Page:Highway Needs of the National Defense.pdf/20

POPULATION SERVED

Of the total urban population of 83,766,379 in the United States in all incorporated places, as shown by the 1940 census, 54,378,200, or 65 percent, was resident in cities and urban places connected by the designated interstate system. These included all of the cities of 250,000 or more in es 49 of the 55 cities that had population between 100,000 and 250,000, 69 of the 107 cities that had population between 50,000 and 100,000, and 2,538 smaller cities, towns, and urban places.

Routes of the system traversed for some distance 1,160 of the 3,076^[1] counties in the United States. In these counties traversed, the 1940 population was 23,953,461, or 50 percent of the total rural population of the country.

The interstate highway system, when completed and improved, will include only about 1 percent of the Nation’s roads and streets but will carry 20 percent of the total traffic. Many sections of the system now are as congested as US Routes 3 and 20 in Boston, Mass., shown here.

BRIDGES

On the entire system, as presently designated, there are 12,048 bridges. Of these structures 10,524 carry interstate routes over streams or natural water courses; 979 are over railroads; 384 span other highways. The remaining 161 are structures spanning two or more of the above kinds of crossings.

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1. For statistical purposes, parts of Yellowstone National Park in Idaho and Montana are counted as separate counties. For the same reason the District of Columbia is included as a county, and various independent cities, e. g., 24 in Virginia, are lumped in the respective counties of which they might logically be considered geographically a part.