must then be made from public funds, involving routes that may, but equally well may not, be of the most service to the community as a whole.
Some of the adverse effects of toll roads on the programing of public highway improvements and many problems of integration of toll roads with public highway networks would be greatly alleviated if the responsibility for toll roads were vested in State highway departments. The consolidation of responsibility for to and free highways would permit the most effective use of available engineering and technical personnel, avoid duplicating administrative organizations, and promote orderly development of all highway improvements.
RECOMMENDATIONS WITH RESPECT TO FEDERAL PARTICIPATION IN TOLL ROADS
1. No Federal participation in toll roads.—The present law forbidding the collection of tolls on highways. constructed with Federal-aid funds should be continued.
2. Inclusion of toll roads in Federal-aid systems.—The present law should be changed to permit the inclusion of toll roads as part of the National System of Interstate Highways when they meet the standards for that system, and when there are reasonably satisfactory alternate free roads on the Federal-aid primary or secondary systems which permit traffic to bypass the toll road.
This recommendation is made to meet present-day conditions. A number of toll roads which are in operation, under construction, or authorized, lie along the preferred location of interstate routes; duplication of these roads would generally be an economic waste. Accordingly, if there is to be a continuous integrated Interstate System, it is reasonable that these toll roads be included in it. The inclusion of a toll road in the Interstate System would not be contrary to recommendation 1. It would merely make it unnecessary to construct a free road to interstate standards closely paralleling the toll road.
No toll roads should be permitted on any Federal-aid system except as provided in the first paragraph of this recommendation. Continuous travel over free roads will then be possible except over those portions of the Interstate System on which tolls are collected. On those portions, drivers will have the alternative of ravel over a toll road built to interstate standards, or over a reasonably satisfactory free road of another Federal-aid route.
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