planning surveys, the report examined the desirability of a longer system not for toll-paying traffic but for general use, totaling 26,700 miles and serving all principal cities and regions of the country, and found it “. . . now desirable by law to establish this or a closely similar System as the Primary Highway System of the United States.” Much of the justification of this system lay in its service to the cities, and indeed, the report devoted many pages to a suggested plan for highways in an urban area, Fairbank using his home city, Baltimore, as an example. Thus was suggested the two major new directions Federal highway aid would take in the years ahead—the Interstate System and acceptance of responsibility of the Federal Government and the States in the areas of urban transportation.
This drawing of a typical grade separation, access roads, and toll booths for a 4-lane road was included in the toll road study.
This sketch of a proposed express highway and bypass route around Baltimore was a part of the master plan for free highway development in the toll road study.
Aware of the study being made by the direction of the President, the Congress to show its support for the investigation (and perhaps to insure that it would receive the report) included in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 the following provision:
The Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads is hereby directed to investigate and make a report of his findings and recommend to the Congress not later than February 1, 1939, with respect to the feasibility of building, and cost of, superhighways not exceeding three in number, running in a general direction from the eastern to the western portion of the United States, and not exceeding three in number, running in a general direction from the northern to southern portion of the United States, including the feasibility of a toll system on such roads.
Approved on June 8, 1938, the Congress gave the Bureau only 8 months to complete the investigation and report, thus recognizing it was well on the way to completion at the time. The report was transmitted to the Congress by the President on April 27, 1939.
The 1939 report soon had an impact. In April 1941 President Roosevelt appointed the National Interregional Highway Committee “to investigate the need for a limited system of national highways to improve the facilities now available for interregional transportation, . . . and [later became a study for] the possibility of utilizing some of the manpower and industrial capacity expected to be available at the end of the war.”[1] While there is no documentation to support it, it seems fair to assume that the action by the President stemmed from representations originating within the Bureau of Public Roads.
The Committee first met in June 1941 and immediately laid plans for a major study to be carried out by the staff of the Bureau of Public Roads. The Committee also enlisted the cooperation of the State highway departments. Subsequently Public Law 146, approved July 13, 1943 (an amendment to the Defense Highway Act of 1941) again alined the Legislative Branch with the Executive Branch of the Federal Government by authorizing and directing Commissioner MacDonald to study and report on the needs for interregional highways.
- ↑ H. Doc. 379, 78th Cong., 2d Sess., Message from the President to the Congress, p. III.
