Toll Roads and Free Roads/Part 2
TOLL ROADS AND FREE ROADS
Part II
A MASTER PLAN FOR FREE HIGHWAY
DEVELOPMENT
PART II. A MASTER PLAN FOR FREE HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT
THE MOST IMPORTANT HIGHWAY PROBLEMS
The demonstrated improbability of a return from tolls sufficient to recover the costs of constructing and operating six transcontinental highways, such as were described in the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1938, results from the consequences of direct toll impositions. It does not follow that there is not a sufficient traffic to warrant and require facilities of a higher standard than are provided at present. On the contrary, the studies show the potential use of such facilities in many sections is more than sufficient to justify their provision.
The probability that from this traffic there could not be accumulated in tolls the amount required to repay the costs of building and operating the highways arises mainly from the following circumstances inseparable from a toll system:
1. To establish a margin of advantage over competing free highways sufficient to attract a toll-paying traffic, it is necessary to afford conditions conducive to uninterrupted movement, which can exist only if there is a rather long distance between points of access to the highways. The same condition is prescribed by the necessity to hold costs of toll collection to a feasible minimum. Yet these conditions, inseparable from a toll system, automatically exclude as potential toll payers a large number of vehicles moving in approximately the same direction as the toll facility, but for shorter distances than those between the toll-highway access points.
2. Of the remaining traffic of longer range, moving in the same general direction as the proposed toll facility, a large part cannot be counted upon for toll payment because of the financial inability or unwillingness of the operators to pay an additional fee for highway service in the presence of a parallel “free” service afforded by normal public highways of reasonable adequacy.
3. The exclusion of the two traffic groups described leaves, of the total anticipated traffic, a remainder able and willing to pay toll at a reasonable rate. This fraction in practically all cases is too small to support the costs of the desired facility except at a rate exceeding the willingness or ability of even these relatively willing and able Moreover the number of such potential payers potential toll payers. of moderate toll charges is in most instances so reduced as to promise by their diversion from the normal public highways little reduction of the traffic burden that now overtaxes those highways.
Because of these and other related circumstances the net contribution of any toll highways to the service of highway transportation as a whole could not be other than relatively small, even if the roads proposed were constructed and operated at a loss. The bulk of the traffic will continue to use the main public highways, for which it pays wholly or in large part through special user taxes; and, increasing in future years, would ultimately force the substantial rebuilding which on many sections of these highways is already urgently necessary.
The needed rebuilding and improvement of the main rural highways is only one element in the larger program of work required for the adequate modernization and extension of the public street and highway facilities of the country which is described in the following pages.
TRANS-CITY CONNECTIONS AND EXPRESS HIGHWAYS
One of the striking characteristics common to all highway traffic maps (see pl. 8) is the sharp enlargement of the bands representing the volume of traffic on the important highways as they approach the larger cities. Obviously these enlargements have a local cause. They are in fact caused by a multiplicity of short movements into and out of the city; and it is not uncommon to find that the traffic on a main route approaching the city is thus swelled to several times its volume a few miles from the city limits. Unfortunately, it is not common to find the capacity of the highway proportionately enlarged. In consequence there is often on such relatively short sections of highway an actual development of congestion or an approach to it.
If we inquire into the reason for the failure to augment the traffic facility in proportion to the increase in traffic we usually encounter right-of-way difficulties. At the approach to the city road-bordering developments thicken to such an extent that the additional space required for the widening or other increase of the highway facility may be obtainable only at heavy cost because of the closely crowding suburban residences and industrial establishments.
Once inside the city, where the block plan offers alternate avenues of travel, it might be assumed that the congestion would be substantially relieved. In some instances a measure of relief is observed; but generally such a desirable condition is not realized. The particular street joining directly with the main highway at the city’s edge usually serves as a trunk line far into the city, generally to its very center. It thus conveys the in-bound traffic to convenient points of departure toward its ultimate destinations, and reciprocally collects the out-bound traffic at similar points. Frequently such a street is identified by United States or State route numbers as the direct inward extension of the external highway, so that strangers as well as local citizens are channeled into it. Quite often, particularly in the older cities of the East, the present internal street, which before the city’s growth was actually the external highway, still follows its historic radial course toward the center of the city, and cuts conveniently across the rectangular block plan of younger city streets. In alinement, the present street is in such cases distinctly the preferable route for much of the traffic entering the city; but its convenience on this score may be largely nullified by the fact that it retains the narrow width of the old country road it was meant to be. When this is the case, traffic conditions may become so bad, approaching the center of the city, as to force the abandonment of the route by the through traffic despite its convenient alinement. A condition of this sort is illustrated in plate 48. 
For the various reasons mentioned, the traffic congestion that exists on a main rural highway at the approach to a city is usually augmented on the connecting city street toward the center of the city and continues on the same or even another street to the continuation of the rural route at the other side of the city.
The remedy commonly proposed for these conditions is the construction of a bypass highway. It is inaccurately assumed that the congestion results from the joining of the local with the through traffic, and that a substantial relief would be obtained if the through traffic were diverted at a point outside the city beyond the beginning of congestion, and carried on a bypass to a similar point on the rural route at the other side of the city. In rare cases this remedy alone may prove sufficiently effective, but, as hereafter elaborated, bypass routes are of advantage mainly to a relatively small part of the highway traffic normally approaching a city, i. e., to that small part of the traffic that is actually desirous of avoiding the city.
As all traffic maps show, the greater part of the heavy traffic at a city entrance is an in-and-out movement of local generation. That part cannot be drained off by a bypass route. Of the remaining traffic of longer range, there is a further considerable part destined to, or originated in the city, that also would not use a bypass route if one were offered.
An idea of the relation that may exist, on a main road approaching large cities, between the bypassable through traffic and the traffic that is desirous of entering the city and cannot be diverted by a bypass route may be obtained from plate 49. This plate shows a traffic profile of the highway between Washington, D. C. and Baltimore, Md. As shown by the topmost line in this graph, the total traffic on the route rises to a peak at each city line and drops to a trough between the two cities. Of this total traffic, that part above the highest of the horizontal lines represents movements of less length than the distance between the cities. At each city line this part consists of movements into and out of the city all of which are of shorter range than the distance to the neighboring city. The uniform vertical distance between the highest and next lower horizontal line measures the amount of traffic on the road moving between points in each city. The height of the next lower horizontal band represents the traffic moving between Washington and points beyond Baltimore; that of the next, the traffic moving between Baltimore and points beyond Washington; while the height of the lowest horizontal band measures the volume of the traffic moving between points that lie beyond both Baltimore and Washington. Of all the traffic shown as entering the two cities, only this last part plus that represented by one or the other of the next two higher bands can be counted as potentially bypassable around the two cities. At Washington this bypassable maximum is 2,269 of a total of 20,500 entering vehicles; at Baltimore it is 2,670 of a total of 18,900 vehicles. The remainder of the entering traffic in each case will not only continue into, but in large part will penetrate to the very heart of the city, because that is where most of it is destined, and conversely it is at or through the same center that one must look for the source of most of the city-originated emerging traffic. 
In numerous cities conditions of the sort here described are fast reaching a critical point. Some measures of relief are imperative, and the only course that promises a really satisfactory solution is the provision of adequate facilities for conduct of the heavier entering traffic streams through the city at or near its center, and on to appropriate exit points.
The nature of the facilities required will depend upon conditions peculiar to each city. In some cases redesign and widening of the main highways and connecting city streets may suffice and may be feasible; although on the rural highway sections involved, widening should always include a physical separation of the opposing traffic streams, and any widening in the downtown areas of cities is certain to be beset with difficulties.
In the larger cities generally only a major operation will suffice—nothing less than the creation of a depressed or an elevated artery (the former usually to be preferred) that will convey the massed movement pressing into, and through, the heart of the city, under or over the local cross streets without interruption by their conflicting traffic. Such facilities are not required in any city for the service of through highway traffic alone. They are not required solely for the service of the traffic entering the city from typically rural highways. There usually is added to these streams in the outer reaches of the city or its immediate suburbs a heavy movement of purely city traffic that mounts to high peaks in the morning and evening rush hours. Movements of this latter sort largely follow the same lines as the traffic entering the city from main rural highways simply because the peripheral city areas and suburbs in which they are generated have developed along such highways. There are cases in which the daily peak of ‘‘in-and-out” city traffic exists without any substantial addition from main rural highways. For such cases the requisite facility—an express highway—is in all essentials similar to facilities designed to carry external traffic across the city.
Whether the needed facility be a transcity connection or an express highway, or whether the traffic to be served includes large or insignificant contributions from extra-city highways, in either case the nature of the traffic within the city is much the same.
It always is largely a movement from the periphery to the center of the city, and is little concerned with intermediate city sections, but it must pass through them and, in so doing, is obstructed more or less frequently at the cross streets. The congestion that results, under present conditions, is due in part to the usually inadequate width of the existing artery and in part to conflict with cross traffic, generally complicated by parked vehicles.
