Interregional Highways/Limiting access to the interregional routes
LIMITING ACCESS TO THE INTERREGIONAL ROUTES
The character of the interregional routes as main collectors of through traffic justifies the granting of preferential right-of-way to traffic moving on them over all crossing and entering traffic everywhere, throughout the system. A proper facilitation of the express traffic with due regard for safety and economy requires, moreover, a reduction of the number of access and crossing points to a practicable minimum. This, in the opinion of the Committee, makes it desirable, as promptly as possible, to provide for the legal designation of all routes of the recommended system, in both their urban and rural sections, as limited-access highways. This designation will empower administrative authorities, wherever and whenever necessary for the convenience of express traffic and the promotion of safety, to deny access to the interregional highways from abutting lands or control or limit such access as may be found desirable, and similarly to deny or limit access, as desirable, from other public roads.
Principles of Location and Design for Limitation of Access
The proposal to confer this essential power does not suggest that it be inflexibly or arbitrarily used. To deny access to the routes from all abutting properties will not be necessary invariably. On the more lightly traveled rural sections in sparsely settled areas, it may be reasonable to permit access from substantially all properties. But in any case the place and manner of access should be so defined and controlled as to preserve the character of the express route and, as completely as practicable, to prevent the occurrence of collisions.
In many cases it will be found that unimportant rural cross roads can be closed and their slight traffic directed to other points of crossing. And where, in rural areas, the traffic on the interregional highway is light or only moderately heavy, it may not be necessary, immediately at least, to go to the length of grade separation at all retained intersections But where a grade crossing permitted on the inter regional highway, the design of the intersection and its signing should enable and require operators of crossing vehicles to make a positive determination of the safety of crossing, and should reveal to operators of vehicles on the main highway the presence of vehicles about to cross or enter. All traffic should be required to halt before crossing the main highway at grade, but in no case will the simple posting of stop signs on crossing or entering roads be sufficient. The design of the intersection should additionally provide all physical safeguards, such as definite traffic channels and refuge islands, decelerating and accelerating space, etc., as may be necessary to afford a maximum of safety for both of the intersecting traffic streams and a maximum of facility for the traffic on the interregional highway. A suggestion of what this may mean at a crossing on a section of the system carrying moderately heavy traffic is shown in plate VII. Where traffic on the rural routes is heavy and, in the environs of cities, where it is desirable to discourage undue extension of road-bordering city growth, prohibition of access to the highway from abutting land, controlled access at specified points, and the closure or grade separation of all intersecting highways are essential.
If no prior right of access has existed, as will be the case where rural and suburban sections of the interregional routes are developed on new locations, it may not be considered essential to provide a local service road to abutting lands as an auxiliary of the interregional route. It will probably be necessary in such circumstances, however, to compensate the abutting owners for the denial of their right of access to the new facility.
Where a section of the interregional system is developed on the location of an existing highway to which all abutting properties have previously had unlimited access, it may be necessary to provide properties denied access to the through highway with other means of ingress and egress. This may be accomplished by the construction of roads connecting the affected properties with other existing roads, with improvement of such roads if necessary. In other cases, especially in suburban areas, it may be necessary to provide at each side of the through highway, parallel local service roads connected with the main artery at selected access points. The service roads may provide for one or two-direction travel, depending upon the amount of traffic to be served and the distance between points of access to the through highway.
It is in cities and their urban fringes, however, that the problems of provision for express traffic and denial of access are most difficult, complex and expensive of solution. As one of the interregional routes approaches a city, denial of access to it may be desirable for some distance outward from the point of first considerable roadside development in order to discourage the further excessive extension of settlement outward. Inward from the point described, at which the first of urban accesses should be provided, other access points should be chosen at not too frequent intervals, but so located as to serve with reasonable convenience the express highway needs of the more populous suburban foci.
