United States Public Roads Administration

“ 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. ”

“ With all highway needs so pressing, administrators in a State are reluctant to ask for general increases in taxes to build roads of principal interest to one section of the State or to drivers from other States. At the same time, drivers traversing the section of the State where a controlled-access highway is needed, particularly those from out of the State who are usually on long trips and are infrequent users of the road, are not reluctant to pay a toll for the assurance of rapid travel on a safe and uncongested highway. ”

“ The high degree of restraint placed upon every motorist when the possible capacity has been reached, or even approached, results in driving conditions that are wholly intolerable. Drivers are entitled to exercise some freedom in their selection of speed and their ability to maneuver. The extent to which this liberty may be exercised is dependent primarily upon the volume of traffic using the highway and also, for two-lane roads, upon the portion of the highway where sight distances are adequate for overtaking and passing. ”

“ There is no padding of the needs with theoretical conceptions or community desires masquerading behind defense requirements. Our highways and streets are inadequate for the national defense in definite particulars. These deficiencies can be remedied promptly and progressively in the order of their defense importance only if adequate programs including the necessary funds are provided, to be carried on through the established State and Federal highway organizations. ”

“ It has become increasingly apparent that public funds applicable to highway construction, especially on the more important routes, have not been sufficient to prevent their increasing obsolescence. On the contrary, the conclusion is clear that the condition of the more important highways is falling steadily further behind the needs of traffic. ”

“ Under the provision of the constitution of Ohio for excess condemnation when a city acquires property for public use, it would seem to be clear that a mere statement by the council that the excess condemnation is in furtherance of such use would not be conclusive. Otherwise, the taking of any land in excess condemnation, although in reality wholly unrelated to the immediate improvement, would be sustained on a bare recital. ”

“ No features of a highway have a greater influence upon the safety and comfort of driving than the width and condition of the surface. On two-lane roads the width of pavement is most critical when vehicles meet, as it is then that drivers must allow sufficient clearance between vehicle bodies to assure complete safety, while at the same time maintaining a comfortable margin of safety from the pavement edge. The clearances necessary for safety at the speeds that vehicles are operated, added to the combined widths of the two vehicle bodies, constitute the needed pavement width. ”

“ All highways which serve the business of the public have a corresponding degree of utility in the national defense, but the intensive specialized operations characteristic of the present concentration upon training men, producing ships, planes, equipment, ordnance of all kinds and munitions, and the building of defense bases, generate localized highway traffic of large and growing magnitudes. ”

“ Since vacation trips are usually long and infrequent, it is not possible to determine whether it is the purpose, the length, or the frequency of the trip that influences the driver most as to whether he will or will not use the toll road. Studies on other roads, however, lead to the belief that the length is probably a more important factor in the decision than the purpose. In any event, the fact that the Maine Turnpike is used to such a great extent for summer recreational travel is a reason for the exercise of considerable caution in applying its experience to routes in other areas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Unlike roads, bridges are affected by the gross weight of vehicles as well as by the load on each axle. The effect of gross weight, however, is not that of a weight applied at a single point, but rather that of a weight distributed over a significant length—the length of the over-all wheel base—and applied to the bridge within that length at points separated by the distances between axles. Some of the stresses generated in a bridge are responsive to separate axle loads; others are determined in their amount by the magnitude and spacing of all the axle loads applied by a vehicle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the obvious conclusions from the experience of toll-road operation and studies of feasibility and cost that have been made is that the situation is never static. Conclusions reached today may have to be altered within a year as new developments appear. It is almost axiomatic, however, that with the steady increase in traffic volumes everywhere in the country and with traffic needs increasing so much faster than the facilities provided for its movement, financing through revenue bonds will become increasingly attractive unless provision of public funds is substantially increased. ”

“ It is apparent that the rural interstate system, in its present state of improvement, is about as safe as, but certainly no safer than, the average of all rural roads, and since its traffic is far above the average in volume, it accounts for an exceptionally large proportion of the annual highway death toll. ”

