The latter design, required by the standards proposed for rural sections of the system serving traffic between 3,000 and 15,000 vehicles per day, might be required on more than 30 percent of the recommended system; and it would probably result in construction costs ranging between $100,000 and $700,000 per mile.
An impression of the character of rural improvements obtainable within these several cost ranges may be gained from the photographs of recently constructed sections of rural highways of high standard, presented in plates XI and XII.
COSTS OF URBAN SECTIONS
The costs of urban sections of the system may be expected to vary more widely than those of rural sections. Indication of costs in relation to traffic volume is impracticable, and the Committee attempts only to afford an impression of the range of possible costs by presenting photographs (pls. XIII and XIV) of actual facilities representative of various construction costs.
Rate of Expenditure and Employment on the System
The provision that has been made by the Federal Government for the planning of post-war highway improvements is unparalleled in any other field of public construction. The highway planning work in progress is directed to the completion of definite working plans capable of execution at the appropriate time. There is widespread interest in the development of plans for post-war public works of other kinds; but as yet the provision made for such other works does not compare in definiteness or adequacy with that which has been made for highway construction.
The Committee recognizes that highway construction generally, and improvement of the interregional system in particular, should be planned in appropriate balance with other needed public works. It therefore considers the early proposal and planning of useful public works of all kinds to be highly desirable, in order that there may be ample opportunity to integrate them into a well-proportioned composite program of essential works, to obtain the necessary statutory sanctions, and to ready the whole program for timely execution at the war’s end.
The principle of providing for the advance planning and regulated construction of needed public works for the stabilization of industry and the alleviation of unemployment is well established. A complete readiness of desirable projects and a recognition of the propitious time for their launching are essential prerequisites to a fully effective injection of the stimulant of public works in a period when private activity is waning or in transition from war to peacetime production. While the unreadiness of public works projects in sufficient volume to cope with the severity of the recent depression delayed the stimulation of private activity, the eventual public works contribution to recovery fully established the soundness of the stabilization principle.
Precise prediction of the time and manner of the war’s end is as difficult as an adequate description of the potentialities of forces currently at work—forces, the resultant of which will determine the fundamental conditions of the post-war era. These limitations, however, need not deter the provision of plans. Rather, the planning
