Federal Highway Administration

“ The shrinkage of $26.9 million per year in revenue from registrations and fees was more than made up by a whopping $55.5 million increase in the annual yield of the fuel tax which, with registrations, gave the States an annual highway revenue in addition to Federal aid of $807 million in 1932. [36]
This huge revenue was an irresistible magnet to hard-pressed legislatures. In the words of one commentator, “. . . the motor tax has become a big red apple within easy reach, viewed with slavering lips by every agency of government.” ”

“ If it be the wish of the people that the construction of roads and canals should be conducted by the Federal Government, it is not only highly expedient, but indispensably necessary, that a previous amendment to the Constitution, delegating the necessary power and defining and restricting its exercise with reference to the sovereignty of the States, should be made. ”

“ Let us then bind the Republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals. Let us conquer space. It is thus the most distant parts of the Republic will be brought within a few days travel of the centre; it is thus a citizen of the West will read the news of Boston still most from the press. The mail and the press are the nerves of the body politic. ”

“ In 40 years planning, not even called that in the beginning because of prejudice against the word, has advanced from highway improvement planning to broad, sophisticated transportation planning, advancing in its theory and techniques even more than the technology of any of the modes it plans. Unified at State and local level by requirements of the Congress and Federal executive departments and expanded in scope by acts of Congress as new demands appeared, it is a powerful tool in metropolitan planning, not only in transportation, but in general planning as well. ”

“ What really is done is to establish a “level of service” that would in effect be a measure of the quality of traffic flow—speed, comfort and safety all included. The higher the design standard, the higher the level or quality of service, but also the higher the cost. Thus, the criterion becomes the degree to which the desirable level of service can be attained, limited generally by finances but sometimes, as in urban areas, by physical or environmental factors as well. ”

“ In all sincerity many have endorsed the private toll bridge franchise on the theory that it is desirable to have bridges, and if the public funds are not sufficient or available, rather than do without, it is better to grant a toll franchise to private interests. This is not the issue . . . The real question is the very simple one of whether it is sound public policy to grant the right to collect a private profit from the user of the highway. ”

“ The quite common belief that the adoption and execution of a mere beautification program for our highways satisfies even the most obvious requirements and potentialities of roadside development is both incorrect and disheartening. We must sadly admit that much of our present so-called roadside improvement is little more than a landscape hair-cut or perhaps a horticultural manicure. ”

“ Research was one of the principal missions of the first national highway program in the United States and is, in fact, the oldest continuous Federal highway activity. The scope of federally conducted or assisted research encompasses all of the Federal highway programs and every facet of highway transportation—as a national resource and as a principal force in the social and economic well-being of the people and Government. ”

“ The venerable custom of borrowing money and paying interest on it has its motivation in the simple economic fact that money in hand always has more value than an equal amount in prospect. The existence of a net advantage to be derived from the use of funds now rather than in the future is the criterion justifying public borrowing.
The most favorable condition for credit financing is that of a truly accelerated program contemplating a relatively short period of abnormally high capital outlay, during which the highway plant progresses rapidly toward a condition of adequacy. ”

“ The logic, of course, is that one can hardly produce a transportation plan without a land use plan reflecting the form of city or region the local citizens will probably have if not necessarily what they desire, and it was on this basis that highway officials, sometimes with justifiable concern as to its legality, agreed to finance considerably more than what might be narrowly construed as highway planning. In plain fact, land use from the beginning of the modern planning process, has been accepted as the base from which urban transportation planning must start. ”

“ Among the many and far-reaching effects of the 1956 Act, none was felt more immediately than its impact on toll road construction. The modern toll road era ended abruptly. With the promise of adequate funding coming primarily from Federal rather than State user taxes for early improvement of most of the mileage feasible of toll financing, justification for that method no longer existed. This toll road era, in contrast to the early era, ended not in disaster and bankruptcy, but in a substantial, and still financially sound, contribution to the Nation’s highway transportation needs. ”

“ What sum of money is the locating engineer justified in spending to avoid increase in distance, curvature, rise and fall, maximum grade, maximum curve? What is the capacity of a road of given width as expressed in vehicles per hour, ton-miles per year, etc.? What is the appropriate unit for expressing traffic for various purposes? How can the volumetric changes in roads be overcome? What is the economic life of various types of roads? ”

“ What Do We Mean—Highway Planning?
Everyone plans. One may spend hours and days planning a vacation trip abroad. A housewife plans constantly—from the trip to the store for the week’s supply of groceries to the time to put the vegetables on the stove for dinner. Engineers locate and design a section of road and portray their results by a construction plan. And perhaps the ultimate example is the successful result of planning to land a man on the moon and return him to earth. ”

“ In 1901 fruit from California could be shipped to Raleigh, North Carolina, by rail for less than farmers living only 15 miles away could deliver their fruit to the Raleigh markets.
You see by this that the railroads enable the fruit growers of California to compete with the fruit growers of your own county towns. . . . The way to successfully compete with these people is to build good roads so as to enable us to get to market at any time and carry a full load, thereby reducing cost of transportation. . . . A bad road is a relentless tax assessor and a sure collector. ”

“ The turnpike movement eventually spread into all the States, and by 1850 there were hundreds of companies operating thousands of miles of roads and canals. These contributed tremendously to the States’ internal development by opening new lands to settlement, by reducing the cost of haulage from the farms to the markets, and by stimulating the development of industries. Indeed, the construction of these privately financed public works was, itself, a major industry in the early 1800’s. ”