It has been remarked previously that back of the failure to enlarge the capacity of a main rural highway at the approach to the city there are basically right-of-way difficulties. If this is true in the environs of the city, it is most emphatically true with respect to such needed improvements within the city as have been described in the foregoing paragraphs. Because these difficulties seem to the municipal administration virtually insurmountable such major improvements have thus far been attempted in very few instances.
Outstanding among the few instances that can be cited, both for their completeness and the vigor of their execution are the West Side Highway and Henry Hudson Parkway in New York City, together with their connecting parkways in Westchester County, N. Y., and the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. Less complete but still admirable in its conception and bold in execution is the short section of depressed highway recently constructed in St. Louis; and remarkable as an earlier, less daring venture, that can be converted with relative ease into a highly efficient modern facility—the Roosevelt Boulevard in Philadelphia. In its present form the latter consists of a central artery for through traffic, bordered at each side by local service lanes, all set within a wide right-of-way. Depression of the central artery to separate its grade from that of the intersecting streets will be only a matter of construction, and is desirable.
In general, however, city administrations have been deterred from following these inspiring examples by what appear to be the literally stupendous difficulties and expense involved—difficulties and expense partly of an engineering nature, but first and usually in much the greater measure generated by the acquisition of right-of-way and the damage to, or obliteration of, private property. In the improvement of Woodward Avenue in Detroit, the property damage and right-of-way cost was $9,806,400 of a total cost of $11,127,900. Twenty years ago, it has been said, the right-of-way could have been obtained at a cost of about $250,000.Widening of this important artery affords needed space for the large number of vehicles moving over it. It does not dispose of the problem raised by the interruption of the heavy stream of traffic at the cross streets. The recently completed traffic survey indicates that eventually it will be necessary to consider the construction of express highways across the city and into its central business section which will serve through traffic without frequent cross-street stoppage.
In the circumstances it is easy to understand and sympathize with the hesitation of the city administrations.Yet the problem remains and is becoming more acute with each passing year. Soon it must be faced; and the strongest reasons urge against delay. To present them properly requires a brief digression.
Reference has previously been made to the leapfroglike movement of traffic from the periphery of the cities over intervening areas to their centers. The motor vehicle itself is the primary cause of this phenomenon. It made possible the outward transfer of the homes of citizens with adequate income from the inner city to the suburbs and it now conveys these citizens daily back and forth to their city offices and places of business.
The former homes of the transferred population have descended by stages to lower and lower income groups, and some of them (each year an increasing number, and generally those nearest the center of the city) have now run the entire gamut. (See pl. 50.) Almost untenable, occupied by the humblest citizens, they fringe the business district, and form the city’s slums—a blight near its very core! Each year a few of these once prouder tenements, weakened by want of repair, tumble into piles of brick, not infrequently taking a human life in their fall. Each year a few of them make way for parking lots unsightly indexes to needed facilities of higher dignity! Each year the city “takes over” a few of them for unpaid taxes. And now—the Federal Government is beginning to acquire them in batches in connection with its slum-clearance projects. Heralds of a better future though they are, these acquisitions comprise one of the reasons for avoidance of delay in dealing with the problem of transcity highway connections and express highways.
Another reason lies in the fact that, here and there, in the midst of the decaying slum areas, substantial new properties of various sorts are beginning to rise—some created by private initiative, some by public.
There is growing danger that these new properties, sporadically arising, and the more compact developments by the Government in its slum-clearance projects, will block the logical projection of the 
needed new arteries into the city center. Since the actual accomplishment of such projects will at best require time they should now be planned in order that their eventual courses may not be barred by newly created property.
There is another, and perhaps still more important, reason for avoidance of delay in the carrying out, or at least in the planning, of new transcity arteries and express highways. It is that in the business district itself—in most cities, but particularly the older ones—there is a slow decay that will not be arrested until there is radical revision of the city plan. Such a revision will have to provide the greater space now needed for the unfettered circulation of traffic, and will have to permit a reintegration of facilities for the various forms of transportation—railway terminals, docks, airports and the highway approaches to each—more consistent with their modern relationships. For such a revision of the city plan decision upon the location and character of the new highway facilities here described is a basic necessity. Toward the actual accomplishment of the much needed revision, little else that might be done by Government would be so likely to supply the impetus.
What has been done in recent years in the city of Washington in cutting Constitution Avenue and the new arteries approaching the Union Station through the former mean clutter of narrow streets is indicative of the least that somehow must be done in many of the larger, and especially in the older, cities. When one observes the countless impediments that embarrass the movement of twentieth-century traffic through the eighteenth century streets of some eastern cities one wonders how long it will be, with the assured further increase in traffic, before complete congestion will result.
Because of their urgent need to facilitate highway transportation where it is now most seriously hampered, and because of the impetus that through them may be given to needed changes in the central plan of our cities, the construction of transcity connections of the main rural highways and other express routes into the center of the cities ranks first in the list of highway projects worthy of consideration by the Congress. Possibly no other work that might be done would so profitably provide employment coincident with the centers of present unemployment.
BELT LINES AND BYPASSES
Next to provisions for the safer and more efficient conduct of large traffic streams into and across cities, the new facilities most urgently required are belt-line distribution roads around the larger cities and bypasses around many of the smaller cities and towns.
As previously pointed out, the traffic on a main highway approaching a large city, that will use a bypass route if offered, is a small part of the total. By far the greater part is originated in or destined to points in the city and largely points near its center or customarily reached by traveling through the center.
Bypass routes, therefore, may not be regarded as means for the relief of congestion on the highway-connecting streets of large cities. Further evidence of the correctness of this observation is afforded by plate 51, which shows profiles of the traffic volume on the two alternate connections of U.S. 40 across the city of Columbus, Ohio. From these profiles it will be observed that even if the entire traffic on this important route at the city limits could be diverted over a bypass route around the city, the volume of traffic on the connecting streets at the center of the city would not be reduced in any large proportion; and, as previously stated, no large part of the existing traffic at the city entrances could be diverted.
At all large cities, however, and many smaller ones, there is need for the construction of what are called in this report belt-line distribution roads. Such roads have some of the characteristics of bypass routes, and may actually serve to bypass a considerable amount of through highway traffic around the city. Their primary purpose, however, is something different.
From most large cities a number of relatively important highways radiate in several directions. Between each of these highways there is a certain interchange of traffic that normally enters the city only because it is there that the routes have their junction. A major part of the traffic on each of the routes has its origins or destinations within, but in various parts of, the city, some near and some remote from the points at which the respective routes enter the city.
That portion of the traffic from each of the roads that is bound to or from the center of the city is best served, if it is a considerable movement, by the transcity connecting routes and expressways previously described. These same kinds of facilities also most directly serve the needs of traffic between each city-entering highway and points in or beyond the city that lie approximately diametrically opposite its point of entrance.
But, for those parts of the traffic on each entering highway that are (a) interchanged with other entering highways not nearly opposite across the city and (b) originated in or destined to sections of the city similarly situated, the facility that will generally provide the best service is a circumferential or belt-line route forming an approximate circle around the city at its outer fringe.
The principal function of such a route is the distribution of traffic approaching the city on any highway, either to the other highways to which it may need to transfer or to points on the circumference of the city nearest the urban section of its ultimate destination, and the distribution of outbound traffic in a reciprocal manner.
In some cases it may be feasible to construct the distributing belt line within the city generally somewhere within the ring of decadent property surrounding the central business area. Such a belt line, connecting at appropriate points with radial arteries extending out of the city, may avoid the cutting of a new route directly through the business sections, and may either serve as a substitute or supplement for the outer belt line.
At smaller cities the case is somewhat different.It is necessary to consider the volume of traffic carried by the rural highway as well as the size of the city to determine whether a bypass would be useful. Where such a smaller city lies between larger ones closely spaced, the usually heavy traffic moving between the larger cities is likely to be a preponderant part of the volume on the main highway at the limits of the smaller intermediate city, and the diversion of this traffic over a bypass around the smaller city may considerably reduce the traffic volume on the connecting streets in the city. A bypass in this case may be not only a great convenience to the through traffic but also may considerably relieve a troublesome condition within the city. A case in point is the town of Havre de Grace, Md., a small city of 4,000 population located at the head of Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore on the south and Wilmington, Del., and Philadelphia on the north.It is obvious that very little of the average daily traffic of 5,000 vehicles on U.S. 40 at this town is destined or has any reason to enter the town.
Where, on the other hand, the main highway approaching such a small city carries a relatively light traffic and larger cities are fairly distant, as is often the case in the more sparsely settled sections of the country, a major part of the traffic may either be originated in or destined to the small city or for other reasons desirous of entering it. As an illustration of this case, the city of Las Vegas, N. Mex., may be cited. A large part of the average daily traffic of 700 vehicles on U.S. 85 approaching this small city of 4,700 population may be desirous of entering the town and construction of a bypass might solve no traffic problem and accommodate very few vehicles.
If further, we consider the case of the smallest urban communities—the highway or ribbon towns that at intervals stretch out along main highways and vary from a block or two to several blocks in width—the bypassing of such places is not only helpful to the preponderant through traffic, but is usually necessary for the avoidance of congestion and serious accidents and the protection of life on the main street of the little community.
