since then, the same mechanism of checks and balances has been maintained evenly so that the states and the federal government both have to agree before they can accomplish a positive program.’^[60]

Freed from the inhibitions of his office, MacDonald went on to state that the Federal gasoline tax revenue should be returned to the States as Federal aid, and that “it is time to give serious consideration to a charge for use of what we may call extra facilities such as controlled access express highways.”

President Eisenhower appointed Francis V. duPont as Commissioner in April 1953. A civil engineer, duPont had been chairman of the Delaware Highway Commission for 23 years and was thoroughly familiar with Federal and State road policies. In announcing his appointment, Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks made a point of also declaring that the administration had no intention of recommending that the Government retire from the taxation of gasoline as had been so loudly demanded by the 1953 Governors Conference. He also said that there were no plans to make any serious changes in the Bureau of Public Roads or its functions.

Mr. duPont assumed control over the Bureau with the expressed intention of making changes slowly, and then only after a complete review of its operations. In his first appearance before the House Subcommittee on Roads he suggested few changes in national policy. Toll roads, he said, were economically feasible at only a very few locations and would not solve the overall road finance problem. Congress, he recommended, should accelerate a solution to the vexing truck size and weight problem not by threats, but by hints that Congress would act if the States and industry did not. He thought the Federal-aid apportionment formula should be changed to give greater weight to the population factor.^[61]

The Drive for More Federal Aid

The Korean emergency coupled with the continuing steady increase in vehicle registrations imposed new strains on the highways. Freight carried by highways increased by one-third in a single year, from 107 billion ton-miles in 1949 to 142 billion ton-miles in 1950.^[62] The traffic increases affected all classes of highways but were felt most acutely on the Interstate System, a number of sections of which were carrying over 50,000 vehicles per day.

Contractors were plentiful, and construction prices reasonably stable; still, the States were barely able to keep up with traffic, especially in the cities. Some States, with BPR approval, adopted a stage construction policy for urban expressways, building them in little pieces to “provide immediate relief at the most seriously congested points, with a view to subsequent construction of an entire facility.^[63]

The real problem with all the States was a shortage of funds. Nearly all of them had increased their gasoline taxes and registration fees, but these increases barely offset the inflation in maintenance and construction costs. In their straitened circumstances, State resentment focused on the Federal gasoline tax which had originally been imposed by Congress as an emergency revenue measure but had been continued after the war and which was yielding about $1 billion annually. Some State governors also pointed to the Federal excise taxes on automobiles, trucks, tires, oils and greases which yielded another billion dollars to the Government. Since Federal aid to the States was currently only half a billion dollars, this in the eyes of the governors was diversion of road-user funds on a massive scale—the very practice penalized by the 1934 Hayden-Cartwright Act when indulged in by the States.

The congressional road committees held exhaustive hearings in 1953 in preparation for the 83d Congress biennial highway bill.

The legislation that emerged in 1954, without acknowledging any tie between Federal-aid appropriations and the Federal gasoline tax, boosted the appropriations 50 percent above any previous level, to $875 million for fiscal years 1956 and 1957, including $175 million specifically earmarked for the Interstate System and increased the Federal share on Interstate projects to 60 percent. Congress also requested a comprehensive study of the costs of completing the several systems of highways in the States—to be completed along with a new toll road study.

The House Subcommittee on Roads had argued the merits of toll financing, but in the end, Congress avoided the toll road problem in drafting the final version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954 except to ask for a study and to allow Connecticut the right to charge tolls on its proposed expressway from Greenwich to Killingly after repayment of the Federal funds previously expended on the road.

In the 1954 Act, Congress, for the first time, relaxed some of the Government’s tight control over the spending of Federal-aid funds. For secondary road projects under the Secondary Road Plan, as it came to be known, the BPR was required to approve only system changes and programing of funds and to inspect and accept completed projects. By agreement between the State and the BPR, all other details of planning, contracting and building secondary roads could be handled by the State without detailed Federal supervision. This relieved the BPR of much tedious detail and enabled it to concentrate available personnel on primary and Interstate projects.

Inflation and shortage of funds during the Korean emergency made even simple maintenance difficult for the States.

The Grand Plan

Before the Secretary could prepare either the toll road study or the highway cost study requested by Congress, President Eisenhower announced his own plan for bridging the gap between highway construction and highway needs. Choosing the annual conference of State Governors as his forum, the President asked the governors for their cooperation and help to work out the details of “ ‘. . . a grand plan for a properly articulated system that solves the problems of speedy, safe, transcontinental travel—intercity communication—access highways—and farm-to-market movement—metropolitan area congestion—bottlenecks—and parking.‘ ’^[64] To overcome the accumulated deficiencies, he called for spending $5 billion per year for 10 years, in addition to normal expenditures.^[65]^{[N 1]}

The President’s bold plan was well received. The conference appointed a Governors Highway Committee to advise the President, particularly in the matter of financing the program. The conference also refrained from further attempts to get the Federal Government to retire from gasoline taxation.

At this time, the President did not have a detailed blueprint for his Grand Plan, and he realized that a great deal of study would be needed before a definite plan could be presented to Congress for action. He appointed a Federal Interagency Committee to study highway policy within the Government and also asked General Lucius D. Clay, who had served as military governor of Germany, to head up an advisory committee of prominent citizens to determine the needs and recommend a financing plan. The Clay Committee, as it was thereafter known, held hearings and enlisted the help of AASHO and outstanding experts from public agencies, the highway industry and highway user groups.

The best estimate of needs came from AASHO which, with the help of the BPR, had updated its estimate of the needs of the Federal-aid systems in 1953. That estimate was $35 billion to make the 673,137-mile Federal-aid system adequate for 1953 traffic. Projecting the needs ahead to 1964 and adding an allowance for other roads not on any Federal-aid system, AASHO and the Committee arrived at a figure of $101 billion for the total capital needs that would have to be met by 1964.^{[N 2]} The Committee estimated that the existing sources of revenue would produce only $47 billion to meet these needs, leaving a financial gap of about $54 billion.^[68]

The Clay Committee Report

In December 1954 the Governors Conference Special Highway Committee^{[N 3]} submitted a report recommending that the Government assume the entire financial responsibility for the Interstate System and that Congress continue its 50-50 support for the remaining Federal-aid systems so long as the Government continued to levy excise taxes on motor fuels, lubricants and motor vehicles. The States and local governments, the report continued, should pay for the remaining costs, amounting to about 70 percent of the total program.^[70]

The Clay Committee agreed substantially with the governors in this division of the financial burden, but recommended that the States pay 5 percent of the cost of the Interstate System. To finance the Federal share, which they estimated at $31 billion,^{[N 4]} the Committee recommended that Congress create a Federal Highway Corporation with authority to issue $20 billion in 32-year bonds, paying the interest and amortization charges out of the future income from the Federal taxes on fuel and lubricants. The Committee estimated that the cost of the Interstate System financed by this method plus the cost of the regular Federal-aid authorizations continued at the current rate would about equal the yield of the fuel and lubricating oil taxes, projected without increase in rates to 1987.^[72]

President Eisenhower received the Clay Committee report, A 10-Year National Highway Program, in January 1955. A few months earlier he had asked for and received from Congress a $6 billion increase in the national debt limit to cover deficits incurred in the Administration’s antirecession program. The President, therefore, welcomed the Clay proposal to finance most of the road program outside the budget, and he included it as a major feature of the Administration’s highway bill which he sent to Congress in March 1955.

Meanwhile, Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Roads, was holding hearings on his own highway bill—an expanded version of the traditional biennial Federal-aid authorization providing $1.6 billion annually of Federal funds which the States would be required to match with $1.27 billion.

Both the President’s bill and the Gore bill came under strong attack in the committee hearings. Former Commissioner duPont testified that the old pay-as-you-go system was too little, too late to meet present needs: that it would take 32 years to complete the Interstate System at the rate proposed by Senator Gore.^[73]^{[N 5]} The new Commissioner of Public Roads, Charles D. Curtiss, said that according to a poll of the State highway departments, only 19 States would be able to match the Federal funds proposed in the Gore bill, but 43 would be able to match the smaller amount in the Administration’s bill.^[74] Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., of Virginia, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee denounced the Administration’s plan as a scheme to evade the debt limit and remove the highway program from the control of Congress. Asserting that it would cost $12 billion in bond interest, Senator Dennis Chavez of New Mexico called the Administration’s bill a “bankers bill” rather than a road bill. Rural interests branded the Administration’s proposal to pledge all Federal gasoline tax revenue above $622 million per year to back the Federal Highway Corporation's bonds as a 32-year strait-jacket for rural highways.

↑ In calendar year 1953, these normal expenditures amounted to $3.5 billion for State-administered highways, $1.2 billion for local roads and $1.2 billion for urban highways and streets—a total of $5.9 billion.^[66]
↑ The BPR’s study ordered by Congress in 1954 showed that the total of the needs to reach adequacy of all highways by 1964 was $126.1 billion ($100.8 billion for construction, $19.4 billion for maintenance and $5.9 billion for administration).^[67]
↑ This Committee was composed of Governor Walter J. Kohler, Jr., of Wisconsin, Chairman, and Governors Frank J. Lausche (Ohio), Howard Pyle (Arizona), John Lodge (Connecticut), Lawrence W. Wetherby (Kentucky), Paul Patterson (Oregon), Allan Shivers (Texas), and Robert F. Kennon of Louisiana, Chairman of the 1954 Governors Conference, ex officio.^[69]
↑ This total was divided as follows: $25 billion for the Interstate System, including essential urban arterial connections; $3.15 billion for the remainder of the Primary System ; $750 million for the Federal-aid Urban System, $2.10 billion for the Federal-Aid Secondary System and $225 million for forest highways.^[71]
↑ Mr. duPont resigned as Commissioner of Public Roads in December 1954 in order to give his full attention to promoting the President’s highway program. Charles D. Curtiss, a long-time career engineer who had served 11 years as deputy commissioner, was appointed to the vacancy January 14, 1955.