“ In theory, a three-lane road has a definite place where the traffic in one direction is much heavier than that in the other direction and where the direction of heavy traffic flow reverses as, for example, between morning and evening. In the case of toll highways, however, it is not anticipated that there will be any such marked difference in the volume of traffic in the two directions and therefore this theoretical advantage of the three-lane highway is not present. ”

“ Financing of roads through the sale of revenue bonds has developed because provision of public funds through accepted channels has lagged far behind highway needs. In this situation, revenue-bond financing has provided many miles of badly needed controlled-access highways when other means have failed. The financial success of the early examples of the modern toll road and the rapid extension of toll roads on some of our most important routes raises serious questions as to the place of the toll road in the Federal-aid systems and to its effect on the Federal-aid program. ”

“ Highways are avenues of transportation. Within limits of feasibility they should be adjusted in the various elements of their design to the justifiable needs of traffic. Failure to effect such adjustments in highways previously built, because of a deficiency of traffic information and knowledge of road-traffic relationships, have been the cause of much of the present highway obsolescence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Presuming that highways throughout the Nation should be built to standards uniformly adequate in all States, the variety of size and weight laws persisting, highway authorities of many States are unavoidably confronted with the necessity of justifying any decisions they may reach as to road standards that appear inconsistent with the existing State law. ”

“ The most significant finding of the study of toll feasibility is probably that, of the highways found to be feasible, all but about 200 miles lie along the lines of the Interstate System. This finding not only attests the importance of the Interstate System, but permits the consideration of toll roads to be related almost entirely to the completion of the Interstate System. Opportunity for revenue-bond financing of improvement of routes of the other systems is so rare as to be of no importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The average age of all surfaces on rural sections of the system is 12 years. Many, of course, are much older. The roadways on which these surfaces are laid are nearly half again as old, averaging about 17 years of age. In other words, the average mile of rural highway on the interstate system consists of a surface that was last improved in 1937 and a roadway upon which the last major improvement of alinement and grade was made in 1932. These are most significant facts in view of the increases in traffic and the demands of safe operation that have occurred during these intervals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Proper highway design requires that the length of highway ahead visible to the driver of a vehicle be sufficiently long at all times to enable a driver to bring his vehicle to a safe stop in advance of an object unexpectedly appearing on the road surface. In accomplishing such a stop the driver must perceive the object, react to his decision that a stop is necessary, and apply the brakes. Following these actions the vehicle requires a period of time to come to rest, the needed time depending on the speed of the car and the condition of the braking system. ”

“ The prospective user of a toll highway will regard lack of adequate width in an entirely different light. He will be in a position to choose between the free and the toll route. To attract the motorist the toll roads must offer advantages that loom larger than the tolls charged. There must he no retarding of traffic flow because of lack of width. Therefore the traffic volume at which a toll facility should be widened is inevitably much lower than that at which free highways have been widened. ”

“ Commercial vehicles occupy a greater road space and influence other traffic over a larger area of highway than do passenger cars because they are larger and generally travel at lower speeds, especially on grades. When a highway is operating at its capacity the total number of vehicles is therefore less, if there are any commercial vehicles, than if traffic is composed entirely of passenger cars. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fact that the law of a State fixes particular limits upon the sizes and weights of vehicles that may be legally operated on the roads of the State is a matter to be reckoned with by the highway authorities, if for any reason it appears that highways should be designed to accommo-date vehicles of maximum size and weight either larger or smaller than the existing law allows. ”

“ Persons of low income who own and operate passenger automobiles are influenced in the uses they make of their cars to a greater extent by the immediate operating expense, such as gasoline and oil, than by the actual total costs, including tires, depreciation, and so forth. The cost of the gasoline consumed on a trip may amount to little more than a cent a mile. To the motorcar owner with an income of less than $1,500 a year, a toll of 1 cent per mile is likely to appear as a 100-percent increase in his cost of operation ”

“ If there were some roads which were, in greater degree than others, important from the viewpoint of national defense, it was obvious that they should be included in the system then in process of designation, because such inclusion would assure their earlier improvement. ”