At cities large and small throughout the country there exists today a need for the belt-line routes and bypasses here described.But if they are to be and remain the useful facilities they should be, they will have to possess one feature that is present in none or virtually none of the circuit routes thus far built around urban communities; i. e., they will have to permit access only at their points of junction with the main routes approaching the cities or towns and a very limited number of intermediate points.
A so-called bypass route or belt line that is left open to access from the side at all points becomes in a very short time just another city street.The business-generating potentiality of a heavy traffic stream is so great that there is an immediate development of a great variety of roadside establishments all along every new heavily traveled route that is created. Every new highway also, especially in the vicinity of cities, immediately encourages residential development and attracts commercial establishments more interested in the new facility provided by it than in catering to its traffic.
If, therefore, a bypass or belt-line route is to remain the through-traffic facility it is intended to be, it must be protected from the encroachment of bordering developments that would quickly engulf it and destroy its special character. This means that bypass routes must be built as limited-access highways, cut off from the bordering land except at a very limited number of points, and separated from all but a very limited number of the cross streets and highways intersected by them.
As right-of-way difficulties have been shown to have been paramount in the past in discouraging the enlargement of main highway facilities at the entrances to cities and halting the provision of really adequate connections across cities and expressways into cities, so also they have thus far discouraged in many cases the construction of any kind of city belt-line or bypass facilities, and have absolutely prevented the protection of such routes from the encroachments referred to above. In this latter connection there enters also something more than the usual difficulty of obtaining space for the highway from unwilling or rapacious individuals. There enters here the further difficulty, rarely dealt with heretofore, of publicly acquiring the legal authority or right to prohibit entrance upon the highway except at designated points. Railroad companies have acquired such rights with respect to their rights-of-way, and there have been a few instances in which they have been similarly acquired for highway purposes.
Although it has not previously been mentioned the same need for the control and limitation of access will exist frequently in the development of main highways, particularly at city approaches and in the provision of adequate transcity connections and express highways, and wherever this need exists it obviously will complicate and render more expensive the acquisition of required rights-of-way.
In the construction of future belt lines and bypasses control of lateral access and separation from the grade of cross highways at intersections always should be provided. Only by so doing can the bypasses be preserved for their proper function of serving through traffic. So protected, the cities can expand beyond the circuit routes provided without interfering with the discharge of the duty of such routes. Without such protection, particularly at the larger cities, we must face the necessity of building at frequent intervals a succession of intended belt-line or bypass routes each further removed from the cities, and never for long accomplishing the intended purpose.
BALTIMORE AS AN EXAMPLE
The location and design of transcity connecting streets, express highways, and belt lines or bypasses is a matter that requires particular study of the physical and traffic conditions peculiar to each city. For purposes of illustration only a limited study has been made of the conditions existing at Baltimore, Md., and a general plan involving a combination of the various types of city-vicinal facilities as they might be employed for relief of the critical traffic situation in that city is shown on plate 52.[1]
An old city, growing by the coalescence of numerous ancestor villages, the irregular and discontinuous street plan of Baltimore is the despair of the stranger and the daily inconvenience of its own citizens. The city lies in the path of one of the heaviest highway-traffic streams in the country, and by millions of travelers who have moved with that stream the difficulties of the Baltimore passage are well remembered.
The close block plan and narrow streets of the older sections of the city are chiefly an inheritance from the early nineteenth century. The principal business section lies in a relatively small area centrally located from east to west and clings closely to an inner harbor on the Patapsco River, into which formerly there came the many small vessels that maintained the trade of the city with the Chesapeake Bay country of the Eastern and Western Shores.
The old residential section of the city clustered closely about the central business section, which has grown little in size in the last 50 years. But, since 1900, the more well-to-do families that formerly lived in this older section have moved in large numbers to outlying suburban areas, some of which have been included within revised limits of the growing city. The old homes, vacated by this movement, have descended to the less well-to-do, and by stages large areas have finally reached a critical stage of decay.
Symptomatic of the low state of a large part of the property in these slum areas, the map shows the block locations of numerous properties upon which the city has acquired tax liens after failure of tax payment, and also the location of certain areas now in process of acquisition by the Federal Government as sites of slum-clearance projects. Within the business district itself there are many properties which probably are not included among those taken by the city for nonpayment of taxes only because the improvements that once occupied the land have been razed and the land converted into parking lots, most of which are of an order of unsightliness that is an affront to the pride of the city.
It is apparent that the whole interior of the city is ripe for the major change that it must undergo to afford the necessary relief to pressures generated by the effort to force the stream of twentieth-century traffic through arteries of the early nineteenth century. The map shows where properties are dying. In places, new and important developments are beginning to occur—developments of great possible significance in relation to the future plan of the city and particularly to the new major arteries that should supply the skeletal structure for that plan.
- ↑ The block location of properties acquired by the city under tax liens, and the location of areas to be acquired for slum clearance, as shown on the map (plate 52), are correct as of February 1, 1939. In number and location the various classes of highway facilities indicated have an illustrative purpose only. Although, as shown, they are consistent generally with the principles enunciated in this report, it is not asserted that all of the indicated facilities are at present required or feasible, nor that, if needed, they are practicably located.
For example, the map shows that two of the planned slum-clearance projects of the Federal Government lie directly athwart the possible courses of major new radial arteries. The new development of these areas and other developments of similar character that will certainly follow should not proceed far in the absence of a definite plan for the needed new street and highway facilities. If it does, new and more serious obstacles will certainly be placed in the way of a proper meeting of growing traffic needs, where obstructing private interests are now reaching their point of least resistance.
Northeast of the intersection of Harford and North Avenues, and also on the line of one of the possible new arteries, another area is indicated that until recently formed the largely open grounds of a private school. On this site there has already arisen a large and important new retail mercantile establishment, that conceivably might conflict (though it probably will not) with the best location of a needed express highway and trans-city connection serving the northeastern suburbs and the northern extension of U.S. 1.
The new street and highway facilities indicated on the map illustrate the several classes described in the preceding pages of this report, and in their location illustrate the manner in which such facilities may utilize to advantage existing topographic and other conditions that favor the accomplishment of a sound and adequate plan.
The main rural highways approaching the city are continued at present as streets running directly to the city center, some on diagonal lines cutting across the rectangular block plan. Historically, these streets are, in fact, the lines of the old turnpikes which, a century ago, radiated from the small Baltimore town of that period, located at what is now the center of the modern city.
Not only are these streets so located as to form the logical connections of the principal rural highways through the city and with its center, but also, they occupy the most favorable lines for the highway facilities needed to accommodate the daily movement between the city and the suburban sections that have developed naturally along and around each of the entering highways.
But, while in location the streets referred to would seem to offer the best possible avenues for the movement of traffic into and out of the central city, they do not actually serve this purpose; and the reason is that in the older part of the city they retain the narrow width of the old turnpikes.
The traffic map, plate 53, shows the radial lines of Belair Road, Harford Road, Reisterstown Road, and Park Heights Avenue at the north of the city bringing heavy traffic flows as far in as North Avenue. At this line all of these streets suddenly narrow and continue into the center of the city with the width of the early 19th-century roads they once were. In consequence a large part of their traffic turns along North Avenue and proceeds east or west to Charles Street or Mount Royal Avenue and immediately adjacent streets, which then carry it in concentrated streams southward to the business section.
The condition on Harford Avenue immediately south of North Avenue is illustrated in plate 48.
The new street plan, illustrated in plate 52, contemplates the construction of modern express arteries along the approximate lines of several of the existing radial streets, running to suitably designed intersections and distributing squares, located at the east and west sides of the central business section.
At least through the older parts of the city these express routes should be constructed as depressed, or elevated highways, or subways; and the topography and other conditions suggest an appropriate employment of each method, but principally the first. 
The general appearance and design of a depressed artery of the type suggested is shown in plate 54. As illustrated, the depressed and divided arterial lanes would be bordered on each side by one-way surface streets for local service. At intervals, important cross streets would be bridged over the depressed way and in the first blocks from each of such bridges, ramps at each side of the artery would afford separated up-and-down connections with the surface streets.
The depressed highways, especially, would necessitate acquisition of wide rights-of-way, and it is because property along several of the suggested lines has already dropped close to its lowest level, and land can therefore be obtained at approximately minimum cost, that the time is now ripe for the undertaking of such improvements.
The belt line, shown as encircling the city, would be a limited-access facility, with all intersecting highway grades separated and access provided only from the more important roads. It is probable that the greatest single contributions to this belt line would be those of US 1 at the south of the city and U S 40 at the east. Between these two highways the belt line would serve as a bypass route for that part of the Atlantic coastal movement that is desirous of avoiding the city entirely. The same section, including, as it does, a bridge across the city’s outer harbor, would serve to connect two rapidly growing industrial sections on opposite sides of the river.
Because of the probably heavy volume of turning movement at the intersections of the belt line with U.S. 1 and 40, a special Y connection at these points might be desirable. Such a connection with U.S. 1 at the south of the city is illustrated in plate 55. In this sketch the belt line is shown in the middle distance coming from the west and continuing eastward toward the southern riverside industrial suburbs. In the center of the picture is shown the Y connection with U.S. 1, and the route of the belt line crossing the distant river toward the northeast.