The Engineering News-Record came out strongly for the Administration bill, and particularly for the 10-year limit on completion of the Interstate System. “The real crux of the matter rests in the fact that we need a whole new system of highways just as soon as we can get it, and no adequate pay-as-you-go plan has yet been seriously proposed to assure that result.”^[75] Proponents of pay-as-you-go financing, the article continued prophetically, were gambling that there would be no inflation in the 30 years or more it would take to build the Interstate System from current revenues.

Defeat of the President’s Plan

Tossing the President’s Grand Plan aside, the Senate passed the Gore bill, somewhat modified, by 60 votes to 31. As passed, the bill provided $13.2 billion of Federal aid over a 5-year period, financed in part by a 1-cent boost in the Federal gasoline tax. State matching would be $4.8 billion in the 5-year period, or $960 million per year.

The House Subcommittee on Roads chaired by Congressman George H. Fallon brought out a measure that was somewhere between the Gore bill and the Administration bill. It provided $24 billion of Federal aid over a 12-year period, with increases in Federal fuel and rubber taxes to provide the additional revenue. The Fallon bill and the Administration bill came before the House in the last days of the session, but both went down to defeat—a stunning setback for the supporters of the President’s Grand Plan.

A New Highway Bill

Although the President’s plan had been defeated, there was still tremendous popular support for an accelerated highway program when the 84th Congress returned for the 2d session. The Administration jettisoned the Federal Highway Corporation and endorsed the pay-as-you-go principle. The House Subcommittee on Roads then undertook to put together a new road bill, while the Ways and Means Committee studied the financial aspects of the program. Eventually, the Senate Subcommittee on Roads and the Senate Finance Committee also became involved with the highway bill. The legislation drafted by these four committees contained some notable departures from previous highway policy.

The most radical innovation was the earmarking of Federal highway-user revenues for Federal highway aid. Congress accomplished this by creating a Highway Trust Fund and appropriating into it the proceeds of all Federal taxes on motor fuel, tires and tread rubber and a portion of certain other excise taxes such as those on automobiles, trucks and buses.

Another innovation, sought by organized labor, was a provision that the Davis-Bacon Act of 1935 should apply to all contracts for the Interstate System. This Act, passed during the Depression, required that the Secretary of Labor determine the prevailing wage rates paid for similar work in the area where the proposed Federal project was to be built. These rates were then set forth in the contract and became the minimum rates for that job. The purpose of the Act when originally passed was to give local workers a chance to compete for jobs on Federal projects without lowering their wages to match those of cheap imported labor. However, its detractors said the Act was applied during the Roosevelt Administration to force prevailing wages in outlying rural areas up to the level of those won by unions in the big cities.

Heretofore, the Davis-Bacon Act had applied only to the Federal Government’s own contracts. Those contracts entered into by the States for Federal-aid work were subject only to the regulations the BPR had made pursuant to the original Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. These left the predetermination of job labor rates up to the States, whose labor laws, according to the Engineering News-Record, were “as heterogeneous as their liquor laws.”^[76]

Introduction of Federal wage-fixing into the Federal-aid program was bitterly resisted by AASHO, the Associated General Contractors and the American Roadbuilders’ Association who claimed that the Davis-Bacon Act had the potential of boosting highway construction costs 15 to 40 percent. Inevitably, they said, contracts for other Federal-aid and State work, not covered by the Davis-Bacon Act, would be drawn into its orbit, and there would be a general inflation of wages in the highway construction industry. Spokesmen for labor asserted that since the proposed matching rate for the Interstate System was 90 percent Federal and 10 percent State funds, the real employer was the Federal Government, and, therefore, its laws should apply. In the end, the Davis-Bacon Act became the price for labor’s support of the highway program, and it was incorporated in the final bill.

The third innovation proposed by the legislators was to treat the Interstate System as a single huge project, comparable to an irrigation or flood control scheme, and provide in one authorization for its inception and completion. Previously, Congress had viewed Federal aid as an open-ended program of assistance to the States that would continue forever at a pace determined from time to time as circumstances might dictate. In hard times highway construction was stepped up to “prime the pump,” and at other times cut back to balance the budget. Now the committees proposed that a limited national system of special highways be built within a fixed time period of 13 years. In concept, this scheme was practically identical to that of the Pacific Railroads 100 years previously, and for its time, was on about the same scale.

This single huge project concept affected the apportionment of the Federal funds among the States. When Congress earmarked funds for the Interstate System in 1954, it changed the apportionment factor to give more of the money to the more populous States.^{[N 1]} The framers of the new bill provided that this formula should be continued for fiscal years 1957, 1958, and 1959, but that thereafter the apportionments should be made according to the relative “need” of each State to assure completing the entire Interstate System at the same time. Needs would be determined by a series of cost estimates to be submitted to Congress by the Secretary of Commerce and the States at dates set forth in legislation. The first of these estimates was due not later than January 12, 1958, and would be used for apportioning authorizations for fiscal years 1960, 1961, and 1962. The total amount authorized for the Interstate System was $25 billion through fiscal year 1969.

The compromise bill developed by these committees contained other departures from previous highway policy, as well as features from both the 1955 Gore bill and the Administration’s original proposal. The compromise bill, the Federal-Aid Highway Act and the Highway Revenue Act of 1956 was passed overwhelmingly by both the Senate and the House and was signed into law by President Eisenhower on June 29, 1956.

↑ According to this formula, half of the funds were to be apportioned in the ratio of each State’s population to the total national population; the other half was to be divided according to the classic Federal-aid formula of 1916.

REFERENCES

↑ 1970 Automobile Facts and Figures (Automobile Manufacturers Association, Detroit, 1970) p. 3.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads, Highway Statistics, 1951 (U.S. Dep’t. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1953) p. 29.
↑ S. M. Shapieo, The Long Island State Parkway System, Convention Group Meetings, New York City, September 24–26, 1947 (AASHO, Washington, D.C., 1947) pp. 112–117.
↑ 40 Stat 1200.
↑ J. G. McKay, The Cook County Transportation Survey, Public Roads, Vol. 7, No. 1, Mar. 1926, pp. 1–6.
↑ A Study of Highway Traffic in the Cleveland Regional Area, Public Roads, Vol. 9, No. 7, Sept. 1928, pp. 129–138.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1946, p. 34.
↑ J. T. Lynch, Traffic Planning Studies in American Cities, Public Roads, Vol. 24, No. 6, Oct., Nov., Dec. 1945, pp. 168, 169.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1945, p. 12.
↑ Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics Summary To 1965, (U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Washington, D.C., 1967) p. 85.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads, The Local Rural Road Problem (Dep’t. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1950) p. 31.
↑ BPR, supra, note 9, p. 9.
↑ New Local Highway Agency Proposed in Congress, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 131, No. 21, Nov. 18, 1943, p. 727.
↑ BPR, supra, note 7, p. 13.
↑ Title 23, U.S. Code, “Highways,” Report of the Committee on Public Works, H. Doc. 1938, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 15, 16.
↑ BPR, supra, note 7, p. 9.
↑ BPR, supra, note 7, p. 11.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1947, pp. 5, 7.
↑ BPR, supra, note 9, p. 8.
↑ A History of the Interstate System, AASHO—The First Fifty Years, 1914–1964 (American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington, D.C., 1965) p. 184.
↑ A Policy on Design Standards for the National System of Interstate Highways, Policies on Geometric Highway Design (American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington, D.C., 1950) pp. 1, 2.
↑ BPR, supra, note 7, p. 4.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads, Highway Statistics, 1949 (U.S. Dep’t. of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1951) p. 112.
↑ BPR, supra, note 7, p. 5.
↑ Federal Aid to Local Roads Opposed at Senate Hearing, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 142, No. 19, May 12, 1949, p. 51.
↑ Editorial, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 142, No. 23, Jun. 9, 1949, p. 47.
↑ BPR, supra, note 11, pp. 5, 6, 24.
↑ Id., p. 30.
↑ BPR, supra, note 18, p. 41.
↑ Id.
↑ C. Shain, State Highway Needs and Finances, Committee Proceedings, Convention Group Meetings, Papers and Discussions (American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington, D.C. 1948) pp. 84, 85.
↑ H. Ward, The Financial Aspects of the Engineering Analysis, ‘Highway Needs of Michigan’, Committee Proceedings, Convention Group Meetings, Papers and Discussions, (American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington, D.C, 1948) p. 63.
↑ Study Toll Roads, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 142, No. 11, Mar. 17, 1949, p. 65.
↑ Money, Aggressiveness, Legislation Needed For Road Progress, ARBA Told, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 11, Mar. 16, 1950, p. 25.
↑ Transportation—Roadbuilding Lags, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 12, Mar. 23, 1950, p. 108.
↑ States Seek Methods to Raise Funds for Highway Construction and Repair, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 146, No. 20, May 17, 1951, p. 27.
↑ Massachusetts Roads Scheduled Swiftly, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 4, Jan. 26, 1950, p. 21.
↑ Bright Spot for Roads, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 15, Apr. 13, 1950, p. 17.
↑ New York OK’s Thruway Authority, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 13, Mar. 30, 1950, p. 19.
↑ V. Boughton, Toll Highway Construction to Reach Peak in 1954, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 152, No. 1, Jan. 7, 1954, p. 31.
↑ 1955 Automobile Facts and Figures (Automobile Manufacturers Association, Detroit, 1955) p. 21.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads, Highway Statistics Summary, 1955 (U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Washington, D.C, 1957) p. 72.
↑ Highway Needs of the National Defense, H. Doc. 249, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 10–23.
↑ Id., pp. 3, 4.
↑ Road-Aid Bill Contains New Item For Interstate System, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 10, Mar. 9, 1950, p. 17.
↑ Road Officials Hit Federal-Aid Boost, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 10, Mar. 9, 1950, p. 21.
↑ AASHO, supra, note 20, p. 185.
↑ Pennsylvania Turnpike Continues at a Loss, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 134, No. 8, Feb. 22, 1945, p. 53.
↑ Announce Extension Route of Pennsylvania Turnpike, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 142, No. 3, Jan. 20, 1949, p. 63.
↑ Progress and Feasibility of Toll Roads and Their Relation To The Federal-Aid Program, H. Doc. 139, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 6–8.
↑ Id., pp. 11–14.
↑ Perspective—Controversy Over Toll Roads, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 138, No. 17, Apr. 24, 1947, p. 10.
↑ Supra, note 46, p. 21.
↑ Toll Road Policy Needs Restudy, ſ, Vol. 144, No. 13, Mar. 30, 1950, p. 26.
↑ Editorial, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 153, No. 1, Jul. 1, 1954, p. 96.
↑ H. Doc, supra, note 50, p. 14.
↑ Id., p. 23.
↑ Id., p. 24.
↑ Id., p. 26.
↑ MacDonald Retires as Commissioner of Public Roads, F. V. duPont Takes Over, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 150, No. 14, Apr. 2, 1953, pp. 52–54.
↑ Changes in Federal Highway Policies to Await Administration's Studies, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 150, No. 17, Apr. 23, 1953, pp. 21, 22.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1951, p. 1.
↑ Id., p. 7.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1954, p. 3.
↑ President Starts Ball Rolling for Bigger Highway Program, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 153, No. 4, Jul. 22, 1954, pp. 21, 88.
↑ Bureau of Public Roads, Highway Statistics, 1953 (U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Washington, D.C, 1954) pp. 61, 90, 94.
↑ Needs of The Highway Systems, 1955-84, H. Doc. 120, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 19.
↑ Highway Problem is How to Raise $50 Billion, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 153, No. 16, Oct. 14, 1954, p. 21.
↑ AASHO, supra, note 20, p. 185.
↑ President Gets Governors’ Highway Report, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 153, No. 24, Dec. 9, 1954, p. 23.
↑ H. Doc, supra, note 67, p. 21.
↑ AASHO, supra, note 20, p. 186.
↑ Battle Joined Over Rival Highway Plans, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 154, No. 8, Feb. 24, 1955, p. 23.
↑ Highway Hopes Dim, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 154, No. 16, Apr. 21, 1955, p. 26.
↑ Editorial, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 154, No 9 Mar 3, 1955, p. 84.
↑ The Davis-Bacon Highway Compromise, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 157, No. 1, Jul. 5, 1956, pp. 180–182.

