Principles of Route Selection in Cities
While the selection of routes for inclusion in the interregional system within and in the vicinity of cities is properly a matter for local study and determination, the Committee suggests the following principles as guides for local action.
Connection with city approach routes.—Selection of interregional routes within and in the vicinity of a city should be made cooperatively by the State highway department and appropriate local planning and highway authorities and officials.
For the service of interregional traffic and other traffic bound in and out of the city to and from exterior points, the problem is one of convenient collection and delivery. The State highway department should have the primary responsibility of determining the detailed location of routes leading to the city, as it will have the essential knowledge of origins and destinations of the traffic moving on the adjacent rural sections of the routes.
Once the routes enter the environs of the city, however, they become a part of the sum total of urban transportation facilities, and as such must bear a proper relation in location and character to other parts of the street system. In addition to the traffic to and from exterior points, they will carry a heavy flow of intraurban movement of which city authorities will have knowledge or will be best able to measure or predict.
In some urban centers, cooperation between the State highway department and local authorities will be complicated by the fact that the metropolitan area will consist of several cities and perhaps one or more county jurisdictions and that decisions will need to be reached on a metropolitan rather than a city-by-city basis. Recognizing the difficulty of unifying a multiplicity of local agencies, the Committee believes that the creation of an over-all authority would be highly beneficial and desirable in complex urban areas. A metropolitan authority would avoid obvious mistakes in the location of the interregional routes and thus prevent distortions in the development of the area. Only through some over-all agency such as a metropolitan authority can there be developed an adequate thoroughfare plan to provide for all traffic needs. The interregional routes should be coordinated with the metropolitan street and highway plan. Such a metropolitan authority could anticipate and avoid obvious mistakes in the location of the interregional routes, prevent distortions based on short-sighted compromises, and in the long run lead to the best solution for all concerned.
Penetration of city.—Because of the traffic congestion encountered in passing through cities, it is the usual conclusion of those who make long automobile trips that they could save much time and avoid annoyance if so-called bypass routes were available to carry them around all cities. Comparative travel-time studies usually confirm this impression.
Such a study at Lafayette, Ind., for example, showed that the average time required to travel 6 miles through the city between two points on U.S. 52 was 14 minutes. To travel between the same two points over 6⅔ miles of existing roads around the city required an average of 9 minutes.
Another example is afforded by a recently constructed 9.5-mile route around Newport News, Va., from the James River Bridge to