DIRECT INTERREGIONAL ROUTES AND MODERNIZED RURAL HIGHWAYS
Beyond the vicinity of cities the existing main rural highways of the United States lack a sufficient capacity to discharge the flow of present traffic moving over them with reasonable convenience only at relatively few points.
In the discussion of routes to be operated as toll facilities (see p. 40) a traffic of 1,500 vehicles was adopted as the criterion for determining whether a two-lane or a wider pavement was required. Average daily traffic in volumes less than that amount it was assumed would require no more than two lanes for its free movement; traffic exceeding that average was assumed at some time during the year to produce a maximum hourly flow that would be slightly inconvenienced unless more than two pavement lanes were provided.
It was pointed out that a toll road, for use of which a special fee is asked, would have to provide a capacity that at any time would not be likely to limit the freedom of motion of its users. So high a standard of service is not to be expected in a system of roads built with general taxes. On such roads a slight restriction of absolute freedom of movement is to be expected during the few short periods of maximum hourly traffic volume that occur in the course of a year. So long as such occasional restrictions do not result in the creation of a dangerous condition or in substantial congestion or retardation of the traffic they may be accepted as reasonable. On this basis, an average daily volume of 2,000 vehicles may be considered as within the reasonably convenient discharge capacity of a two-lane highway.
Accepting this figure as a criterion, the highway planning survey data for 12 representative States, presented in table 20, show that in these States there are only some 4,651 miles, or 0.6 percent of their total of 766,314 miles of rural highways on which the traffic is of such density as possibly to tax the capacity of a two-lane pavement to provide reasonably convenient service. On January 1, 1938, there were 
were improved with pavements more than two lanes wide. On the basis of pavement width only, therefore, there may be in these 12 States some 3,000 miles of rural roads on which the traffic has reached such a volume as to suggest the possible need of greater pavement width than has been provided.
| State | Length of rural highways |
Length and percentage of total length of all rural highways carrying more than 2,000 vehicles per day |
Length of paved rural highways having more than 2 traffic lanes | |
| Miles | Miles | Percent | Miles | |
Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
27,547 | 78 | 0.3 | 33 |
Florida . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
28,547 | 78 | .9 | 33 |
Idaho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
33,540 | 110 | .3 | 8 |
Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
102,684 | 1,223 | 1.2 | 358 |
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
101,525 | 235 | .2 | 0 |
Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
128,198 | 301 | .2 | 9 |
Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
116,893 | 522 | .4 | 282 |
Montana . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
65,730 | 12 | .0 | 0 |
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
82,469 | 1,517 | 1.8 | 374 |
Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
21,493 | 82 | .4 | 22 |
West Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
32,598 | 298 | .9 | 21 |
Wyoming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
24,725 | 0 | .0 | 0 |
Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
766,314 | 4.651 | .6 | 1,115 |
However, as suggested by the traffic volume profile on plate 56, it is probable that this entire mileage is located within a relatively short distance of the cities of the 12 States. The profile shows uniformly a rapid drop in the traffic with increasing distance from the cities, and generally quite moderate traffic volumes beyond the immediate environs of the cities.
Not only do the findings of the planning surveys show that beyond the vicinity of the cities there is no great mileage of the existing main rural highways that requires increase in the number of its lanes, but they also show the existence of a number of other conditions on a considerable part of the mileage that urgently require correction. Plate 56 shows graphically the nature and prevalence of these unsatisfactory conditions on the existing highway from Philadelphia to San Francisco.
Distances along the highways are represented in this graph to a greatly condensed horizontal scale. The character of the highway pavement or surface at all points is represented by the shading or hatching within the broad bands extending across the diagram; and information concerning nine other important conditions in relation to each mile of the highway is presented by various plottings to six conveniently enlarged vertical scales.
The width of the pavement or surface on each mile is represented to the indicated scale by the width of the hatched lower band. To the same scale the distance between the horizontal lines immediately adjacent to the hatched bands represents the width of right-of-way at all points. In the first row of plottings above the pavement and right-of-way bands the height of the narrow black vertical bars, each of a width corresponding to a distance of 1 mile to the horizontal distance scale, represents to the indicated scale the number of curves in each mile of the highway that in 1937 were sharper than certain indicated desirable standards, generally 6° in nonmountainous areas and 14° in mountainous areas.
In the next higher row, the narrow vertical bars represent to the indicated scale, the number of grades, longer than 500 feet, in each mile exceding 5 percent in nonmountainous areas and 8 percent in mountainous areas, considered generally as desirable maximum limits.
Similarly, the height of the vertical bands in the next row represents to scale the number of sight distances in each mile shorter than desirable limits of 1,000 feet and 650 feet in nonmountainous and mountainous areas, respectively; and those in the next row in like manner represent the number of fatal highway accidents occurring on each mile during the year 1937.
At the top of the diagram the average daily volume of traffic on each mile of the highway is shown by three profiles, the highest representing the total vehicular traffic and the two lower ones, respectively: the traffic of motor trucks and busses and the so-called “foreign” traffic which, in each State, consists of all vehicles bearing license tags of other States.
Vertical lines extending through all of the data rows of the diagram, show to the horizontal scale the sequential location of the corporate limits of cities and State borders.
Examination of this highway condition diagram shows instances in which variations in the width or type of pavement or both are inconsistent with corresponding variations in the average daily traffic and a number of sections on which pavements of two-lane width are provided for traffic exceeding an average daily volume of 2,000 vehicles.
The existing rights-of-way are shown to be in the main quite narrow, generally less than 100 feet in width; and there is a marked absence of either uniformity or consistency in the widths provided. Wide pavements are confined within relatively narrow rights-of-way and narrow pavements in other places are laid on relatively wide rights-of-way. In some places the available right-of-way will be observed to constitute a definite impediment to desirable widening of the pavement.
Unsatisfactory conditions in respect to sight distance, grade, and curvature are shown to be of common occurrence; and on some sections the conjunction of such unsatisfactory physical conditions of the highway with a bad accident record suggests the possibility that the highway conditions may be in some measure responsible for the fatal accidents that have occurred. In other instances the record of highway physical conditions, including the width of pavement, appears to clear the highway of responsibility for accidents that have occurred.
The diagram reproduced in plate 56 is typical of others that have been drawn for nearly 27,000 miles of important main highways in the United States; and the conditions shown on this diagram are fairly indicative of those that exist generally on all the main highways of the country. There is no doubt that, as measured by the standards of the diagrammatic record, unsatisfactory conditions with respect to sight distance, curvature, and gradient are common. There 
is no doubt also, as indicated by the diagram, that acquircd rights-of-way are inadequate. As further indicated, there is generally a reasonable accord between traffic volume and the number of pavement lanes provided and also between the amount and character of the traffic and the class of pavement or surface in place. A slightly inadequate width of the pavement lanes appears on a considerable mileage, usually near cities.
The unsatisfactory conditions found on the main roads of the country and indicated typically in plate 56, are the natural consequences of circumstances surrounding their construction, The roads as they exist at present, are the product of construction operations carried on over a period of more than 20 years. It is estimated that at least 11,000 miles of road surface on the State primary systems, constructed prior to 1921, is still in service, widened perhaps, but still on its original alinement and still unchanged in basic design. This mileage represents 14 percent of the surfaced mileage in existence prior to 1921. A large part of the existing improved mileage was built during the twenties and still conforms to the standards then considered adequate.
One of the handicaps under which roadbuilders have labored during the period of development of the motor vehicle is that they must expect the roads they build to outlast the vehicles that exist at the time of their building. There is a substantial mileage of road pavement still in use that was built 25 years ago or longer, serving today kinds of vehicles that were undreamed of when they were built. Small wonder if such pavements, designed to be used by vehicles capable of a top speed of 30 miles an hour, are found somewhat inadequate for the service of vehicles that may be, and are frequently driven at speeds above 60 miles an hour.
When the oldest of still existing pavements were built there were only 2 or 3 million primitive motor vehicles, but there was already a strong demand for improved roads, and especially for roads connecting the larger cities, in which the great majority of the vehicles were owned. The recognized superior need for such roads resulted in their inclusion in State highway systems and, in 1921, the Federal-aid highway system, and the enactment of laws limiting expenditure of State and Federal funds largely to the improvement of these systems.
In the beginning nearly all of the mileage included in these systems had no improvement worthy of the name. The need of improvement in some degree was coextensive with the system; and the primary need was for the laying of surfaces which—to use the popular phrase—would “get the traffic out of the mud.”
In general, the improvement began near each city and larger town and proceeded outward from these to eventual junction of the extending arms. While unimproved gaps remained there was constant pressure to close them as rapidly as possible in order to “get the traffic through.” The full value of the improved sections was unrealized so long as at one or both ends they delivered their traffic to a road still unimproved. Residents along the unimproved sections naturally wanted to see their sections improved also, but they were scarcely more vigorous in pressing their claims than were those already served with pieces of improved highways that failed to take them where they wanted to go. The pressure thus generated, impelling toward prompt interconnection of all the designated routes, forced a decision between two possible courses of action toward an eventual complete improvement. One of these would have involved the piecemeal completion of improvements regarded as fully adequate on each successive section of the system before undertaking any improvement whatever on other sections. The other course and the one adopted, described as stage construction, attempted to spread some degree of improvement as rapidly as possible over the whole system, and to build on this initial accomplishment by subsequent stages of improvement.