Thomas Harris MacDonald

“Rugged integrity” . . . “Honesty” . . . “Fairness” . . . “Inspirational” . . . “Sound, far-sighted leadership” . . . “Dedicated public servant” and more were the expressions used by many who knew Thomas Harris MacDonald at the time of his retirement as Commissioner, Bureau of Public Roads. He had been head of the Bureau from 1919 to 1953, and during these years of his leadership, this Nation expanded its roadways from a scant ¼ of a million miles, of which very little was hard surfaced, to 3½ million miles of hard-surfaced, efficient, interstate roads; the Federal-State partnership in roadbuilding was developed and refined; the Alaska Highway was built and the Pan American Highway was well underway; and many of his staff worked with other countries in developing their roads and further training their engineers. Under MacDonald, the Bureau of Public Roads grew to become a center of highway research with worldwide influence.

Mr. MacDonald was born in Leadville, Colorado, on July 23, 1881, and moved with his family to Iowa in 1884. He studied at Iowa State College and received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1904. While at Iowa State, he developed an interest in highway engineering and, under the supervision of Dean Anson Marston, an early good roads proponent, did his undergraduate thesis on the highway needs of farmers and the force required to pull a wagon over different types of roads.

In 1904, the year MacDonald graduated, the Iowa Legislature designated the State College as a Commission to perform studies on highways and methods for their improvement. He took a position as an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and was placed in charge of road investigations. By 1907, at the age of 26, he was appointed State Highway Engineer, and in 1913, with the creation of a three-man State Highway Commission, he was appointed chief engineer. During his tenure with the Iowa State Highway Commission, Iowa became one of the first States in the Midwest to have a statewide system of main roads, with about one-third of the designated 6,400-mile network permanently graded, drained, and provided with bridges. MacDonald also developed plans for the hard surfacing of the roads. His success in improving the difficult Iowa roads attracted national attention among highway officials and the fledgling automobile industry. He became a leader among the highway officials of the ’teens and took an active part with the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) in their efforts to secure Federal-aid highway legislation. This strong tie with AASHO and the various State highway officials was to remain constant throughout his professional life.

Then in 1919, Thomas MacDonald was called to Washington to serve as Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, a position he was to hold through seven different presidents. President Wilson made his selection based upon the unanimous recommendations of the American Association of State Highway Officials. Though MacDonald's title changed over the course of the years, this original designation of “Chief” became synonymous with the man. It ceased to be just a title, but rather became a personal designation, applied with affection and admiration by an ever-widening circle of people around the world that included everyone with even the slightest interest in roads.

When the Chief took office, the 1916 Federal-Aid Road Act had been passed, but a program had not had a chance to get underway. Meanwhile, the first World War had ended, and the roads lay devastated by the effect of traffic, particularly that of heavy trucks and the inability to provide sufficient maintenance during the war effort. In addition, cooperation between BPR, the States, and Congress was needed to prepare the 1921 Federal Highway Act, which was intended to strengthen the 1916 Act. In general, in 1919, man’s maximum range of daily movement was still only 10 miles, and much work needed to be done.

By March 1953 when the Chief retired, millions of miles of hard-surfaced, efficient, connected roads were built, and the building of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was about to begin. But the real importance of his work, as one of his close friends and associates, Pyke Johnson, former President of the Automotive Safety Foundation, expressed in 1957, was that it allowed “. . . the vast transportation revolution” to take “place in the lives of all of us. . . . It is enough to note, perhaps, that as of today all but 22 million of our people live in urban or metropolitan areas. Isolation no longer is an important factor in our lives.”

In the 34 years that the Chief served, a list of his career milestones reads like the history of the movement for better roads in this country and around the world. A list of only a very few of these would include:

Sponsored the organization of the Highway and Highway Transport Education Committee (later to become a part of the Highway Research Board), 1920.
Led in defeating the “Townsend Plan” which called for a very limited system of national highways to be built and maintained by the Federal Government and instead argued for the continuation of the Federal-aid plan but restricted to a larger Federal-aid highway system to be selected by the States, themselves. This became the Federal Highway Act of 1921.
Chairman, Joint Board of Interstate Highways, 1924.
Sponsored the organization of the Pan American Highway Congress, 1924.
Sponsored first President’s Highway Safety Conference, 1945.
Sponsored creation of the official U.S. Interregional Highway Commission, 1946.
Served as a member of the Official Commission on the Alaska Highway. Later, he was charged with the responsibility of building this road.
Throughout his term of office, he served as a member of the Executive Committee, American Association of State Highway Officials and took an active part in all of its deliberations on the part of the Federal Government.

For his work, he received most of the honors that can be bestowed by individuals, associations, and organizations interested in highway work within the United States. He was awarded an honorary degree in engineering from Iowa State College in 1929, and received the Marston Medal for Achievement in Engineering in 1939. He received the Medal of Merit for outstanding service during World War II. He received the George Bartlett Award in 1931, was designated an honorary member of the American Society of Civil Engineers in the late 1940’s, and received the Award of Merit of the Highway Research Board in 1950. These are but a few of the honors conferred upon the Chief in his own country. In the international field, his advice was sought, and given, all over the world. He was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor from the French Government, the honor of Knight of the First Class, Order of St. Olav, given by the King of Norway, as well as numerous other important recognitions by foreign governments. All of these and the many more awards he received attest to his excellent work and the respect held for him by those interested in the betterment of the highways.

The Chief’s 49 years of active service in the betterment of our highways, first for Iowa and then for the Nation, were motivated by a belief in the importance of sound transportation and the role of highways in the overall picture. Herbert S. Fairbank, a close friend and a great name in the roads effort in his own right, discussed MacDonald’s views of transportation

as something much more than the ‘service’ it is generally held to he, more even than the essential link between supply and demand, or production and consumption, and actually as, in itself, one of the most potent of the creative forces that have shaped and will continue to shape this and all other countries in almost every aspect—in their economy, of course, but also in the spread and concentrations of their population and industry, the location, size, form and character of their cities, and the degree of development of their every natural resource.

In discussing the effect of roads as a part of this creative force, MacDonald believed, according to Fairbank, that roads allowed the population to disperse throughout the country and away from the rivers and main rail lines. It served as a great unifying force between the “hayseed” and the “city slicker” with “freer and more frequent contacts of the two which the automobile and good roads facilitated.” There was a greater urban orientation produced in this country as the small towns, “long the centers of their tiny rural areas promptly became the mere satellites of larger nearby cities. . . .” The cities were also able to reach out more as people were able to move further from downtown and finally to the suburbs as the principal roads radiating out of the city were improved. Good roads were an important link in the creative force that is transportation that started from the waterways, to the railways, to roadways, and on to the airways.

A continuing theme throughout the Chief’s years with the Bureau of Public Roads was the importance of the principle of Federal-State cooperation in the framework of our form of government. Pyke Johnson describes this belief as “the continued achievement of an engineering job of the magnitude of our highway program [that] must rest upon the essential premise that here we are dealing with the lives of people. That being so, the people finally must make their choice. The Federal Government cannot successfully dictate to the States. It must continue to act in cooperation with them and initiation of undertakings must remain with the States.”

MacDonald was able to achieve the essential close cooperation with the States because he never forgot his first position as a State highway engineer and because of his active participation in AASHO. Thus, he was and remained fully acquainted with the views and sensitivities of State highway officials in respect to the Federal legislation and the Bureau. But he was also aware of the shortcomings of the various State highway departments. According to Fairbank, MacDonald

interpreted literally the requirement of the Federal-Aid Act that each State must have ‘a highway department adequate in the opinion of the Secretary . . . to cooperate with the Federal Bureau.’ He was unceasing, though without fanfare, in his efforts to bring about an elevation of the standards of engineering and administrative proficiency of all the State highway departments. This was done as occasion offered, through letters to our division and district offices or directly to the highway departments concerned. But he made effective use of personal contacts with the State highway officials at meetings of the AASHO and other gatherings. He made it a point to become personally acquainted as quickly as possible with the heads and principal officers of the departments of all the States when they took office after each political turnover, the frequency of which he deeply deplored.

In recognition of the sensitivity of State officials, if he could, he preferred working through the AASHO committees in developing standards and thereby avoiding the appearance of a Bureau crusade.