Proceeding into the city proper, it is desirable that access to the highway be provided only at selected cross streets. As previously indicated, these should preferably be streets that cross the city or extend at least to the next adjacent express highways without interruption, in order that they may serve as clear and direct connections with the express route for as large a territory as practicable.
The usefulness of the express route for intraurban traffic is greatest for traffic between the outer residence areas and the city center. For this reason access points should be provided at shorter intervals near the city limits than near the center. Proceeding toward the center a point is reached at a substantial distance from the route terminus (say not less than a half mile nor more than a mile) between which and the terminus there will be no occasion for further access. Within this distance traffic to the city center can be accommodated more conveniently on the ordinary streets than on the express highway.
At least at the access streets, safe provision for intersecting traffic should be afforded. In the opinion of the Committee, this will invariably require the separation of intersecting grades. As necessary, other selected streets may be carried over or under the express highway, without access to it. All other streets should be terminated at the parallel local service ways which, in cities, will always be required.
Various means of reducing the number of interrupted streets and grade separations (by suitable location of the express routes) have been discussed in a previous section of this report.
To avoid undue obstruction of the cross movement of pedestrians, foot bridges should be constructed to span the express ways at frequent intervals.
Generally in the largest cities, and under some circumstances in smaller cities, a satisfactory meeting of the conditions imposed, especially near the city center, may require the raising or lowering of extended sections of the interregional route above or below the adjoining ground level, in order to carry it over or under frequent cross streets or over some and under others. Where the general topography of the city in such sections approaches a level or uniformly sloping plane, continuous elevation or depression of the express route is the indicated solution. Where the topography is rolling, the most feasible grade profile may be one cutting through the natural roll and thus passing over some cross streets and under others.
The effort to crowd an elevated highway into the narrow space generally afforded by existing surface streets will usually result in unsatisfactory design of the express route and impairment of the utility of the surface street for local service. Generally, it will also cause serious damage to abutting property. To avoid these undesirable consequences it will usually be necessary to acquire a right-of-way wider than can be found within the limits of an existing street. This may be done by taking the added width at one side of a street; or a more feasible location, avoiding the taking of property frontage, may be found at the rear of properties fronting on adjacent streets. By location of the latter type, damage to adjoining property may, under some conditions, be lessened. In general, the Committee considers elevation of the express routes a solution acceptable only in a commercial or business environment, as shown in plate VIII. It shares what it believes to be a widely held opinion opposing the cutting of such facilities through residential areas.
Depression of the express route will usually require extensive reconstruction of underground facilities, such as water mains, sewers, and electric conduits; and at low elevations drainage may be difficult and expensive. It will rarely be possible to achieve full depression within the width of an existing street. Additional right-of-way acquisition will nearly always be involved. The razing of numerous existing buildings will usually be necessary also; but this under many circumstances, particularly in blighted areas, may be regarded as an end desirable in itself.
Such are the principal difficulties of depressed construction. Where they can be overcome, the resulting development may be considered by many, more pleasing to the eye and more consonant with a gracious improvement of the urban environment than any other solution of the express-highway problem. Wholly satisfactory design will usually require condemnation of a block-wide strip of property through the city, retaining the existing surface streets at the two ends of the block as local service ways. 
A less satisfactory solution, as shown by the examples in plate IX, can be achieved by taking the tier of properties on one side of an existing street, retaining that street as one of the essential local service ways and constructing another at the opposite side of the depressed route. This will usually result in a somewhat cramped development and will expose to the express route the rear of properties at one side.
It will generally be preferable, however, to the third alternative, which is to take properties on both sides of an existing street. The latter would prevent salvage of the existing street and require the construction of two new service ways, to both of which the rear of abutting properties will be exposed.
In the outer and residential sections of large cities and in small cities generally, neither the elevation nor the continuous depression of express routes is recommended. In such sections a more appropriate design, developed on a block-wide right-of-way, may utilize the existing surface streets at the two ends of the acquired block without change as local service ways. The ample intervening space may be used for a parklike development of the express way, which would be constructed on long, rolling grades to pass under bridges built at the street level of crossing and access streets and intervening pedestrian bridges, as pictured in plate X.