This was one of the expedients adopted to “get the traffic through” as quickly as possible over the entire main highway system. It was a proper expedient, and it resulted, as it was intended to result, in the giving of the greatest possible measure of service to the fast-growing and widespreading highway traffic in the shortest possible time. In accordance with this stage construction policy surfaces of low type were built as initial improvements wherever they could reasonably be expected to satisfy the minimum requirements of the existing traffic. Where high-type surfaces were required by the developed traffic they were commonly given the least width that would afford a substantial service. The funds thus saved were employed to extend surfacing to other sections.
The stage construction policy did not encourage any form of temporary improvement that would not acceptably serve as a basis for the further improvement contemplated. On the contrary, it insisted that the first stage improvements made, such as grading and drainage, and the cheaper types of surfacing, should be capable of incorporation without substantial loss as bases for subsequent pavements of higher type and greater width. Present inadequacies in the highway system that result from application of the stage construction policy consist mainly of surfaces a little narrow and somewhat weak for the traffic that moves over them. But these are defects that can be corrected by addition, with the almost complete salvage of the previous investment.
The more serious defects of the present roads—those that will involve in their correction a considerable loss of invested value, and that already have been responsible for a heavy obsolescence of the roads built—are consequences of another expedient adopted to hasten the extension of improvement in the pioneer period. That expedient was the acceptance of the existing rights-of-way of the preautomobile roads as the limits within which to place the new improvements. The sharp curvature and indirect alinement resulting from this policy are the causes of by far the greater part of the recognized present obsolescence of the main highway system.
In retrospect it appears that another course might have been followed but there was no question of the wisdom of the action at the time. It must be remembered that during the greater part of the period when the defective roads were built the motor vehicle had not yet become the abundant revenue producer it now is. The property tax was still relied upon in considerable measure to pay the costs of the roads built, and that form of tax was little easier to collect then than now. Annual road revenues were, therefore, relatively small in relation to need; and the most pressing need, as already remarked, was the extension of surfacing. There appeared to be very good reason to avoid, so far as possible, any expenditure for new right-of-way and apply the money instead to the construction of the much desired surfaces.
If the need for better alignment and more adequate right-of-way had been felt, and funds had been held available for the purpose, actual obtainment of the rights-of-way would have been a difficult and slow process because of the objections and obstruction that would have been offered by individual landowners all along the projected routes.
But more decisive than either of these circumstances in accounting for the adherence to old rights-of-way, was the fact that there seemed to be no great need to depart from them. Long distance travel by road had not developed and was not foreseen. For the local movements from one town to its immediate neighbors the indirection of the old roads was not a disadvantage, but an advantage. Motor vehicles were incapable of high speed and were legally restricted to very low speeds. The desire for the present high speed had not been born in a populace still tied to its home places and regarding 30 miles an hour as a breakneck pace. The improved curvature obtainable by slightly cutting the corners of the existing rights-of-way was all that was believed to be needed, and all that could reasonably be foreseen, as required in the future.
It was not until the early years of the present decade that a change occurred. Then, rather suddenly, the speed capacity of motor vehicles was increased and new standards of highway design, particularly in relation to curvature, gradient, and surfaced width became necessary. By that time a large part of the present improved mileage had been constructed, and much of this earlier construction is now in some degree obsolescent, mainly because its curvature is too sharp. To correct its defects new right-of-way is needed in large acreage.
Moreover, there are other conditions that point to the same need, the need of additional right-of-way—mainly in the form of greater width. These are conditions associated with the private use of the land bordering the narrow strips within which the public highways are confined. Collectively such uses are described as “ribbon development.” They include an unneeded number of unsightly stands and other minor and temporary retail establishments catering inefficiently and with little profit to the purchasing power of Americans awheel; a multiplication of roadside residences and more substantial business places, crowded close to the roadway; the private opening of innumerable accesses to the highways, many so blind as to be positive menaces; and the erection of billboards in such numbers on the more heavily traveled roads as virtually to obscure the natural scene.
The mere presence of these numerous, close-crowding objects and establishments is a distraction to drivers of vehicles. Some of them, by every conceivable device, endeavor to attract the attention of drivers of vehicles from their primary responsibility; most of them contribute largely to the hazards of unexpected stopping, turning, and emergence upon the highways of both vehicles and pedestrians. All are positive menaces and must be controlled, and only the prob ability of material improvement lies in a general and substantial widening of the rights-of-way of the more important roads, together with effective border control. On such roads the availability of wider publicly controlled margins will permit employment of various measures designed to abate the menace; among them roadside planting to obscure unwanted billboards, the prevention of parking on the traveled way, and control of the conditions of egress from and ingress to the highway at all bordering properties.
The need for such additional right-of-way width is not so great on the less frequented highways, because most of the developments complained of are only attracted by and associated with the denser traffic flows.
The need of modernizing improvements here suggested—improvements made necessary by the changes that have occurred in the speed and volume of traffic, and most of them involving important new right-of-way requirements—is present today on a large mileage of existing main highways in the State and Federal-aid systems, and on other roads of comparable importance, generally in the vicinity of cities. Specifically, the needed improvements include the reduction of excessive curvature; the flattening of heavy grades; an opening of longer sight distances; a general widening of pavement lanes; a construction of additional lanes and separation of opposing traffic where increased volume requires, and possibly also for the accommodation of slow vehicles on the heavier grades; the separation of grades at many railroad and highway intersections, and installation of protective cross traffic controls at others; the abatement of dangerous roadside conditions of all sorts; and a substantial improvement in the general directness of alinement between important objectives of the principal routes serving movements of the longer ranges.
All of these named improvements, except one, can be accomplished generally by local correction of, and addition to, the existing highways after acquisition of the new rights-of-way almost invariably required. The exception—the provision of more direct routes for long distance, interregional movements—will involve the construction of considerable lengths of new and more direct highways to be used in place of existing indirect roads by the through traffic. Usually the existing facility will remain in use for the service of the local traffic it was located originally to serve.
The abundance of information supplied by the State highway-planning surveys now makes it possible to decide upon the lines for such direct highways most useful for the accommodation of the ordinary peacetime movements. In consideration of this information and a knowledge of the general needs of the national defense received from previous advices of the War Department, a tentative selection of routes has been made, which, comprising a 26,700-mile system, is shown on the map reproduced as plate 57.
After further study, in which there should be a close cooperation with the Bureau of Public Roads by various agencies, particularly the War Department and the several State highway departments, it is now advisable by law to establish this or a closely similar system as the Primary Highway System of the United States.
The system tentatively selected is believed to include substantially every major line of interregional travel in the country. As shown on plate 58, it joins the populous cities of the United States, almost without exception, and one of its routes follows practically every of the lines along which the population of the country has moved one present settlement and along which it is still obviously thickest to its both in city and country. 
The existing routes which would be improved by the proposed system are shown by the traffic map, plate 59, to be in each locality the most heavily traveled, as a whole, of all routes in the numbered United States Highway System.
Compared with the selected toll road system, conforming to the congressional definition, this suggested Primary Highway System of the United States, is nearly twice as large, made so by the essential inclusion of all routes of primary importance and interregional utility, not possible within the limits set by the act.
Improved as a system of public roads along lines chosen to facilitate the important traffic awaiting its service, it will attract traffic and generate new activity, in contradistinction to the traffic-repelling tendency of the proposed toll-road system.
With the aid of all State highway departments the significant conditions of all present highways approximating the lines of the direct system, including the average daily volume of traffic in 1937 on all such highways, have been ascertained and diagrammatically recorded for further study on straight-line diagrams, of which that reproduced in plate 56 is a typical sample. No such precise and acceptance-compelling information has ever before been available or possible of assembly with reference to a projected highway plan of comparable magnitude. Either already compiled or quickly available, there are ascertained facts to answer whatever questions may be asked as to the need for, and manner of making, the important improvements suggested.
The existing routes most nearly conforming to the direct routes suggested now serve somewhat less than 10 percent of the total vehicle-mileage on all rural highways. The suggested more direct routes would lose little of this traffic, and attract from other highways considerably more than they would lose, besides generating a large amount of new movement. Although in mileage they would represent as a system less than 1 percent of the total rural highway mileage of the country, they would unquestionably accommodate at least 12.5 percent of the total rural vehicle-mileage. This may be compared with the utilization estimated for the selected toll-road system which amounts to about 1.2 percent of the total rural vehicle-mileage.
These roads would directly substitute for substantially all of the most heavily traveled of present rural routes and would subtract heavily from lesser traffic streams now following other roads. By providing ample capacity and every safety device known to modern highway engineering, the construction of these roads would effect a greater reduction in the highway accident rate than could be made by an equivalent sum spent for highways in any other way.