In developing standards, the Chief felt that research and factfinding must play a very important role, but the research that he stressed had to be of a nature calculated to yield results promptly applicable in the Bureau’s administrative or engineering practice. Thus, he strongly supported the undertaking of soil studies, pioneered by the Bureau, and the impact and circular track studies done to test the wear on pavements by wheels equipped with various kinds of tires. He gave enthusiastic support of statewide traffic studies that were carried out in cooperation with various State highway departments and which were later expanded and augmented by economic and financial studies. When research expenditures occasionally came under question by Congress or the senior Executive Department, he was able to ward off this challenge by pointing to the important results derived from this aspect of the Bureau’s work.

To many, MacDonald was the embodiment of official rectitude, and a stout defender of the independence of the State highway departments, as well as the Bureau, from political interference. For the sake of this independence, he was quite willing to have the Bureau remain a subordinate branch of an Executive Department. He believed that this system would sufficiently interpose a screen between executive action and the pressures of self-seeking interests. However, at the same time, as Fairbank wrote, “He was quick to oppose and resent any tendency of the superior administrative agency to interfere in the executive or ad- ministrative policies of the Bureau.” For the most part, because of the respect he commanded from all the Department heads under whom he served, he was remarkably free of any such interference.

In the actual day-to-day administration of the Bureau, the Chief could not be considered one of the great leaders of management science. He directed the Bureau mainly through individual conferences with a relatively few men in whom he reposed confidence and through memos often produced as a result of these individual conferences. Fairbank mentioned MacDonald’s administrative style:

Conferences with all the division heads jointly were rare almost to the point of total ahsence of occurrence. In his last years in Washington he may have been persuaded that the idea of regular ‘staff’ meetings might he worthy of trial, hut after a few such ‘trials,’ his interest in the idea (never very keen) simply evaporated. . . . Mr. MacDonald was averse to the employment of most of the devices now so highly esteemed by so-called ‘management consultants.’ He had no interest in ‘Suggestion Boxes,’ or the offering of pecuniary rewards for employee suggestions. If there was overlapping of the responsibilities of the several divisions of the organization or lack of clarification of the definition of individual or organic duties, he didn’t worry much about it. As he seemed to have little or no concern about his own salary, he expected a similar avoidance of anything like a request for a raise on the part of every employee. Nothing would more certainly result in the consignment of any member of the organization to the MacDonald doghouse than to be caught agitating for an increase in pay. To paraphrase Lord Nelson’s famous order the simple rule was: The Bureau expects that every man this day will do his duty. And by and large, by golly, they did. The Bureau enjoyed an esprit de corps that many a ‘scientifically managed’ organization of these days couldn’t purchase with all the so-called incentives and rewards that the ingenuity of the doctors of management science can devise.

As head of the Bureau, Mr. MacDonald was called upon to participate as a speaker on many occasions, be it at a congressional hearing, a seminar, or an after dinner speech. Yet in 34 years of public speaking, the Chief never developed a reputation for an eloquent style, and it seems for good reason. Yet at all these occasions, though his style was not eloquent, it was, more importantly, effective. Again, as Mr. Fairbank commented,

His public speeches, especially those before the AASHO were so heavily factual and dry as to impose a serious burden upon the attentiveness of the audience. These speeches he almost always wrote himself; and he often turned from his written text to interpolate remarks which seemed unnecessary and which usually caused both the speaker and the audience to lose the thread of what he had been saying. But when all this has been said the fact remains that he somehow left his hearers in both public and private audiences with a sense of his mastery of whatever the matter was that was under discussion. He was outstandingly effective in his relations with Congressional Committees and individual Congressmen and Senators, often by patient repetition of his recommendations and views converting to their support those who initially opposed or even ridiculed them.

The Chief retired from the Bureau of Public Roads in July 1951, but at the request of President Truman stayed on as interim head until March 31, 1953, when Francis V. duPont assumed the position. In his retirement, however, the Chief continued to work for better roads and general transportation improvement from his new position as distinguished research engineer of the Transportation Institute of Texas A & M College. He saw new challenges in filling the gaps that existed in the knowledge about transportation. Then, on April 7, 1957, the Chief quietly passed away.

His old friend, Pyke Johnson, gave a close, personal look at the man, Thomas H. MacDonald, in an article he wrote at the time of the Chief’s death.

A quiet and modest man, a man of few intimates, a man who found solace in Bertrand Russell, Dr. Toynbee, Erie Stanley Gardner, and A. Conan Doyle, with few writers in between ; a husband, a father, a chef, a photographer, a top engineer and administrator, a statesman who built an enduring monument to himself not so much in roads and bridges as in the lives of people.

Few knew him. But those few knew him as one of the men of history, who with their associates, have profoundly affected the course of modern life.

Thomas H. MacDonald—The Chief.

Herbert Sinclair Fairbank

Shortly after Francis V. duPont succeeded Thomas H. MacDonald as Commissioner of Public Roads in 1953, he called on Deputy Commissioner for Research Fairbank to describe the Bureau’s research program. Fairbank assembled his Division Chiefs to meet the new Commissioner and to permit each to explain his part in the research effort. Each Division Chief, having grown up in the Bureau during the 34-year tenure of Mr. MacDonald, must have approached this meeting with the new Commissioner with considerable trepidation, and so perhaps did Fairbank. But the tension initially felt in the atmosphere as the meeting convened was soon broken when duPont asked “Mr. Fairbank, does the Bureau engage in fundamental or practical research?” and Fairbank replied, “Oh, practical research—by all means, practical research,” and duPont responded, “That’s good to hear, for there’s no point in doing research if the results can’t be applied.”

In reality the Bureau’s research program went far beyond the usual narrow definition of practical research. Fairbank was constantly looking ahead and exploring how best to meet the needs of the future as he and his associates envisioned them. Yet he constantly demanded that the product of this exploratory work be suitable for practical application. If any program ever faced the need to anticipate and prepare for practical problems resulting from rapidly changing conditions, it was the highway program. And more than anyone else, it was Fairbank whose clear vision and firm hand produced the basic facts needed to guide the policies and determine the programs and methods to keep abreast or ahead of new and changing demands that others did not foresee. While the research was practical, the application of the results was fundamental to the success of the program.

Fairbank’s career spanned virtually the entire development of the modern highway system, from the earliest days of the sand-clay road to the authorization of the Interstate System, and in all stages he took a personal hand. Graduating with a civil engineering degree from Cornell University in 1910, he joined the staff of the then-Office of Public Roads as a student engineer, one of the earliest of the Bureau’s trainees, and was assigned to the Road Improvement Train.

Carrying road construction equipment on flat cars and exhibits and lectures in the coaches, the purpose of the train was to encourage the use of local materials and labor to improve access from farms to the freight stations. The road was conceived as a benefit to the farmer and the railroad alike. So in this period Fairbank became a “lecturer,” and as he said, could deliver his lecture in his sleep as the train stopped at one small town after another through the south and west.

As the next step in his training. Fairbank built object lesson roads to demonstrate rather than just to describe the roadbuilding technique. One assignment was on Martha’s Vineyard, where the technique involved mixing appropriate amounts of sand and clay, a process later achieving wide acceptance in other sections of the country. By virtue of his innate reserve and dignity, Fairbank was not one to whom a nickname would ordinarily be applied, but here he had one. The young engineer and the road he was constructing attracted much interest among a colony of deaf-mutes on the island, who identified him by pointing with a forefinger three times in quick succession, the second and third pointings each being some six inches below the one that preceded. His name in sign language was “3 Buttons,” reflective of a fashionable blue blazer with large pearl buttons he wore when not on duty.

Following his early training and engineering assignments and service as an officer in the Chemical Warfare Service in 1918 and 1919, he was named Editor of Public Roads, the Bureau’s Journal of Highway Research. This was a particularly fitting assignment, for in those days and for many years thereafter, the editor was expected to be not only a competent handler of the language but also an able appraiser of the technical soundness of the reports submitted for publication. Since at that time research was virtually all related to physical research, and largely to soils, and since Fairbank was far and away the finest writer in the Bureau’s history, he was eminently qualified on both counts. Whether the breadth and depth of his ability were recognized by Chief MacDonald at the time or whether these qualities emerged as he gained experience, Fairbank was nonetheless steadily accepting broader responsibilities and became increasingly valuable to the Chief in the policy area. The expanded responsibilities were formally recognized in 1927 when he was made Chief of the new Division of Information, a position he held until 1943 when he was named Deputy Commissioner for Research, another new position and the one he held until his retirement. In each case, the title reflected the expanding responsibilities that had been given him by Chief MacDonald, and, in effect, simply provided a formal definition of his area of concern.

In these positions Fairbank’s influence was broad indeed, though seldom was his contribution to knowledge and practice identifiable as his. He consistently urged others to carry on investigative work and saw to it that resources necessary to its conduct were provided. He insisted on thoroughness and accuracy in experiment, in analysis and in writing. An excellent writer himself, an ability no doubt developed through extensive reading, he demanded high quality on the part of others in all forms of writing. Careful indeed must be the drafter of a letter for his signature, for the words not only must mean exactly what was intended, but could not be construed to mean anything else. A well-worn eraser and an equally well-worn dictionary were always on his desk—two items, incidentally, that his successor preserved as graphic reminders to himself and others of what it takes to be a good writer.

It was in his perception of the needs of the future and his organization of research to prepare to meet them that he made his outstanding, though generally anonymous, contributions. While he built roads to link the farm and the railroad, he early foresaw the linkage of roads themselves into systems. While roads were being designed for static wheel loads, and much research was being carried on to this end, he was urging and organizing investigations to study the effect of impact and dynamic loading. While the geometries of the road were being designed for the characteristics of individual vehicles, he was supporting research in the geometry of mixed traffic. In the area of economics, even before benefit-cost comparisons of specific projects were generally accepted, he had encouraged investigation of how economic analysis might be ap- plied to the design of systems. And even before that idea became accepted, he was writing that social, environmental and land use factors might assume more importance than user costs and benefits. While intercity and rural highway problems still occupied nearly the full attention of highway officials, it was Fairbank who foresaw the problems of highways in urban areas, problems that have since developed but could have been avoided had his early warnings been heeded. In short, when an idea’s time finally came, when it became generally accepted, the Bureau, thanks to Fairbank, generally was ready.

