Belt and Road Initiative

“ My Administration remains committed to providing the American people with the best possible transportation system. In August 2005, I signed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, to upgrade our Nation's network of roads, bridges, and mass transit systems, introduce new safety standards, and fund needed road improvements that will ease traffic congestion in communities across our country. ”

“ We had a good view of the rock of San Lorenzo, a high cliff capping a hill, and resembling the rocks of Cuapo and Pena Blanca, but with less perpendicular sides. About this part, which lay high, as well as where we stayed the night before, there had been rains; but on the lowlands lying between the two places there had been none. Our road again lay over grassy plains and low, lightly-timbered hills, with very few houses—probably not more than one in a league. The country was now greener; they had had showers of rain, and fine grass had sprung up. ”

“ On leaving Sontuli, the road led over mountain pastures and through woods of the evergreen oak draped from top to bottom with the grey moss-like Tillandsia, which hung in long festoons from every branch, and was wound around the trunks, like garlands, by the wind: the larger masses, waving in the breeze, hung down for four or five feet below the branches. The small birds build in them, and they form excellent hiding-places for their nests, where they are tolerably secure from the attacks of their numerous enemies. ”

“ By a general Highway Act, a new principle of road-government had been brought in, under which the trustees of turnpike roads might raise money through tolls, sufficient to pay the interest of the debts and keep the highways in repair. ”

“ The making of a few great arteries, coupled with the making of proper exits from the great towns and of by-ways round the urban centres, is a national concern. You cannot, in the present state of society, regard it as local, nor even as chiefly concerning the direct users of the Road, for even these, who are apparently [202] the people upon whom the burden should most justly fall, develop by their travel the district through which they pass. ”

“ Every step of our road carries us homeward and to safety. If we never find a drop of water on the road, our animals have enough to carry those who have to bear the whole journey to their goal, and as the animals succumb they will be shot or turned adrift.' The event showed Belt's sagacity. ”

“ We had now to ascend the side of a ravine, the road, or rather path, being through a bamboo thicket for about a mile, the bamboos touching our knees on either side and arching close overhead, so that we had to lie on the mules' necks a great part of the way. Some portions of the road were dangerously steep and rocky; but as fully a league in distance is saved by taking this by-path, instead of the main road by way of La Puerta, I generally preferred travelling by it, especially as I often took rare and new beetles on the bushes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When a clear space in the brushwood is to be crossed, such as a road, two or three of the females will fly across first, before the male will venture to do so, and he is always more careful to get himself concealed amongst the foliage than his mates.
I walked some distance into the forest along swampy paths cut by charcoal burners, and saw many beautiful and curious insects. Amongst the numerous butterflies, large blue Morphos and narrow, weak-winged Heliconidae, striped and spotted with yellow, red, and black, were the most conspicuous and most characteristic of tropical America. ”

“ Finally, to facilitate the accomplishment of necessary improvements, the report recommended amendment of the Federal Highway Act (1) to authorize addition to the Federal-aid system of any roads conforming to the main lines of the strategic network, as designated by the War and Navy Departments; (2) to make roads and bridges on auxiliary lines of the network eligible for improvement with Federal-aid secondary road funds ”

“ The federal government not hampered by local prejudices may construct roads of the highest type along best possible locations which when completed will serve as an example for state and local officers to pattern after. The people having seen such roads will more willingly vote bonds and taxes for road betterment. ”

“ It will be seen, however, that the combined operations of the Royal Automobile Club, the Automobile Association and Motor Union, and the Road Board constitute, in effect—and more especially from the point of view of provision of facilities for through traffic under satisfactory conditions—a national road policy far in advance of anything this country has ever seen before.
These road improvements appeal to the motorist, delighting in cross-country journeys, still more than they do to the urban trader, whose road transport does not, generally speaking, extend beyond a certain radius. ”

“ Finally there was developing more and more resistance to any departure from the marked trails when, in the course of a State road program, it became desirable to construct or reconstruct a road, lay out or extend the State road system, or adopt routes for continuous or priority construction. The interests back of the individual route protested the interests of the community as a whole, and exerted their influence to make good showing to their supporters regardless of the real intrinsic merit of their location. ”

“ In Great Britain the road department, after much experience, is now brought into a system by which the highways are made and upheld by dues directly levied on those who travel or use them,—excepting, indeed, such roads as are situated in very remote parts of the country, where the Government, with the most enlightened policy, has either executed the works directly by the troops upon the peace establishment, as in the case of General Wade’s army, or given aid towards the original formation of extensive lines of road, for opening the more remote districts of the country. ”

