these further reviews coincided with those of the Pershing map, but
there were some additions, and the latest of these were shown on a
map, revised to May 15, 1941, and approved by the Secretary of
War. It was the system shown on this map and referred to specifically
as such in the Defense Highway Act of 1941 that became known as the
strategic network (fig. 5).
The total length of the highways included in the strategic network is approximately 78,800 miles. Within a system of this extent, there naturally are differences of importance among the roads included, even while as a whole the system comprises the most important highways. In its review in 1941, the War Department indicated such distinctions among the routes included in the network. In general, it found that the routes of greatest importance coincided with those that had previously been chosen by the Bureau of Public Roads as desirable of inclusion in a system of interregional highways.[1] This system had been proposed by the Bureau as constituting the principal trunk highways of the United States that should be preferentially developed as such with road-user revenues and Federal aid as an alternative to the construction of a smaller system of national toll roads.
STUDY OF INTERREGIONAL HIGHWAYS
His interest stirred by the suggestion of the Bureau, President Roosevelt, on April 14, 1941, had appointed a National Interregional Highway Committee to review the surveys and data upon which the suggestion had been based and to recommend a limited system of national highways designed to provide a basis for improved interregional transportation.
The report of this committee, entitled “Interregional Highways’,[2] rendered to the Federal Works Administrator January 1, 1944, was forwarded to the President and by him, on January 12, 1944, was transmitted to the Congress with his favorable recommendation, in fulfillment of a request for such a report which had been made by the Congress 6 months earlier.[3]
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
Acting upon the recommendations of this report, the Congress, in section 7 of the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1944, approved December 20, 1944, directed that—
There shall be designated within the continental United States a National System of Interstate Highways not exceeding 40,000 miles in total extent so located as to connect by routes, as direct as practicable, the principal metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers, to serve the national defense, and to connect at suitable border points with routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the Republic of Mexico. The routes of the National System of Interstate Highways shall be selected by joint action of the State highway departments of each State and the adjoining States, as provided by the Federal Highway Act of November 9, 1921, for the selection of the Federal-aid system. All highways or routes included in the National System of Interstate Highways as finally approved, if not already included in the Federal-aid highway system, shall be added to said system without regard to any mileage limitation.
- ↑ Toll Roads and Free Roads, H. Doc. No. 272, 76th Cong., Ist sess.
- ↑ Interregional Highways, H. Doc. No. 379, 78th Cong., 2d sess.
- ↑ Amendment of the Federal Highway Act, July 13, 1943 (57 Stat. 560).
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