Certain areas were distinctly identifiable as Fairbank’s, however. The Bureau library, one of the most complete highway transportation libraries in the world, bore his stamp. Likewise, an exhibit section to which he gave his personal touch produced many instructive and promotional exhibits for display throughout the country. A series of paintings depicting "Highways of History" were produced in the 1930’s, and they were reassembled for a Bicentennial exhibit. A well-equipped photo laboratory, staffed with skilled photographers, produced slides and movies describing the results of research. Unfortunately, in the name of good administration and economy, these functions were lost to the Bureau as they were taken over by one or another "parent" organization as the Bureau moved from one to another in successive reorganizations, and their effectiveness as an arm of research was largely lost.

Of the many areas of his broad interest, the one most distinctly identifiable as Fairbank’s was the highway planning surveys. The breadth and depth of this activity is described elsewhere, so suffice it to say that for perhaps a year before the first field work was started in 1935, Fairbank had personally overseen the preparation of forms and manuals of instruction for every phase of the program. So clearly did he perceive not only the need for data, but the detail in which they should be collected and recorded, that only minimal changes were required as the procedures were introduced into field operations. Of course, as new equipment came on the scene, as mapmaking and reproduction processes advanced and statistical science developed, the early manuals and procedures were correspondingly updated, but the basic format never was changed.

While the facts assembled in the surveys eventually formed the base of planning and programing of all State highway departments, no use of the data was more effective or significant than their use, under Fairbank's direction and guidance, in forming national highway policy. As the author, again anonymously, of Toll Roads and Free Roads and Interregional Highways and subsequently in directing the organization of planning data for the Clay Committee and the Committees of Congress, Fairbank saw the realization of his 1934 vision in the authorization of the National System of Interstate Highways in 1944 and the start of its construction under the 1956 Act. He himself must have regarded the conception, birth and maturity of highway planning as his prime contribution, for in his own words appearing in Who's Who in America he accorded that function more prominence than any other of the many national and international contributions he listed.

Two other areas distinctly bore Fairbank's mark. One was research in highway economics and finance, an area in which it was particularly difficult to interest State highway officials and administrators. He pushed hard to develop research programs in this area, setting up a new division in his Office of Research for the purpose, and organizing and serving as Chairman of the Department of Economics, Finance, and Administration of the Highway Research Board.

Another area to which Fairbank gave personal and identifiable attention was the broad problem of deterioration of road surfaces brought about by the great increase in heavy axle loads. He early believed that failure of road surfaces was caused as much by the high frequency of heavy loads still within the legal limits as by the illegal loads. He believed that frequently repeated load applications caused fatigue and failure in concrete and organized university research projects to test and eventually to substantiate this concept.

To discover the effect of fatigue was one thing, but to convince others of its importance was another. As an illustration, Fairbank resorted to the eraser on his desk. While he would describe the research and portray the results before a group, he would show them he could bend the eraser double without its cracking. But, as he continued to talk, he would continue to flex the eraser not to a 180-degree bend, but only perhaps 45 to 60 degrees, and before long a crack would appear and soon the eraser would break in half, indeed a graphic analogy even if perhaps not convincing to a highway engineer that the phenomenon would apply to a concrete slab. Incidentally, Fairbank would later use each half of the eraser for its intended purpose—revising the first drafts of his writings.

Acceptance of the theory was of little value, however, unless the phenomenon could be quantified, and here the Highway Transport Committee of the American Association of State Highway Officials entered the picture, organizing, through the Highway Research Board, the first of a series of full-scale road tests, using an existing recently constructed concrete road in Maryland. As chairman of the Committee and as head of research in Public Roads, Fairbank entered strenuously into the conduct of that test and the analysis of its results, the details of which are described elsewhere in this history. Peculiarities in the rate of deterioration of different sections of the test road led to the discovery of a serious lack of uniformity of the specified subbase and, in turn, led Fairbank to insist on trenching both sides of the road for its entire length in an effort to explain the variations in performance, an example of his thoroughness as a researcher. Finally, while the next in the series of tests was being prepared, he personally oversaw the development of motion picture and exhibit material to be shown before State legislatures and other groups to promote the concept of coordination between highway design and traffic regulation and the need for strict adherences to load limits.

The series of tests culminated in the AASHO Road Test in Illinois where the statistically designed experiment produced the data that permitted the development of performance equations that showed, with great precision, the effect of frequency of application as well as the magnitude of axle loads. Thus, his concept was completely validated and, after his departure from the scene, quantified to permit its application in highway design. It was the product of practical research of fundamental importance, however it may have been defined.

Fairbank accepted the almost invariable success of his efforts with modesty, almost as though he had but a small part in them, so it was unfortunate that he took so deeply to heart what he regarded as a failure, one which in his mind overshadowed all Iris contributions. As he saw it, he failed to stop the proliferation of toll roads in the early 1950’s. Along with Chief MacDonald, he opposed the toll road not simply as a matter of Federal-aid law and policy, but on principle. He wrote and spoke against toll financing, emphasizing that the toll roads with their widely spaced access points offered only limited and specialized service and that the short trips, overwhelming in number, must still be accommodated on the existing or expanded systems. He saw duplication of facilities in individual corridors to accommodate both long and short trips, dual charges for toll road users and revenues going to interest payments rather than to mileage or maintenance of road.

Never wavering on principle, lie could not accept the political reality that the quality of road—the freeway—that he had so long and strongly advocated could not then be produced by “conventional” financing. As he saw it, he went down fighting. But it is ironic that it probably was the rapid proliferation of the toll roads more than any other single factor that convinced the American public that it wanted, and could have, the very thing Fairbank had so long advocated. He did not live to see the near completion of the Interstate System, so he could not know that the battle he thought he’d lost was but a temporary setback, that the magnificent system he had envisioned as much as 40 years earlier would become a reality, and in the minds of many, his monument.

Along the way he received many awards. Almost automatically he received the Bartlett Award and the Crum Award, and when the MacDonald Award was established by AASHO, Fairbank, then in retirement, became the first recipient.

The recognition he would have most appreciated, however, came after his death when the research laboratory at Langley, Virginia, was named in his honor the Herbert S. Fairbank Research Station. It can be hoped that within its bounds there will always be the talent, resources, and time to carry on research with the thoroughness he always imposed on himself in his own work.

An educated man, Fairbank was a lover of literature, a scholar, an engineer, totally honest, dignified, modest, retiring, friendly—all these terms fit. Never married, he lived in Baltimore, in later years with his sister to whom he was devoted, and commuted daily the 40 miles each way to Washington.

He was a genuinely friendly man, but he had few close friends, and he found it difficult to get on casual or familiar terms with his associates. Much as did the British, he referred to people generally by their surnames, and one whom he eventually called by his first name felt honored indeed. Likewise, he was always referred to as Fairbank or Mr. Fairbank, and relatively few felt comfortable in referring to him as Fairbank in his presence. To a few friends outside the Bureau, mostly in Baltimore, he was known as Herb. Yet despite this reserve, he was a better friend to some in need than perhaps they realized.

Totally dedicated to the organization and to his profession, he had few outside interests. Each year he took his vacation (he, like the British, called it his holiday) with his sister, often spending time in Vermont’s Green Mountains and occasionally taking a trip abroad. It was on their last holiday in Italy that he contracted an illness that was never diagnosed and from which he never fully recovered, and ultimately it led to his retirement.

His leadership was by example, and none who worked with him could fail to try to follow. He encouraged the younger members of his staff to take the initiative and gave them responsibility as rapidly as they could accept it. He saw to it that their contributions were recognized and, to the extent possible, rewarded. He never thought of his subordinates as working for him, but with him, and referred to them as his colleagues. But his closest colleagues would probably be more accurately defined as disciples.

What kind of man was he? He was a gentleman, in the truest sense of the word. He was a man for his time.

Francis Cutler Turner

Francis Cutler Turner, “Frank” to his many friends and associates, Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration from February 24, 1969, to June 30, 1972, is the only Chief Executive of the organization and its predecessor, the Bureau of Public Roads, who spent his entire professional career in that organization. Turner graduated in 1929 from the Texas Agricultural & Mechanical College, now Texas A & M University, and joined the Division of Management of the Bureau of Public Roads as a junior highway engineer immediately upon graduation. He was assigned to field service in the Bureau’s research program in what was then called the Division of Management. He was one of a small group of college graduates selected each year to enter a training program involving the field study of construction methods (time and motion study work) designed to reduce the costs of highway construction. From this small group of young engineers were to come an astonishing number of future leaders of the Bureau of Public Roads. The nature of their work taught, them to question construction procedures then current, to be innovative, resourceful, to respond to change, and to make every effort to obtain more road for less cost by expanding production, for it must be remembered that highway engineering as we know it now was in its infancy in 1929.

Turner was transferred in 1933 from this type of work to what is now the Arkansas Division office at Little Rock, where he was an area engineer responsible for the Federal-aid highway program in a portion of that State. Here he became interested in the performance of maintenance operations and wrote a thesis on maintenance of highways as affected by the type and physical characteristics of base and subgrade soils, which was accepted by Texas A & M as the basis for a graduate Civil Engineering degree in 1940.

In that same year, Turner was transferred to the Division of Construction (now Office of Engineering) in the Washington, D.C., office and a year later was reassigned to what is now the Region 3 office, then located in Washington, D.C. Here he worked on construction and maintenance and the many wartime special projects dealing with defense access roads, flight strips, materials allocations, the inventory of trucks and buses, and many other new and special activities related to the war effort. In 1943, his expertise in maintenance and his initiative and leadership were recognized, and he was sent to the Alaska highway project as an expediter by Commissioner Thomas H. MacDonald. During his Alaska assignment he pioneered highway location, using aerial reconnaissance. When the Alaska highway was completed, Mr. MacDonald assigned him to stay on the project and work first with the War Department and later with the Canadian and Territorial Governments to organize maintenance activities and procedures. He did not return to the United States until the latter part of 1946, the last man to leave the Alaska highway project, and then on his return to Washington, he was met with the news that he had been selected to head a mission to the Philippines to restore the war-damaged roads and bridges and to organize and train a highway organization in that country, a program authorized by the Congress under the Philippine Rehabilitation Act of 1946.