“ I am clearly of opinion that by the joint resolution of May 31st, 1870, congress intended that the grant of twenty sections per mile on each side of the road to aid in the construction of said road should be extended to the whole line of the road, including that part of the main line via the valley of the Columbia river, through Portland, to Puget sound. ”

“ Even a hay-cart presents such a complete obstacle that one or other vehicle has to back till the road widens, and in places the blockage caused by the charabanc forces a cyclist or a pedestrian to climb up on to the steep grassy bank while the monster with its cargo of yelling hooligans pushes past him. Either roads must be widened almost everywhere or motor vehicles of all types must be abolished, and, as the latter alternative is out of the question, we must accept the former as inevitable. ”

“ With the passing of the toll-road system, the withdrawal of the General Government from the field of actual road construction, and the various state governments doing little or nothing, the only remaining active agent occupying the entire great field is the local government in each community; and while these various local governments have done and are still doing the best they can under the circumstances, there is great need that their efforts should be supplemented, their revenues enlarged, and their skill in the art of road construction increased. ”

“ Though the law is imperative that the roads must be kept in good condition, and to this end gives municipal corporations great powers, yet let no one who is not a highway surveyor or in his employ imagine that he can repair a road not on his own land with impunity ”

“ When, by enacting into law the best road legislation it can, the legislature has made a beginning, it is then the duty of the people to begin to learn more concerning roads and their maintenance. It may be well, in the imagination, to picture hard roads leading everywhere, but, advocating their construction at once and working ever so vigorously to this end, will probably delay rather than advance this work, for the reason that the cost of their maintenance is such that, if these roads were already constructed, it would be impossible in this state at present to keep them in good condition. ”

“ Sod or turf should not be placed on the surface, neither should the surface be renewed by throwing upon it the worn-out material from the gutters alongside. The last injunction, if rightly observed and the proper remedy applied, would doubtless put an end to the deplorable condition of thousands of miles of earth roads in the United States.
A road-maker should not go to the other extreme and fill up ruts and holes with stone or large gravel. ”

“ Many of these fatal accidents happened in the streets of towns and cities, and at street and road crossings. It is perfectly practicable to protect citizens from these dangers, by enforcing proper regulations as to the speed of trains, and as to the occupancy and crossing of streets and roads. ”

“ A power to establish turnpikes, with gates and tolls, and to enforce the collection of the tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt and execute a complete system of internal improvements. A right to impose duties to be paid by all persons passing a certain road, and on horses and carriages, as is done by this bill, involves the right to take the land from the proprietor on a valuation, and to pass laws for the protection of the road from injuries; and if it exist, as to one road, it exists as to any other, and to as many roads as Congress may think proper to establish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is always a strip of land on each side available for widening. To level and metal, and then lay the lines there, would not be very much more costly, and certainly much more convenient to the public, than to tear up the existing road and put the lines there. I venture then to suggest that no local authority should be empowered to give its consent to any scheme for laying lines along its roads unless the company proposing the scheme agreed to widen the metalled surface by the width of its cars. ”

“ As for the road-system, existing roads had to be remade and improved, while new ones were built and narrow ones widened and strengthened sufficiently to carry all kinds of [Pg 27] traffic. This road-building and mending was applied to 400 kilometres of roads and usable tracks in all; and absorbed some 500,000 tons of road metal and as many tons of sand—which involved the moving and handling of, say, 1,000,000,000 tons of various materials.
The upkeep of the roads, which carry a dense and continuous traffic, demands unceasing labour, especially in the winter. ”

“ Towns and cities are only required to keep highways in suitable repair as they are located by the public authorities, and they have no right to go outside the limits defined by the location in order to make the road more safe and convenient for travel. If a highway is so narrow or crooked as to be unsafe, the proper remedy is by an application to the county commissioners to widen or straighten it.115 Nor is smooth and slippery ice, in country road or city street, a defect for which a town or city is liable, if the road whereon the ice accumulates is reasonably level and well constructed. ”

“ They had taxed themselves to build their roads and streets, let the farmers do likewise, was the prevailing sentiment in the cities. Nevertheless, the impetus for road reform came from the cities and primarily from civic leaders who appreciated the economic burdens laid on city dwellers and farmers alike by the bad roads. ”

“ But with the changed conditions brought about by the more advanced state of civilization, after the rights of way have been cleared of their obstructions and the earth roads graded into the form of turnpikes, it became necessary to harden their surfaces with material which often must be brought from distant places. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No legislation can be enacted that will bring into existence suddenly a fine system of well made and well maintained highways. The beginning must be at the bottom where even the best legislation can give no more than a good beginning and then, by the vigorous application of work and wisdom, a system of roads may be constructed that will be not only the pride of the citizens of the state, but a source of education, prosperity, and pleasure. ”