three-fourths of his staff into the project, and called on road contractors all over the state for help. Crews worked day and night, seven days a week, and the expressway was built in 11 months. Thousands of workers were able to get to and from their jobs without traffic snarls. VanWagoner dedicated the highway Sept. 12, 1942. Kennedy left his post in December to take a job in private industry and was replaced by Reid, who lost his job in 1943 with the election of Charles M. Ziegler, a civil engineer who had been deputy commissioner under Dillman.
One of the Department's greatest roadbuilding, feats was construction of the Detroit Industrial and Willow Run expressways in only 11 months in 1941–42. The 14-mile-long highway carried defense workers to and from work at a bomber plant near Ypsilanti.
Ziegler inherited some grim years for roadbuilding. Michigan's vast industrial resources produced one-eighth of America's entire war output and nearly four-fifths of that was transported over state highways. The older ones took a terrific beating, even though auto travel declined sharply. The gasoline tax, the highway department's only source of revenue, dropped by more than half during the war years. The department spent what money it had to keep existing highways in usable condition.
Traffic volumes jumped as soon as the war ended and auto plants began turning out cars again. A new study showed $250 million should be spent as soon as possible to meet the most pressing needs for new and improved highways, roads and streets. The state, the city of Detroit and the Wayne County Road Commission began construction of the $200 million John C. Lodge and Edsel Ford freeways in Detroit. The Legislature in 1951 passed Public Act 51, then and now the basic highway law of Michigan. The law created a separate highway trust fund which barred commingling of general state funds with road receipts and raised the gasoline tax from three to four-and-a-half cents a gallon.
It was not enough. A 1955 needs study indicated road requirements had risen to $500 million. The number of autos had more than doubled in the 10 years since the end of the war, climbing to 2.7 million, while truck registrations had risen even faster to 300,000.
Lawmakers again came to the rescue. They pegged the gasoline tax at six cents a gallon, raised fees on commercial vehicles and ordered the state's share of new revenue be spent on an arterial network of the more heavily traveled highways, all specified in the law. They also
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