Turner went to Manila in December 1946 and found an almost hopeless mission confronting him. Public Roads engineers, whom he needed to staff the project, for the most part had only recently returned from the war and had no desire for further foreign service. Furthermore, there were no living accommodations in Manila suitable for families, and unless their families could go, the engineers were not interested. Upon arrival in Manila, Turner attacked this staffing problem with his customary zeal and enthusiasm. Eight other U.S. Government agencies had missions in Manila with similar complications, and by common consent, Turner became spokesman for the group and eventually was designated by the American Embassy in Manila to solve the problem. This involved a return to Washington, consultations with the Department of State and the Office of the President, and the final result of Turner’s efforts was the assignment of the Naval Headquarters compound in Manila, the Sea Frontier, to the agencies for housing and headquarters offices. Once staffed, Turner turned his attention to procuring steel and equipment, employing a Filipino staff for training, and preparing plans for the bridge replacement program. As rapidly a the Philippine Bureau of Public Works could be staffed and reorganized to accept responsibility for the work, it was shifted to them. Once again he demonstrated innovation and ingenuity by refitting a naval landing craft, an LCI, first as a survey ship to reach remote islands and later as a floating school for training Filipino engineers in highway techniques throughout the archipelago. In 1949, he was transferred, temporarily, to the American Embassy to coordinate all the rehabilitation programs of the nine U.S. Government agencies. His thoughtfulness, his courtesy, his consideration for others, and the high regard in which he was held by the Philippine Government made the assignment a highly successful one. His contribution to the Philippines was recognized by that Government’s making him a member of the Legion of Honor (Officer Grade) in 1951.

Turner returned to the United States in 1950 to become assistant to the Commissioner, Thomas H. MacDonald. In this capacity he coordinated the work on the Inter-American Highway and the many foreign missions engaged in highway activities in Ethiopia, Turkey, the Philippines, Liberia and many others, as well as taking on many special assignments. Here he brought into play his tremendous capacity for work—a 14- to 18-hour day was not unusual for him—and his extraordinary memory for detail. He had the ability to retain in his mind everything that he read and recall it months later.

In 1954, President Eisenhower appointed the President’s Advisory Committee on the National Highway Program, and Turner was appointed Executive Secretary for the Committee. At that time, the highway program was at a crossroads with many influential voices seeking to establish a National System of Toll Highways. One of the responsibilities of this Committee was to recommend whether to make the system, so obviously needed, toll or free. Turner worked unceasingly to place before the Committee all aspects of the problem, and it was largely due to his influence upon the Committee members that the decision was to recommend a National System of Interstate and Defense Highways to be financed in part by Federal excise taxes on automotive equipment, parts and fuel set up in a Trust Fund and in part by matching funds supplied by the States. Upon conclusion of the Committee report, Turner worked in liaison with the several congressional committees to convince them of the soundness of the recommendations and the need for the program. More than any other single individual, he may be said to be the “Father” of the Interstate Highway System. During his contacts with these committees, he again exhibited endless patience, sound reasoning and disregard of personal acclaim that had always distinguished his career.

About this time, a highly placed departmental official came into office who obviously had been directed to liquidate the highway organization or to severely diminish its activities and influence. As he worked closely with Turner, it became obvious also that his viewpoint was changing, and he became one of the strongest advocates of the organization and its responsibilities. Later he told one of his staff, “I decided that if an organization could produce a man like Frank Turner, there had to be some good in it, and I’d better take a real close look at it before I made any changes.”

From 1957 to 1967, Turner served as Deputy Commissioner and Chief Engineer for Public Eoads, and upon his shoulders fell the major responsibility for implementation of the legislation that had established the Interstate Highway System and provided for its funding. The difficulties and complexities of this challenge are discussed in other places in this history but the experience that he had gained in drafting the original legislation that had established the program stood in good stead in discussing the problems that arose as the program progressed with the interested congressional committees and leaders and in resolving individual problems as they presented themselves.

Turner never lost his interest in and enthusiasm for the role of the United States in technical assistance in highways for foreign countries He was a member of the U.S. Delegation to the 5th Pan-American Highway Conference in Lima, Peru, in 1951, to the Extraordinary Session in Mexico City in 1952, and to the 6th Conference in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1954. He was the Chief of the U.S. Delegation at the 10th Pan-American Highway Congress in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1967, the 11th Pan-American Highway Congress in Quito, Ecuador, in 1971, and Chief of the U.S. Highway Exchange Delegation to the Soviet Union in 1961. His contributions and his leadership in the field of transportation were attested by silver and gold meritorious awards by the Department of Commerce in 1954 and 1956; by the Thomas H. MacDonald Award of the American Association of State Highway Officials in 1962; by the George S. Bartlett Award of the American Road Builders’ Association in 1965; by the Gold Medal Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Department of Transportation in 1970; by the Special Secretarial Medal and Award in 1972; by the Roy W. Cram Award of the Highway Research Board in 1969; by the Neil J. Curry Award for Leadership in Highway Transportation in 1970 of the Highway Users Federation; and by the James Laurie prize for leadership in highway transportation of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1971. He received recognition from the Engineering News-Record as the Construction Man of the Year in 1967 and 1970 and the World Highway Man of the Year by the International Road Federation, presented by Emperor Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa in 1969. Of unusual interest is the fact that he was selected as a Distinguished Alumnus by two universities—Texas A & M University where he was graduated in 1929, and the University of Texas at Arlington where he took his first 2 years when it was a Junior College. In 1974, he was elected an Honorary Life Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

On February 27, 1967, his appointment as Director of Public Roads was confirmed by the United States Senate and he served in that capacity until February 24, 1969, when he was confirmed by unanimous consent by the Senate as Federal Highway Administrator. He served with distinction in this capacity until his retirement on June 30, 1972.

Frank Turner’s entire career was marked by his professional ability. his sincerity, integrity, modesty, charm and love of his fellow man. During the most pressing technical problems, he could and did take time out to concern himself with whether the wife of a member of his staff had enough doors in her newly assigned house to make her happy. His calmness under pressure was remarkable; no one ever saw him excited, flustered or angry. Although basically a serious man, he possesses a puckish wit, that springs forth when least expected. From a rather monotonous, hesitant public speaker in his younger days, he became an urbane, accomplished and witty after dinner speaker. His world has been centered around his family, his work, and his church. The American people owe an undying vote of gratitude to Francis Cutler Turner for his lifetime of dedicated public service, his strong unerring leadership, and his determination to obtain a dollar’s worth of road for every dollar of tax money spent.

Joseph Barnett

The belief that highways should be pleasing to the eye and compatible with the environment was a new idea when a foresighted engineer named Joseph Barnett joined the Bureau of Public Roads in 1933. By the time he retired 33 years later as Deputy Director for Engineering, Barnett had made good visual design a hallmark of American highways. His dedication to his work, his forceful pursuit of engineering principles and his extensive and lucid technical publications played a key role in the development of today’s highway policies. He was a pioneer in the standardization of geometric design—design of the visible features of a road; he advocated, long before it was fashionable, a balanced transportation system to eliminate urban traffic congestion; and he developed the principles of controlled access in modern highway construction.

Barnett was born January 1, 1897, on the lower east side of Manhattan and attended public schools. At the age of 16 he received a scholarship to Cooper Union Institute and graduated with a B.S. in civil engineering at 19. After serving a year as an ensign in the U.S. Navy, he worked for consulting firms in the field of structural design and building construction and with the city of New York in the area of city transit design.

In 1925 he went to work for the Westchester County Park Commission, taking part in the pioneering development of the first parkways and expressways in the New York metropolitan area. He moved from squad leader in structural design to chief of the Engineering Design Division. In these assignments he obtained unique experience in highway flowing alinement, parkway amenities, free traffic operation and controlled highway access which were to become the key features of Interstate highway design in years to come.

Barnett joined the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) as Senior Highway Engineer, Division of Design, where his engineering experience was put to use in a series of special assignments. During the first 2 years, he directed the design of the George Washington Memorial Parkway on the Virginia side of the Potomac River from Memorial Bridge to Great Falls.

Barnett is remembered by his colleagues as having a tremendous sense of purpose and a terrific power of concentration. By the mid-1930’s he was applying himself to a new idea in highway construction—standardization of design.

He first brought order into the design of guardrail types then available and set standards for adequacy and use of the types subsequently developed. He then organized a countrywide study of speed-radius-superelevation on existing highway curves. Analysis of the data led to a new standard for superelevation design in relation to vehicle speed and the friction factors.

Knowing that better highway designs resulted from spiral or transition curves, Barnett worked out a set of practical spiral curve design tables that could be used by field survey engineers with calculations no more involved than those required for simple radii curves. His curve design manual, Transition Curves for Highways, was first published in 1938. It has been reprinted several times, translated into Spanish, recomputed to the metric system, and is still used extensively both here and abroad by highway design professionals.

Barnett was named Secretary of the Committee on Planning and Design Policies of the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) from its inception in 1937 until his retirement at the end of 1966. This Committee profoundly influenced the design of safe and efficient highways. The scope of the series of AASHO standards, policies, and guides developed by the Committee attest to Barnett’s leadership and unique qualifications for the innovative development work. Collectively these writings showed his attributes in several forms: analyses of the subject item to derive major design principles; details and values in a form for direct use by designers; clear, simply-worded texts; sound judgment in practical control and guide values; and advice tor flexible, thoughtful applications to produce better designs. As each separate subject was completed, it was adopted and published by AASHO and accepted by BPR for use on Federal-aid highway projects, The first seven subject brochures established the concepts of highway design and were combined into one publication in 1950 entitled Policies on Geometric Highway Design. Subsequent expansions in 1954 and 19bo entitled A Policy on Geometric Design of Rural Highways, popularly known as “The Blue Book,” have been put into use on highway programs of all agencies, including those in foreign countries. A second major work produced by the Committee was A Policy on Arterial Highways in Urban Areas, published in 1957 and known as “The Red Book.” The advent of the Interstate System opened other new areas, and the 1956 Interstate standards were prepared based on the Committee’s earlier work. These policies on highway design matters have been widely accepted by engineers in governmental and private practice.

