bility for the financing of projects on the system in a ratio larger than the customary 50–50 ratio applicable to other Federal-aid projects. Since the routes of the system, under the terms of the act, were to become a part of the Federal-aid system, financing of their improvement was expected to be from funds available for that system.
It was not until 1952 that funds were authorized specifically for expenditures on the Interstate System only, and then in the token amount of $25 million annually. It remained for the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1954 to increase this authorization to a more substantial sum, $175 million annually, and to increase the Federal contribution to the cost of projects on the system from 50 to 60 percent.
Increasing inadequacy of highways
The early study of the feasibility of toll roads, reported in 1939, was made toward the end of nearly a decade of economic depression. Traffic volumes had recovered but slowly from their decline in 1932 and 1933, and in 1938 had barely held even at the level reached in 1937.
With World War II came the restrictions to travel that reduced traffic volumes to less than two-thirds of their prewar level. At the same time highway construction was curtailed. Highways were regarded as expendable, and were expended. Then, with the return of peace, came an economic upsurge unexpected in its proportions, and with it a parallel and equally unexpected upsurge in traffic.
By 1947 traffic volumes exceeded their prewar level, and in 1950 the curve of traffic volume passed through the projection of the prewar trend of increase. In 1954 traffic volume was nearly double that of 1940, nearly triple that of the low of 1933, and the increase still continues.
Thus, emerging from a war period, the highway systems, abnormally depreciated as a result of the heavy wartime usage and the stoppage of normal replacement, were in no case prepared to meet the unforeseen and increasingly insistent demands of a growing traffic. And it was on the Interstate System, particularly in and near cities where travel was already heaviest, that the inadequacies were greatest.
Insufficiency of current revenues
It has become increasingly apparent that public funds applicable to highway construction, especially on the more important routes, have not been sufficient to prevent their increasing obsolescence. On the contrary, the conclusion is clear that the condition of the more important highways is falling steadily further behind the needs of traffic. It has likewise become more apparent that the gap will not be closed by the use of current revenues on a pay-as-you-go basis at the present rates of taxation. Although tax rates and other fees have been raised to some extent, the increases have not even offset the higher road costs resulting from wartime and postwar inflation
A further deterrent to accelerating construction on the more important routes is the general practice of earmarking funds specifically for expenditure on particular systems. Moreover, as a matter of policy or legislative requirement, it is usually not practicable to concentrate funds for a particular system on a limited mileage of that system. More often, funds are spread as uniformly as practicable over the entire system.