Except in the largest cities, it will probably not be necessary to extend express routes through the central business section. In the first place, it may usually be assumed that substantially all of the traffic approaching the business section of a city is destined to that area, and will be discharged at its fringe, there to enter the central street system or a parking garage. In the second place, city-penetrating express routes, where they extend continuously across a city, can generally be located tangentially to the central business area. If and when it is necessary to extend an express route through a central business area, elevated or tunneled locations will usually be the more appropriate choices.
Legal Aspects of Limitation of Access
As indicated by the foregoing discussion, provision of the physical installations essential for limitation of access, though costly, involves few problems that have not been encountered in the design of ordinary main highways. The greater right-of-way requirements present more serious difficulties; and the present lack of specific legal sanction for the establishment of limited-access highways is a positive obstacle in many States.
The courts have recognized that abutting property owners have certain rights in existing streets and highways. These rights include the right of ingress to and egress from their property, and in some cases the right of visibility as well as the right to the flow of light and air from the street to the property. Moreover, it is well established in the common law that the right of access cannot be denied or restricted nor can an owner be deprived of such right except upon the payment of just compensation and in a manner not inconsistent with due process of law, and for a public use or purpose. While there is a dearth of judicial opinion on the question of the abutter’s right of access to newly created highway facilities, unless there is a reversal of judicial doctrine in many States the owner of abutting property is likely to possess the same right of access to new roads as he has with respect to old, established highways. The theory seems to be that the proprietary right of access of the abutter accrues as a matter of law the moment the new facility is opened to traffic. Granting that the doctrine of accessibility is logical in the case of existing highways, it seems unreasonable with respect to new through-traffic facilities. Yet, the concept of limited-access highways to facilitate the efficient movement of through traffic is of such recent emergence that the judiciary has not had the opportunity to endorse or reject it on its merits. It may well be that a crystallization of public opinion will constrain the courts to take a liberal view of the matter.
There are only 17 States[1] that now have on their statute books laws specifically sanctioning the establishment of limited-access highways. Bills designed to accomplish this purpose, which were introduced during the recent sessions of legislatures in 4 States,[2] failed of passage.
The availability and use of such specific authority for the denial of access where necessary is absolutely essential to a proper development of the interregional system in all States; and the necessary statutes should be enacted at the earliest possible date. As a guide to effective language for such enactments, the Public Roads Administration has prepared a model limited-access highway bill, which incorporates the best features of the several existing statutes and contains all necessary provisions. This model bill is attached hereto as appendix III.
In the absence of a law clearly establishing the power of appropriate public authorities to create limited-access highways, an attempt, by negotiated compensation, to restrict abutters’ rights of access to any section of existing or new highway could be obstructed by any unwilling abutter and probably by any other opposing individual or group. Without such a law the power of public agencies to extinguish private rights of access by condemnation would be in doubt and authority for the expenditure of public funds in compensation for such rights would be equally in doubt.
In 10 of the existing limited-access highway laws the State alone is given authority to establish such facilities. Since the necessity for limitation of access arises mainly in connection with the service of extraordinary volumes of traffic in and near urban centers, it is highly desirable that the power to create and participate in the creation of limited-access facilities be extended to city and county highway authorities, as provided by the recommended model bill.[3]
- ↑ The States of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia had enacted such laws as of September 1, 1943.
- ↑ Arizona, Delaware. New Mexico, and Utah. On September 1, 1943, bills were pending in the legislature of Missouri, then in session, and in the legislature of New Jersey, in recess until November 15.
- ↑ For a fuller discussion of the extent of authority conferred by the various existing laws on limitation of access, see Public Control of Highway Access and Roadside Development, by David R. Levin, Public Roads Administration. Federal Works Agency, 1943.