Between 1941 and 1943, Barnett headed a special BPR design team that rapidly developed contract plans for the main roads, interchanges and highway structures made necessary by the construction of the Pentagon building in Arlington, Virginia. The roads and bridges around the Pentagon were designed and constructed in less than 2 years This interconnected system of freeways provided flexible connections to the building, the three Potomac River bridges and several Virginia arterials. They served through and local traffic needs well until the steadily increasing traffic volume of the 1960’s overtaxed them.

On February 14, 1950, Barnett was presented the Commerce Department’s Silver Medal Award for outstanding contributions to the development of urban roads, including the design of the Pentagon road network.

After completing this task, Barnett, always a hard worker, was given the responsibility of establishing an Urban Roads Branch to administer highway construction in urban areas under provisions of the 1944 Federal-Aid Highway Act. This was a new, open field inasmuch as most State highway departments only had rural programs. Barnett spearheaded the Federal assistance to establish State urban divisions and to advise them on the planning, location and design of urban expressways and other arterials. In this context, he addressed engineering groups, joined in conferences on specific route problems, prepared papers, and directed the development of design policies and guides.

In his key Federal position, Barnett was also busy at this time developing and applying the principles of controlled access which he had absorbed during his Westchester County experience. The early park- ways demonstrated the multiple advantages of controlled access, not only in the safety and efficiency of traffic operations, but also in the opportunities for developing esthetic facilities well-fitted to their surroundings. Barnett stressed controlled access as a practical tool to relieve urban congestion at a time when rush hour traffic jams were becoming a common city experience.

In 1954 Barnett was assigned broader administrative responsibilities as Assistant Deputy Commissioner for the Division of Engineering. He was sent to Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey, to advise that country on the feasibility of a bridge across the Bosporus and an arterial highway system for Istanbul.

In 1961 he was made Deputy Director for Engineering, a principal decisionmaker on Federal-aid policy relating to engineering matters (which included the eligibility of proposed work for Federal-aid funds), the policy application on special problems, and conclusions on specific highway section design features. He received the Gold Medal for Distinguished Federal Service in 1963 from the Department of Commerce. At the request of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank), he headed a mission to Japan to study and report on the feasibility of extending the Tokyo Expressway from Haneda to Yokohama.

Barnett was a sensitive man with a dry wit who “liked to call a spade a spade.”

Even after retirement in December 1966, Bamett remained active as a consultant on urban highways. He joined in the general debate on mass transit development in urban areas. His 1970 paper on “Express Bus Mass Transit” presented a review of the various forms of transit and outlined a practical concept for improving service through expanded facilities.

He belonged to the Tau Beta Pi honorary engineering society and was an active member of the American Society for Civil Engineers. He received the ASCE Arthur M. Wellington Prize in 1949. Upon his retirement he was awarded a citation by AASHO.

Until his death in Roslyn, New York, on September 30, 1973, he believed that better highways can and should be produced through the design process. His philosophy was that clear principles and guides should be formulated ; however, their application should not be by rote, but by thoughtful adaptation to the specific conditions.

“A complete highway incorporates not only safety, utility and economy,” he once wrote, “but beauty as well.”

HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATORS

General Roy Stone 1893–1899

On October 3, 1893, Secretary of Agriculture J. Sterling Morton instituted the Office of Road Inquiry and appointed General Roy Stone, formerly secretary for the National League of Good Roads, as Special Agent and Engineer for Road Inquiry.

Earlier in 1893, the Office had been authorized by a statute enacted by the 52d Congress and approved March 3, 1893, by President Benjamin Harrison.

The statute read in part:

To enable the Secretary of Agriculture to make inquiries in regard to the systems of road management throughout the United States, to make investigations in regard to the best methods of road-making, and to enable him to assist the agricultural college and experiment stations in disseminating information on this subject.

General Stone was a professional civil and mechanical engineer; a military hero who distinguished himself in the Civil War and again in the Spanish-American War; an astute organizer; and the architect of many State-aid laws for U.S. roads.

He proposed the first parcel post, the first rural free delivery service and postal savings banks.

Martin Dodge 1899–1905

Martin Dodge was appointed Interim Director of the Office of Road Inquiry in August 1898 when his predecessor, General Roy Stone, vacated the office to serve in the Spanish-American War. General Stone resumed his duties as Director on January 31, 1899. He resigned on October 23, 1899, and Martin Dodge was reappointed and served until 1905.

Mr. Dodge was a zealous roadbuilder and an advocate of free roads in the United States. As a member of the Ohio State Roads Commission, he was the leading exponent of the first brick surfaced rural road in this country.

The road was laid on the Wooster Pike near Cleveland. Four miles of brick pavement were built in the fall of 1893 at a cost of $16,000 per mile.

During Mr. Dodge’s tenure, he established an information office to furnish advice about roadbuilding techniques to State and local officials and recommended a postgraduate school for civil engineer graduates to receive advance roadbuilding training, which became a reality in 1905.

Logan Waller Page 1905–1918

Logan Waller Page in 1905 became the first Director of the newly created Office of Public Roads. The Congress had passed an act that consolidated the Office of Public Road Inquiries and the Division of Tests of the Bureau of Chemistry.

Five years earlier, Mr. Page, a renowned geologist with the Massachusetts State Highway Commission, accepted the position of Chief of the Division of Tests in Washington.

As Laboratory Chief, his responsibilities included a study of road-building on a national scale. As a geologist in Massachusetts he had conducted the first extensive investigation of roadbuilding materials in America.

Then as the Director of the Office of Public Roads, he began a series of investigations which won international acclaim for the laboratories he directed.

Mr. Page introduced a scientific movement in roadbuilding that won enthusiastic national public support, He initiated “a petrographic study” of roadbuilding materials; wrote the first comprehensive report on the elements of roadbuilding rocks; and improved French rock-testing machines whereby physical tests of roadbuilding rocks became a routine procedure.

Thomas H. MacDonald 1919–1953

The good roads and highways Americans travel and enjoy today are a monument to Thomas H. MacDonald who for 34 years served as Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads and Commissioner of the Public Roads Administration.

Affectionately he was known as “Chief” by all who knew and worked with him.

When Chief MacDonald came to Washington in 1919, the office he was to head was still in its infancy. The Bureau had direct supervision over highway engineering activities and expenditures of Federal-aid funds.

The country had scarcely a quarter million miles of public roads when Chief MacDonald took office—and very little of that mileage was hard-surfaced. Few bridges were adequate to carry heavy truck traffic. Chief MacDonald in 34 years put together an integrated system of 3½ million miles of hard-surfaced highways which crisscrossed America.

Chief MacDonald personally directed the major steps in construction of the Alaska Highway. He also supervised fund expenditures to aid the countries of Central America in building the Inter-American Highway.

Francis V. du Pont 1953–1955

Francis V. duPont was connected with the development of highways in America since the early twenties.

He was appointed Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Roads in 1953 and while serving as Commissioner, advanced a highway program that led to legislation under which the Interstate Highway System was constructed.

Mr. duPont was the son of T. Coleman duPont who was the president of the giant chemical firm that bears that name in Wilmington, Delaware.

From 1922 through 1949, he was a member of the Delaware State Highway Commission. He also served as chairman of the Commission.

Mr. duPont played a major role in the development of the financing, engineering and the initial construction of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. When it was opened to traffic on July 1, 1951, it was the fifth longest suspension span in the world.

He had major accomplishments in the private, State and Federal sectors.

Mr. duPont resigned his Federal post on January 1, 1956. During his tenure as Commissioner, he was credited with stimulating interest in and getting the Interstate System underway.

Charles Dwight (Cap) Curtiss 1956

Charles Dwight (Cap) Curtiss grew up with the Bureau of Public Roads and the American highway system.

The name “Cap” came from Mr. Curtiss’ service as a captain with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War I in France.

Following the war, Cap Curtiss joined the Bureau of Public Roads and began a 38-year public service career.

Along with others in the Bureau who were destined to give this Nation a new concept in transportation at both the State and national levels, Cap Curtiss aided materially in the formulation of the policies and procedures of the amendments and expansions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916.

When he became Commissioner in 1956, plans for an enlarged and greatly expanded highway program reached out to every corner of the Nation.

With the signing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 by President Eisenhower, it became Cap Curtiss’ responsibility to put into immediate operation the authorization of the largest public works program ever undertaken on a State-Federal cooperative basis.

John Anthony Volpe 1956–1957

John Anthony Volpe, who was to become the Nation’s second Secretary of Transportation, agreed to serve as interim Federal Highway Administrator from October 1956 to February 1957, pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate of Bertram D. Tallamy as Administrator.

Prior to his appointment as Administrator, Mr. Volpe had served nearly 4 years as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Works.

His personal history reflects the success story of the self-made man.

In 1933 he cashed a $300 insurance policy and borrowed $500 to begin a construction firm that was parlayed into a multimillion dollar organization.

The Volpe firm established a national reputation for construction excellence.

Mr. Volpe was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1960, lost in 1962, and won a second term in 1964. He then was reelected in 1966 for the first 4-year term in the State’s history.

He was serving his third term when President Nixon swore him in on January 20, 1969, as the second Secretary of Transportation.

In 1973 John Volpe was appointed Ambassador to Italy, realizing his lifelong ambition.

Bertram D. Tallamy 1957–1961

Bertram D. Tallamy was an advocate of esthetic design in the Interstate System.

In administering the Interstate System, Mr. Tallamy wanted it fashioned after the New York Thruway, which in 1957 was generally regarded as one of the most magnificent highways ever constructed.

He wanted motorists to see the country, to enjoy the scenery, and above all to avoid monotony. All these things, he said, could be accomplished with an added safety factor without adding to the cost.

Mr. Tallamy also was in favor of regulated outdoor advertising along the Interstate System.

The first Senate-confirmed Federal Highway Administrator was born and bred to the engineering and construction fields. Both his father and grandfather were general contractors.