Wherever it may be done, consistent with the purpose of direct routing and other essential considerations, the suggested routes should follow the alinement of, and incorporate the improvement of, existing highways. Reasonably direct connection between the major cities along their general lines should be the controlling thought in choosing revised location. Deviation from such direct lines should not go far for any purpose, and should be accepted in limited degree only to pick up the largest intermediate towns.
The routes should enter and traverse all large cities by means of facilities adequately designed to promote free movement of. traffic to and through the center of the city. At large cities, wherever 
necessary, limited-access belt lines should also be provided; and all small communities should be bypassed—not entered. In general alinement the routes should be directed toward the center of large cities and past the sides of small towns, the line between large and small communities being drawn in each section between cities of such size as to contribute either (1) the larger or (2) the smaller part of the expected traffic on the route at their boundaries.
The standards of grade and curvature should be substantially the same as previously considered for the proposed toll-road system, varied slightly in concession to the more difficult or expensive locations. All railroad grade crossings should be eliminated and all highway intersections should either be separated, closed, or positively protected according to the importance of the intersecting roads.
Lane widths should be the same as those proposed for the toll highways, and pavements more than two lanes wide should be provided where traffic exceeds 2,000 vehicles per average day. Wherever it is probable that an original two-lane pavement may have to be increased in width, the original pavement should be laid off-center of the right-of-way.
The right to limit access should be acquired at all points and should be exercised wherever and whenever the amount of entering vehicles is likely to endanger appreciably, or interfere materially, with the freedom of movement of the main stream of traffic. Approaching large cities and elsewhere, if necessary, bordering local-service roads should be provided.
Right-of-way width in rural areas generally should be not less than 300 feet, in urban areas not less than 160 feet. And here, it may be observed again, as in respect to the various classes of city and city-vicinal facilities previously discussed, lies the crux and the initial and greatest difficulty of effecting the type of direct rural facility proposed.
SECONDARY AND FEEDER ROADS
The great preponderance of highway traffic in the United States is served by the rural roads included in the Federal-aid and State highway systems and by city streets. Local rural roads administered by county and lesser governmental units, although they comprise the large percentage of the total rural highway mileage, serve a relatively small percentage of the total vehicle-mileage.
As shown graphically in plate 60, it is estimated on the basis of results obtained by the highway planning surveys of 17 typical States that the main highways, comprising the Federal-aid and State highway systems and their transcity connections, serve approximately 57 percent of the total vehicle mileage on all roads and streets, although these systems constitute only 11 percent of the total mileage. The local streets of cities, constituting only 6 percent of the total road and street mileage, serve approximately 30 percent of the total traffic expressed in vehicle-miles.
Contrasting with these more heavily traveled highway and street facilities, the county and other local rural roads, which constitute approximately 83 percent of the total road and street mileage of the country serve only about 13 percent of the total traffic.
As these relative percentages indicate, problems incident to the service of large volumes of traffic are found almost exclusively on the Federal-aid and State highway systems and on the streets of cities. Improvement of these more heavily traveled facilities, comprising in the aggregate about 17 percent of the total street and highway mileage, benefits all but a very small part (13 percent, as shown by the diagram) of the movements that in sum represent the country’s highway transportation.
But, while the improvement of heavy traffic arteries is thus indicated to be a first necessity, and of greatest value to the largest proportion of highway usage, the State highway planning surveys are also establishing other facts that merit careful consideration. These facts show that it is probable that the Federal-aid and State highways in the average State give direct access to about one-fourth of the total number of rural homes, and places of business, social and religious gatherings.
In Oregon, for example, the State highway system, comprising approximately 13.7 percent of the total rural-road mileage serves directly 23.6 percent of all farms, rural homes, and rural commercial, social, and religious establishments.
In Florida, the State-maintained highway system, including 22.4 percent of the total rural-road mileage serves directly 29.2 percent of the farm houses, homes and other rural buildings previously described.
In Vermont, the State highway system, which includes 12.7 percent of the total mileage of rural roads, serves directly 22.5 percent of the total number of rural homes and other establishments. In Utah, the State highway system, comprising 21.6 percent of the total rural-road system, serves directly 30.7 percent of the rural homes and other establishments.
There is every reason to believe that the similar relationships in other States conform approximately to the pattern established in the States cited, and it is probable that for the country as a whole the Federal-aid and State highway systems, as at present designated, give direct service to about 25 percent of the total number of farmhouses, homes, churches, schools, stores, and other commercial establishments in strictly rural territory.
It is apparent then that the improvement of highway mileage outside of the Federal-aid and State systems must rest, not upon the value of a resultant substantial gain in vehicle-mileage accommodated, but rather upon the desirability of giving direct improved-road access to a greater percentage of rural homes and places of business and other congregation.
Outside of the Federal-aid and primary State highway systems there are in rural territory some 2,618,000 miles of road.[1] Even to reach directly all of the farmhouses, homes, and other establishments, it would not be necessary to improve all of this large residual mileage, because there is a considerable part of the existing mileage that serves neither occupied property nor measurable traffic. Moreover the highway planning surveys are indicating that an improvement of a substantially smaller mileage will bring direct service to a large percentage of the rural population.
For example, in Florida 57 percent of all rural dwellings are located within 1 mile of the State-maintained system; in Utah nearly 70 percent are within a like distance of the State system, and within the same distance of the State roads in Vermont are nearly 55 percent of all rural dwellings. What additional feeder road mileage, if any, it would be necessary to improve to give direct service to these or larger percentages of the rural population cannot be indicated. On this point the facts are not yet sufficiently analyzed to warrant a more definite statement. It is known, however, that conditions vary among the States and regions of the country.
It is apparent, however, that the improvement of roads outside of the Federal-aid and State highway systems calls for careful selection, to accomplish the greatest benefit with the least expenditure from two points of view: (1) Improved service to a still larger percentage of the total traffic; and (2) direct access to a greater percentage of rural homes and establishments.
- ↑ This total includes secondary State highways and county roads under State control.
In administering the appropriations recently made by Congress for the improvement of secondary and feeder roads, the Secretary of Agriculture has interpreted the language of the acts as applying to roads not included in the Federal-aid highway system, but possibly included in the State highway systems. Pending the availability of facts to be supplied by the State highway planning surveys as indicative of the relative importance of portions of the large mileage comprised under the definition, sections of road for improvement are being selected on the basis of the best available information. As soon as the planning survey information will permit, the States will select for approval by the Secretary of Agriculture a group or system of roads, conforming to the definition and including roads of high relative usefulness, not exceeding at the outset an aggregate mileage equivalent to 10 percent of the total mileage of rural roads in each State.
The selection will be materially influenced by the purpose of promoting desirable future uses of rural land as well as by evidence of existing settlement and usage; and to this end the highway authorities of the States are being asked to cooperate closely with committees that are being formed in each State and each county to develop programs of most effective land utilization.
It is obvious that the further improvement of secondary and feeder roads should be consistent with the probable future use of the lands served by them. That, to a certain extent, the selection of roads for improvement may be the means, over a long period, of fostering a desirable movement from less to more favorable lands is also seen as a possibility. Governed in this way, the improvement of secondary and feeder roads, by widening the margin of advantage between the less and the more favorable lands, may become a useful instrument for inducing an economically and socially beneficial resettlement of the rural population by a gradual and natural process.
Extended in the light of such investigations of need and usefulness as are here mentioned, the further improvement of secondary and feeder roads is desirable and necessary. It should be realized, however, that the construction of roads of this class approaches a margin below which the benefits, measured by any standard, must appear as less than the costs. Therefore, in providing for improvements of any roads forming part of the 2,618,000-mile total that serves only 13 percent of the total traffic, a careful selection is necessary.
NATURE OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY PROBLEM
There can be no question of the need for the various classes of highway and street improvements described. In many instances they are already too long delayed, and with the growth in use and economic significance of highway transportation still continuing, the revision of facilities which were designed to serve a far less need for exacting and voluminous traffic will continue to grow.
The most influential causes of the delay in effecting the needed changes hitherto have been the inadequacy of available funds and the overpowering legal obstacles and inhibitions that stand in the way of obtaining essential rights-of-way; and these will continue to retard action and eventually build up a formidable burden of deferred construction expenditure unless early provision is made to deal adequately with this problem.
Thus far, the Government of the United States generally has been unwilling to assume any part of the cost of obtaining rights-of-way. In all work under the Federal Highway Act the responsibility to provide the right-of-way and to satisfy damage claims is placed solely upon the States. The Government has assumed a part of the right-of-way expense in other recent public works of various classes in which it has participated, but it generally has refrained from lending any assistance to the States and local governments in overcoming the difficult legal and procedural obstacles encountered. Undoubtedly these right-of-way difficulties have been the primary cause of delay in dispatching many of the most worth-while projects undertaken in the various emergency programs to deal with the condition of unemployment.
As previously suggested, the States, in their highway operations, have never had at their disposal funds in sufficient amount to meet the costs of a desirably prompt construction program and a simultaneous heavy expense of land acquisition. The same condition has generally affected the various operations of the municipal and county governments. In consequence, the character of the improvements undertaken too often has been governed by the limited possibilities of land acquisition.