“ The planning process has indeed become a highly sophisticated process, developed by dedicated professionals drawn from a variety of disciplines whose product was made possible only by computer technology. Applicable to all modes and to general planning as well, its development was financed virtually entirely by road-user funds. It is unequaled in any other planning area. Yet it can be effective only to the extent policymakers understand its products and accept the objective data it presents as a basis for their decisions. ”

“ It is significant that throughout the brief period of development of the modern highway system there has been a lag of a decade or more between the time of recognition of a new design principle, or a standardization of a dimensional value, or the advocacy of a concept, and the time that results of these advances in design begin to show in completed highways. For example, a discovery or determination in 1910 that highway curves should be superelevated to offset centrifugal force found little application until after 1920 when the extensive program of surfacing highways came into full swing. ”

“ In most cases the individual, or even a huge organization such as the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, is planning something he or it expects to do. The ultimate result of highway planning, more recently broadened to be called highway transportation planning, is the development of a highway system to provide for the movement of vehicles—vehicles not under the control of the planner but of the great number of individuals who drive them. Highway transportation is mostly, up to 96 percent, people driving themselves or transporting their goods in their own vehicles. ”

“ Obviously, it is not possible by any limited highway system, whatever the relative importance of its constituent routes, to serve all the needs of the Nation’s traffic. Nor is it reasonable to assume that in and near the cities the routes included in such a limited system will if improved, provide a complete solution to the serious problem of city traffic congestion. ”

“ Whether for the purpose of defense or international aid, it is in these operations that the capabilities of the United States, through its agent, Public Roads, was tested in imaginatively meeting totally different and complex situations, and in the professional competence, toughness, and diplomacy of its personnel. It is also in these operations with foreign countries that major positive impacts were effected as scores of engineers, technicians, and machine operators were trained, and as roads, which facilitated communications, defense, and economic development, were built or repaired. ”

“ Despite the fact that most surfaced rural roads built after 1900 had been made possible by State aid, paid for largely by city people or by urban support for county bond issues, many rural residents looked upon the motorists as intruders. This feeling was exacerbated by a minority of the motorists who used the roads for racing, often with mufflers cut out, frightening livestock and teams and raising clouds of dust. Some of the farmers countered by refusing to yield for overtaking, forcing motorists to creep along behind them for miles. ”

“ It would be comforting to predict the development of new, clean, infinite sources of energy. After all, the United States did not become a great Nation by saving energy, but by using huge quantities of it. ”

“ With a genuine handshake, sincerity, and directness to the problem, James represented the best in highway engineering that the first half century of the automobile age could produce.
His greatest assets were reflected in his relentless drive to achieve or solve problems in the highway field.
Perhaps the James theory concerning man and the use of his intellect were best expressed in a letter he wrote as he approached his 90th year.
On his well-worn typewriter he wrote to a friend: “I have never been able to sympathize with the fellow who retires and at once begins to rust out.” ”

“ The ability to steadily obtain more production and an improved quality of construction and maintenance of this Nation’s streets and highways while still preserving a reasonably level cost is due to the combination of the many factors of the construction and maintenance system as it has developed. Some of these factors, which have been discussed, are the competitive bidding mechanism, the improved managerial methods, a dependable public financing, the advancing technology, and the motive force of the State and Federal Governments in desiring to meet the needs of the Nation and her people. ”

“ Precise information on the number of war connected trips over proposed projects, the volumes of goods and war material to be moved, the residences of employees, and many other facts related to the use of the proposed projects had to be assembled, analyzed and funneled to Washington. There the Bureau of Public Roads could begin the torturous process of gaining an allocation of the required steel, rubber, cement, asphalt or other critical material. Suffice it to say that with the highway planning survey data, enough cases could be supported to prevent a breakdown in highway transportation. ”

“ Today it is recognized that it is only at the extremes that the theory can fully operate—freeways as a user responsibility and the dead end road or street as a land service or community responsibility—with the great mass of roads in between deserving some support from each source since all such roads serve both purposes. In 1934, however, there were no facts at all on which even to estimate the propriety of highway finance of the day. ”

“ Eleven years later, when the railroad reached the Ohio River at Wheeling, the horse transportation companies went into bankruptcy. The same blight spread to the great Pennsylvania wagon road to the west when the Pennsylvania Railroad was completed to Pittsburgh in 1854. Roadside businesses, which depended on the road traffic, such as inns and stables, shriveled and dried up. With no revenue coming in, the turnpike companies stopped maintenance and the proud turnpikes became so rough that travelers refused to pay toll. ”

“ Highway Needs Versus Financial Resources
In the early 1920’s some economists and even engineers predicted that the market for motor cars would become saturated. As the number of motor vehicles stabilized, road mileage and the need for road improvement would also stabilize. Eventually, the highway system would reach a state of “maturity” at which time there would be a diminishing need for capital expenditures, and most of the highway revenues would be used for maintenance.
This prediction was never realized. Instead, as national income increased, the automobile market expanded even more. ”

“ While traffic volumes on rural roads where traffic had little choice of route were indicative of improvement needs, volumes on city streets, with traffic having almost infinite choices of routes, had little significance. Traffic often followed the improvement program, shifting from one street to another as the relative capacity or riding quality shifted with the construction and maintenance programs. ”

“ Population mobility could not have been achieved without them.
The movement of goods and people is reflected in different ways: the movement of goods by truck and trailer, the movement of people by bus transit and private automobile, or the movement and expansion of physical facilities and factories across the land. To the extent that highways have aided in the more efficient allocation of resources through their influence on this mobility, they have changed the pattern of land use and development in the United States. ”