His early construction training was with a firm that specialized in the fields of waterworks, dams, sewage treatment plants, roads and bridges.

From the early thirties, he progressed through various posts to where he was appointed Superintendent of Public Works for New York State in October 1948.

In 1950 he became Chairman of the New York State Thruway Authority. Overall construction costs for New York State in 1954 reached $928.5 million.

Rex Marion Whitton 1961–1966

When Rex Marion Whitton retired as Federal Highway Administrator on December 30, 1966, he left behind a career of public service that almost spanned the entire history of modern highway construction in the United States.

He had completed more than 46 years of continuous highway work, of which 40 were spent in his native State of Missouri.

Mr. Whitton rose through the ranks, from a member of a highway survey crew in 1920 to Chief Engineer for the State of Missouri in 1951.

Other posts held by Mr. Whitton included that of assistant resident engineer, resident engineer, chief of survey party, plans designer, assistant district engineer, district engineer, and engineer of maintenance.

During his tenure as Federal Highway Administrator, the Bureau of Public Roads was revised to increase operational efficiency and instill new confidence.

In 1960 he was named one of the top 10 public works men of the year by the American Public Works Association in cooperation with Kiwanis International.

He also was president of the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) 1955–56.

Lowell K. Bridwell 1967–1969

Lowell K. Bridwell, former journalist, acquired a reputation through the years as an authority on highway transportation.

Mr. Bridwell made his first impact on the highway program as a journalist.

A correspondent for the Associated Press and the Ohio State Journal from 1946 to 1950, he became associated with Scripps-Howard News- papers in 1950. He joined the Washington Bureau of Scripps-Howard in 1958 as their top writer on highways.

From this vantage point he set up close liaison with both government and industry. He became well-known as an individual who was exceptionally well versed in the technical aspects of highway administration, finance and construction.

As a representative for Scripps-Howard, Mr. Bridwell participated in many local and national highway meetings. These included numerous conclaves of State highway officials as well as leading trade associations.

He assumed the helm of an expanded and reoriented Federal Highway Administration in 1967 in the new U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mr. Bridwell was responsible for administering a $4.4 billion highway program. This figure dwarfed everything else in the Department of Transportation’s $6.6 billion budget.

Francis C. Turner 1969–1972

Francis C. Turner, during his lifelong career with the Bureau of Public Roads, won national and international acclaim for his contributions to both national and international highway programs.

He joined the Bureau of Public Roads in 1929 as a junior highway engineer and began a steady rise through the ranks.

Fourteen years later he had acquired such stature that he was detailed (1943-1946) to Alaska as adviser on maintenance of the Alaska Highway.

In the next 4 years (1946-1950) he served with distinction as coordinator of the entire Philippine Rehabilitation Program.

Subsequent to this assignment, he held several top positions with the Bureau of Public Roads: Deputy Commissioner, Chief Engineer, Assistant Federal Highway Administrator, and Director of the Bureau of Public Roads. Furthermore, he was a member of the task force that set up the Department of Transportation.

He was named Federal Highway Administrator on February 24, 1969.

During his tenure as Federal Highway Administrator, new attention was given to the environment, accelerated concern was focused on highway safety, and increased emphasis was placed on the quality of life for people affected by highway construction.

Norbert T. Tiemann 1973–

Norbert T. Tiemann, former Governor of Nebraska, is the current Federal Highway Administrator.

Governor Tiemann’s term as Nebraska’s Chief Executive, from 1967 to 1971, included several major accomplishments on behalf of his State. Among these were:

First broad reorganization of the Department of Roads.
First revenue bonds for highway construction.
Closing of the Omaha Gap on Interstate 80.
Established the first 20-year plan for construction of a comprehensive expressway-freeway system.
First mandatory driver examination.
First motor-vehicle inspection program.

After completing his term as Governor, he served as Vice President for Corporate Finance of First Mid-America, Inc., an investment banking firm in Lincoln.

In his position as Administrator, he was involved in the obligation of $7.8 billion in Federal-aid highway funds in fiscal year 1975—the largest amount in the history of the Federal-State highway program.

Other accomplishments have included the close planning liaison between FHWA and the Urban Mass Transportation Administration and the conclusion of an agreement with Iran for FHWA personnel to advise and assist that country in building a modern highway network.

Editor’s Note

In Part I of the history of the Federal interest in the Nation’s highways, the period from the colonial days to enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 has been developed in a broad chronological format of events. As a result, there is a mixing of diverse elements, such as financial support, construction practices, research and many others that contributed to the continuity of highway development as we know it today. The advent of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act was a turning point in highway financing, program magnitude, and administration complexity. For this reason, Part I stops at the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act.

During the years since the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, specialized knowledge and skills were required to cope with the expanding program. The program became more complex with each piece of highway legislation in response to the need for broader measures in transportation, the desires of the public it serves, and the interaction of the highway program with other programs to serve the needs of a growing Nation. Technology became so sophisticated that, to keep pace with the demands, the program developed special areas of concern. In recognition of this situation, Part II has been assembled according to each major specialization and its contribution to the overall program.

The chapters of Part II cover separately one particular aspect of the program, including a chapter devoted to the development of the Interstate System. The authors for these chapters are recognized authorities, and their decisions as to what has proven significant in their individual fields of expertise has been left largely unchanged.

[4] In the prewar period, the outstanding examples of such deluxe facilities were the Westchester County Parkways and the Long Island State Parkway System. The latter, begun in 1925, by 1947 had expanded into a 158-mile network of commuter arteries tying western Long Island to downtown New York.^[3] In the west, the Arroyo Seco Parkway between Los Angeles and Pasadena, opened in 1940, was a dramatic demonstration of what could be done to move large volumes of traffic to and from the suburbs.

[8] The Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) had pioneered in urban traffic studies in the Cook County Transportation Survey of 1924, the first comprehensive study of traffic in an urban region including a large city^[5] and in the Cleveland Regional Area Traffic Survey of 1927. The latter was the first concerted study by all levels of government of the traffic problems of a single metropolitan region.^[6]

[13] In 1944 it was estimated that nationally, about 61 percent of road-user revenues was going to the State highway departments, about 26 percent to the counties and cities for their roads and streets, and the rest to nonhighway uses.^[10]

[15] In Delaware, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia (except for two counties), the highway departments are responsible for all roads outside of municipalities because the local governments succeeded in shifting the entire road burden to the State.

[18] Planning for the Federal-Aid Secondary Systems had the beneficial effect of forcing the States to reexamine and update their Primary Systems. Nationwide, about 40 percent of the Federal-aid secondary routes were already under State control or were immediately taken over by the States. The rest remained under local control.

[21] The Federal-aid system (later the Primary System) was limited to 7 percent of each State’s total highway mileage by the 1921 Act. Congress, in 1932, allowed 1 percent increments to be added as a State improved 90 percent of the entire Federal-aid system in that State.^[15]

[26] Thomas H. MacDonald was chairman of this powerful committee from its inception until 1944. The Committee’s working staff of design experts was supplied by the BPR (and PRA) and functioned under Joseph Barnett, who was also secretary of the Committee.

[27] When the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act specifically called for adoption of uniform design standards for the Interstate System, these earlier standards were the basis for the new standards, permitting completion of the work in 2 to 3 months.

[35] In 1946 the Federal Works Administrator appointed a Board of County Consultants consisting of 10 county officials from the PRA’s 10 geographical administrative areas to advise the PRA on the secondary road program.

[48] By comparison North Carolina sold its road bonds in 1920 to produce an effective interest rate of 5 percent.

[53] In the 4 years from 1947 to 1950, registrations of privately owned vehicles increased by 11.2 million units—to a total of 48.60 million.^[41] Annual vehicle miles of travel by passenger automobiles increased by 21 percent and by trucks 37 percent. In 1950, about 48 percent of the travel was in urban places, the rest on the rural roads.^[42]

[62] The Hayden-Cartwright Act of 1934 authorized the expenditure of Federal-aid funds on “such main parkways as may be designated by the State and approved by the Secretary of Agriculture as part of the Federal-aid highway system.”

[63] In 1953 the average State gasoline tax was about 5 to 6 cents per gallon, and the Federal tax was 2 cents per gallon. Thus, the States and the Government were collecting ½ cent per mile for providing and maintaining the public highways. On top of this the toll roads collected about 1½ cents per mile in tolls so turnpikes cost their users about four times as much as free roads. There were, of course, offsetting economies in time, operating costs, and distance savings which made the turnpikes attractive.

[66] On the Maine Turnpike the distance between access points averaged 11 miles.

[67] Tolls on the Port of New York Authority’s enormously profitable Holland Tunnel were set at a rate far higher than was necessary to retire the bonds, and the extra income was used to finance other undertakings.

[82] In calendar year 1953, these normal expenditures amounted to $3.5 billion for State-administered highways, $1.2 billion for local roads and $1.2 billion for urban highways and streets—a total of $5.9 billion.^[66]

[84] The BPR’s study ordered by Congress in 1954 showed that the total of the needs to reach adequacy of all highways by 1964 was $126.1 billion ($100.8 billion for construction, $19.4 billion for maintenance and $5.9 billion for administration).^[67]

[87] This Committee was composed of Governor Walter J. Kohler, Jr., of Wisconsin, Chairman, and Governors Frank J. Lausche (Ohio), Howard Pyle (Arizona), John Lodge (Connecticut), Lawrence W. Wetherby (Kentucky), Paul Patterson (Oregon), Allan Shivers (Texas), and Robert F. Kennon of Louisiana, Chairman of the 1954 Governors Conference, ex officio.^[69]

[90] This total was divided as follows: $25 billion for the Interstate System, including essential urban arterial connections; $3.15 billion for the remainder of the Primary System ; $750 million for the Federal-aid Urban System, $2.10 billion for the Federal-Aid Secondary System and $225 million for forest highways.^[71]

[93] Mr. duPont resigned as Commissioner of Public Roads in December 1954 in order to give his full attention to promoting the President’s highway program. Charles D. Curtiss, a long-time career engineer who had served 11 years as deputy commissioner, was appointed to the vacancy January 14, 1955.

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America's Highways 1776–1976: A History of the Federal-Aid Program/Part 1/Chapter 12

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