When, as in the recent emergency programs, there is added to the normal difficulties of this problem an urgent demand for speed of action, a situation already bad is made much worse. It is believed to be beyond question that a proper handling of the acquisition of land for public purposes requires reasonably long anticipation and careful and coordinated planning of all the public purposes that may be affected by every proposed purchase. When, as is now well-nigh universally the case, the obtainment of land is postponed until the very moment its possession becomes imperative for the provision of an announced and urgently required facility, every condition conduces to precipitate ill-advised, uneconomical, and generally unsatisfactory action.
This condition comes about, in large measure, from the legislative practice, so general in the States, of appropriating or providing for land acquisition in the same acts that supply funds for the construction of public works. This practice inevitably postpones to the last and the most inconvenient and inappropriate moment a provision that should be the subject of far-sighted planning and accomplishment well in advance of the actual need. This observation is especcially true with respect to highways, because of the principle of growth that lies in them, but which far too often is not recognized in the action of the authorities of all branches of government, the judicial as well as the executive and legislative.
A typical example may serve to illustrate the way in which this growth principle is disregarded in the improvement of highways, and the expensive and embarrassing consequences that ensue. A road hitherto lightly traveled is about to be improved. It occupies an ancient right-of-way of a width consistent with its use many years ago. The legislature, as the appropriating body, has made available for the improvement of that particular road and many others certain public funds from which must be met not only the costs of constructing the roads but also whatever costs there may be for the acquisition of the lands on which such roads may be built. Because they see not only the necessity for improvement on the particular road but also the many competing needs of other roads, and have at their disposal and in view only a certain total sum that they feel must be made to go a far as possible in meeting all needs, the highway authorities construct the road on the existing admittedly restricted right-of-way. The principle of growth asserts itself. New traffic, drawn and generated by the improvement, appears on the road. The road as built soon becomes inadequate to accommodate the greater traffic. The surface must be widened, but to do so an additional width of right-of-way is required and sought of the owners of abutting land. If this additional width had been obtained in advance of the original improvement it might have been acquired at a relatively moderate cost. The owners then may be presumed to have been eager for the improvement of the road for their own use; and the land at that time being served by an inadequate highway facility stood at a lower level of value. But, at the time, even this moderate cost appeared too great; and such inevitable delays as might have been encountered appeared too long, for the time of improvement was at hand, the demand of the public was insistent, and the appropriated funds awaited expenditure in the treasury.
When further widening is thus forced the needed additional land has risen in value. There are more owners or occupants to deal with and many of the new ones occupy the very margins of the road where they conduct various sorts of traffic-serving business. To some of the owners the additional widening, required mainly for the accommodation of an increased volume of passing traffic, is of little interest and in their view will confer no new or greatly desired benefits. To others, the widening proposed means the destruction of their property. So the owners ask a higher price.
Forced to act, the highway authorities decide to acquire an additional strip of land. As they must buy the front of the properties affected, a price well above the average acreage value of the neighboring lands is demanded. And, because of the higher price and a continuing competing demand of other needed improvements far exceeding in cost all the funds of which they are assured, they decide to acquire only the narrowest strip that will physically accommodate the widening to be made immediately. If they should attempt to pursue the more farsighted policy of acquiring sufficient width to provide not only for the immediately projected improvement but also for probable future widening, such excess acquisition, if resisted by the landowners, could be accomplished only by exercise of the power of eminent domain. In the latter case, the general attitude of the courts that private property taken under the power of eminent domain may not exceed that needed for public use would have an important bearing, as many instances are of record where attempted takings by condemnation in excess of that actually necessary for the physical location and construction of definitely contemplated improvements have been held unconstitutional by the courts. This obstacle, however, is not encountered in cases of excess taking that are accomplished by agreement with the landowners without resort to the power of eminent domain.
Two other major situations frequently arise further to complicatethe right-of-way problem, particularly when it is found desirable to establish a new highway alinement by cutting across existing property lines. Such instances usually encounter not only a strong resistance to the change by those who may be inconvenienced thereby, but also generally involve, (1) the problem of remnants, i.e., small parcels that are separated by the road improvement from the main body of land to which they were originally attached, and the value of which to the owner is alleged to be destroyed or definitely impaired; and (2) the question of denial of access from adjacent lands to so-called freeways, i. e., highways to which access is permitted only at certain selected points as a measure for dealing with heavy streams of extra-local traffic. The remnant problem is an especially serious one in cities. Whether a street improvement involves only simple widening or the opening of a new alinement, a neat acquirement of precisely the lands required for the improvement may leave the abutting owners in possession of remnants, often narrow and irregular in shape, for which there is no really desirable use. Often their only possible use is for the erection of sign boards, shanties, or some types of stand developments that are usually unsightly and detrimental to the neighborhood. Such areas, moreover, unable to support a useful building, cut off property which otherwise would have street frontage. They thus not only have no great value in themselves, but prevent benefits which otherwise would accrue to nearby properties.
The remnants created by the construction of rural highways generally involve the cutting off from farms of areas that are too narrow, small, or irregular for convenient and economical tillage. In the case of heavily traveled roads, even quite large parcels separated from the main body of farms may take on the aspect of remnants, particularly where the lands affected are devoted to livestock purposes, unless underpasses are constructed to afford safe access to the parcels so cut off. And, in some cases, the value of the land to the owner may be substantially destroyed by the penetration of a highway, so that two remnants are formed, one on each side of the highway.
The problem with respect to freeways will arise with increasing frequency in the future, in connection with efforts to restrict or deny the right of access to highways from abutting lands. This is a common-law right in both England and the United States. The occasion for such roads of limited access has been previously explained in this report.
It appears to be a principle upon which the courts generally agree that if the right of access to a street or highway from abutting land is wholly denied the result may be equivalent to a taking of the property itself and may entitle the owner to compensation accordingly. Where complete denial of access is not involved, impairment may be considered a proper element of damages. Therefore, it may be taken as a fact that the cutting off of abutting owners from access to a highway or street must either be accompanied by a payment of damages or by the construction of service roads that will furnish access at other reasonably convenient points.
While this condition would seem to be reasonable with respect to premises served by an existing road that is incorporated into a freeway or road of limited access, if the public buys a right-of-way for such a road in a new location where highway service has not previously existed it would seem illogical to permit the abutting lands to claim damages because of the denial of access thereto. Yet, unless there is a change in existing law and a reversal of judicial opinion in many States, the abutting properties will possess the same right of access to new roads as to old ones.
While there is no question that public authorities may close access from abutting land to a street or highway with the consent of the owner and upon payment of compensation or damages, there is, even in the face of specific statutory authority, some question as to the power of public agencies to deny the right of access without such consent. Such power is specifically conferred by a freeway law enacted in Rhode Island in 1937 (Public Laws of 1937, ch. 2537). The text of this act, which is the first law of this kind enacted in this country, is given in appendix A, attached to this report. The English Restriction of Ribbon Development Act of 1935 has similar provisions relative to access, in its sections 13-16, inclusive, which are reproduced in appendix B.
Another situation, already of more frequent occurrence than in the past and sure to occur frequently in the future, is that which arises when it is desirable to acquire possession for the public of a strip of land on each side of a highway, which is not required for the present accommodation of the physical structure of the highway, but which may become necessary for such purpose in the future and is needed immediately for the purpose of regulating and controlling the use of the land bordering upon the highway.
This may be desirable for aesthetic reasons. It unquestionably is the best available measure for disposing of unsightly billboards. Or, it may be desirable as a measure of safety, intended to control, or at least to set back from the trafficway, those bordering developments, such as roadside stands, filling stations, taverns, dance halls, tourist camps, and used-car lots, that, by causing the sudden stopping, turning, or emergence of vehicles upon the highway, are such prolific sources of dangerous accidents.
An anticipated new situation may arise through efforts by governmental agencies to recoup all or part of the cost of highway and street improvements by the resale or other disposal of benefited lands in excess of the need for the highways or streets acquired in advance of their improvement. This may be referred to as “recoupment taking.” In support of the theory underlying such excess taking, there is usually cited the successful use of the practice in England, in Canada, in some European countries, and at least one early experience in the United States. A decision by the United States Supreme Court respecting resort to such taking in the case of Cincinnati v. Vester (281 U.S. 439), indicates that its use is subject to definite limitations in order to avoid infringement of rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. A digest of this decision, a brief statement of the terms of constitutional provisions in eight States pertaining to this subject, and a summary of several outstanding examples of recoupment operations are given in appendix C, attached to this report.
The foregoing discussion is designed to set forth briefly the difficulties in the proper planning of highway and street improvements encountered by governmental agencies because of the right-of-way problem. These same difficulties have an equally retarding effect upon other public improvements, such as parks, recreational facilities, slum clearance, low-cost housing, and the reclamation of marginal and submarginal areas adjacent to highways and streets. Land availability, more than any other single consideration determines the character and frequently the success of such projects. It is obvious that the acquisition of land has not been given proper weight in planning for public improvements by either the legislative, judicial, or administrative branches of the Government.
Highway authorities in many States, both State and local, operate under rather definite statutory restrictions as to the maximum width of right-of-way that may be acquired for highway or street improvement purposes. These statutory widths were adopted in some instances many years ago and have been allowed to remain in the statutes without change. Where such restriction is found in the statutes of a State it is difficult for the highway authorities to acquire rights-of-way in excess thereof, regardless of what the traffic conditions to be met may require. The laws of practically all of our States pertaining to rights-of-way for highway and street improvements are archaic. They are based in almost all cases on provisions that were written into the statutes before the days of the automobile. They definitely are inadequate insofar as the authority which they confer upon the public officials charged with the duty and responsibility of providing highway and street facilities for present day needs is concerned.
It is easy to understand why changes in these laws have not kept pace with the expanding needs for greater highway facilities due to the development of the automobile and the phenomenal increase in volume of motor-vehicle traffic upon the highways. History demonstrates that legislative changes come about rather slowly. The same is true with respect to the attitude of the judiciary, where precedent is relied on to such a great extent. When we consider that the highway widths provided for in these statutes were adequate for all practical purposes less than 25 years ago, it is not difficult to understand why we now find the right-of-way problem one of the most difficult with which we have to deal. It is believed, therefore, that this will be corrected. In fact, the legislatures of a few States already have made very marked changes in the laws on this subject in the last few years, and it is reasonable to assume that legislatures of other States will do likewise. When the first Federal-aid road act became a law on July 11, 1916, a number of States had no highway department, and as late as 1920 there were some States that had highway departments in name only, all highway work actually being in the hands of county and other local officials. However, this has since been corrected.
It is believed also that the courts will take a more liberal attitude with respect to the taking of lands necessary for highway and street improvements on a basis that will be recognized by them as including within the term “public use” such additional areas as may be necessary for future widening, safety, parks, recreational, and sanitary facilities, preservation of scenic values, and the elimination of unsightly developments, such as billboards. In fact, while the courts have uniformly held that the question of what constitutes a public use is a judicial and not a legislative one, they nevertheless have sustained the taking of wider widths of rights-of-way than were required for the actual physical location of the traffic facility, and it is only reasonable to assume that they will be more and more responsive to the growth of traffic volume and the obvious necessity for expansion of the highway facilities to accommodate that traffic. It even may be that a few years hence we may find a disposition on the part of the courts to take judicial notice of traffic volume, traffic congestion, and the public need for expanding existing traffic facilities. In the case of City of East Cleveland v. Nau et al. (124 Ohio State 433, 179 N. E. 187), the Supreme Court of Ohio said:
We would not disturb the reasonable discretion exercised by municipal authorities in the appropriation of excess lands adjoining a street improvement when necessary for the furtherance of that improvement; but we cannot sanction an arbitrary and unreasonable taking of excess private property for the contemplated use, under the guise that it is necessary for the improvement, where the weight of the evidence shows it to be otherwise.
The right-of-way problem could be greatly simplified and in a large measure eliminated with respect to major highways and streets ifthere were some central agency with sufficient funds and authority of law to acquire the lands necessary for the improvement of such highways and streets at a period substantially in advance of the time when the improvements actually would be made. If this were done, then the right-of-way previously acquired could be made available to the highway authorities charged with the duty of making the improvements, either on a rental basis or at the price paid by the acquiring agency, plus the costs of such acquisition and any interest charges paid thereon to the date of the use of the lands. Acquisitions by such agency should include all areas, the need for which reasonably might be anticipated for the physical construction of the improvement and for necessary roadside development, including probable future expansions of the transportation facility itself. Such an agency would have to be created by the Congress in order that its jurisdiction and authority might be general throughout all of the States, and that its operations could be on such a basis that it would be in whole or in substantial part self-liquidating. This suggestion is discussed more in detail in another part of this report.
Obviously, the right-of-way problem is rendered much more complex and difficult because of the various reasons mentioned herein and will continue to be so until such time as the changes necessary to meet these difficulties shall have been made in the statutes relating to the subject. To meet the problem fully will require legislative changes in all of the States, together with some legislation on the part of Congress, and it is believed that such legislation should be designed along the following lines:
1. The statutes of each State should be carefully examined and revised by its legislative assembly so that they will serve present needs. Such revision should eliminate maximum widths which may be acquired, and, if any specific limit is prescribed it should be the minimum and not the maximum. The authorities charged with the duty of providing for highway and street improvements should be definitely authorized and directed to acquire all necessary land in advance of the time for the physical construction of the improvements, and should be provided sufficient funds for that purpose, or, if necessary, should be authorized to meet the cost by some form of deferred payment plan, or by long-term leasing arrangement with right of purchase. Such authorities should be given the right to enter upon the lands to be taken and to begin construction, and to leave the compensation or damages to be paid for later determination by the courts, similar to provision now in the statutes of North Carolina and a few other States.
2. The powers conferred upon the authorities in each State charged with the duty and responsibility of highway and street construction, improvement, and maintenance should include discretionary power on the part of such officials to determine the width of right-of-way to be acquired for any improvement to be undertaken, with specific authority for such right-of-way to include such lands in excess of those which may be actually needed for the physical location of the traffic facility as will provide for safety, for reasonable roadside development, recreational, sanitary, and other facilities, and for future expansion of the transportation facility to meet the prospective future needs of traffic.
3. Consideration might be given by the Congress to the setting up of a Federal agency for the purpose of acquiring necessary lands in advance of highway and street improvements, as outlined more in detail elsewhere in this report. Such agency should have authority, under proper restrictions, to make such lands available to State and local highway and street authorities for rights-of-way and for development for recreational, tourist, and the other facilities for the accommodation of traffic, all on a basis which would render such agency either partly or wholly self-liquidating over a period of years.
FEDERAL ACTION DESIRABLE
Considering the needs in respect to highway and street improvements described in detail in this report, it is believed that the Federal Government can most helpfully contribute to the important improvements required in the following ways:
1. By facilitating the acquisition of adequate rights-of-way. To a great degree the early obsolescence of the rural highways previously built is due to the restrictions imposed upon their design by inadequate rights-of-way. In cities, archaic street plans are in need of major revision to permit the free flow of modern traffic. Far-sighted improvements of both rural highways and city streets are everywhere blocked by the inability of the States and local governments unaided, to provide the rights-of-way required; and there is danger that expedient measures forced by the irresistible pressure of traffic, will result in heavy new investment destined for early obsolescence. The obtainment of proper rights-of-way-for the several kinds of needed new facilities will involve a heavy present investment, but a virtually permanent one, and one that will pay large dividends in the avoidance of future expenditures in larger amounts.
The aid of the Federal Government can be practically extended by supplying capital for investment in highway and street rights-of-way on a scale sufficient to protect the facilities and provide amply for their expected growth.
Such rights-of-way acquired with Federal funds at the request of a State highway department, and in accordance with State and Federal laws, could remain the property of the Federal Government subject to lease by the State over a period of 50 years on terms that would in that period amortize the initial cost. Representative State highway officials with whom this suggestion has been discussed are unanimously of the opinion that such a provision would not only be helpful toward a solution of the difficult right-of-way problem, but would also be welcomed and utilized by the State governments.
Effectively to administer such a provision would probably require the creation of a Federal Land Authority, having corporate status with adequate capitalization and authority to issue obligations within prescribed limits, which would be empowered to acquire, hold, sell, and lease lands for stated purposes.
Problems of land acquisition similar to those described as affecting highways are also encountered in connection with public works of other categories carried out by the Federal Government, independently and in cooperation with States and their subdivisions; and in such connections their proper solution is equally basic to successful administration and correspondingly difficult. In connection with such other public works the aid of the proposed Federal Land Authority, if created would be similarly useful and desirable. Moreover, since the establishment of a proper relation between all such public works projects in their uses of land is highly desirable, the common association of all with the proposed Land Authority might supply very effective means for promoting a reasonable coordination. Through the control exercisable by the proposed Federal Land Authority, for example, many such conflicts as that indicated as possible in Baltimore between the location of Federal slum-clearance projects and Federal-aid street improvements might conceivably be avoided (see p. 99).
In this connection it may be pointed out that the proposed aid of the Federal Government could not be effectively employed in any State in the absence of constitutional authority for the acquisition of lands in sufficient amount to provide for anticipated future developments and the most desirable use of, and protection of, the public works investment, whatever its nature.
2. By providing, in cooperation with the States and the War Department, for detailed investigations leading to the designation of a system of reasonably direct interregional highways, with appropriate connections through and around cities, similar to the system tentatively selected and described in this report, and limited in total extent to not more than 1 percent of the total mileage of rural highways in the United States, without specific limitation in each State. In view of the predominant national importance of such a system, the Federal Government could reasonably contribute to its construction in a proportion materially larger than that in which it contributes under the Federal Highway Act, but the administration should remain under the Secretary of Agriculture through the agency of the Bureau of Public Roads and the several State highway departments.
3. By continuance of cooperation with the States in the improvement of the Federal-aid highway system and the elimination of hazards at railroad grade crossings, with annual authorizations commensurate with those previously provided.
4. By continuance of the program of secondary and feeder road construction, with appropriations equal to, or larger than those authorized for the fiscal years 1940 and 1941, to be expended in such way as to give effect to the principles enunciated in this report.