Interregional Highways

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INTERREGIONAL HIGHWAYS

 

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MESSAGE

FROM

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

TRANSMITTING

A REPORT OF THE NATIONAL INTERREGIONAL
HIGHWAY COMMITTEE, OUTLINING AND
RECOMMENDING A NATIONAL SYSTEM
OF INTERREGIONAL HIGHWAYS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 12, 1944.—Referred to the Committee on Roads
and ordered to be printed with illustrations

 

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UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1944

To the Congress of the United States:

On April 14, 1941, I appointed a committee, known as the National Interregional Highway Committee, to investigate the need for a limited system of national highways to improve the facilities now available for interregional transportation, and to advise the Federal Works Administrator as to the desirable character of such improvement, and the possibility of utilizing some of the manpower and industrial capacity expected to be available at the end of the war.

The committee, with the aid of a staff provided by the Public Roads Administration, made careful and extended studies of the subject, and has submitted to me its final report which I transmit herewith and commend to the favorable consideration of the Congress. The report recommends the designation and improvement to high standards of a national system of rural and urban highways totaling approximately 34,000 miles and interconnecting the principal geographic regions of the country.

The recommended system follows in general the routes of existing Federal-aid highways, and when fully improved will meet to optimum degree the needs of interregional and intercity highway transportation. Its development also will establish a transcontinental network of modern roads essential to the future economic welfare and defense of the Nation.

While the annual rate of expenditure to accomplish the improvement of the rural and urban sections of the system over a reasonable period of years will be dependent upon the availability of manpower and materials, and upon other factors, the required expenditure is estimated at $750,000,000 annually. The over-all expenditures would be approximately equally divided between urban and rural sections of the system.

The improvement of a limited mileage of the most heavily traveled highways obviously represents a major segment of the road replacement and modernization program which will confront the Nation in post-war years, in rural and urban communities alike. The committee found that the national network outlined in its report comprises only 1 percent of the total road mileage of the United States but carries 20 percent of the total travel.

Continued development of the vast network of rural secondary roads and city thoroughfares, which serve as feeder lines and provide land-access service, likewise has an important place in the over-all program, together with the repair or reconstruction of a large mileage of Federal and State primary highways not embraced within the interregional network.

I commend especially to the consideration of the Congress the recommendation that minimum standards of design and construction be established cooperatively with the States for all projects embraced within a designated interregional system. This, it seems to me, is ​wise planning procedure, assuring the orderly development of the facilities which are necessary in the public interest with maximum long-range economy.

By Public Law 146, Seventy-eighth Congress, section 5, Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald, was authorized and directed to make a survey of the need for a system of express highways throughout the United States, the number of such highways needed, the approximate routes which they should follow, and the approximate cost of construction, and to report to the President and to Congress, within 6 months after the date of the act, the results of the survey, together with such recommendations for legislation as deemed advisable. The act was approved on July 13, 1943.

The purposes of this directive by the Congress were identical with my own in requesting the investigation which has been made by the National Interregional Highway Committee. The Commissioner of Public Roads has served as the chairman of the Committee appointed, and the detailed investigations required have been made by the Public Roads Administration staff. The Commissioner of Public Roads has informed me that he concurs without exception in the report of the Committee, and desires that it be accepted as his report, complying with the direction of Congress in Public Law 146.

I am glad to endorse this suggestion, and ask that the Congress receive the report herewith transmitted as fulfilling the purposes of Congress in the directive laid upon the Commissioner of Public Roads.

Early action by the Congress in authorizing joint designation by the Federal Government and the several State highway departments of a national system of interregional highways is desirable, in order to facilitate the acquisition of land, the drawing of detailed project plans, and other preliminary work which must precede actual road construction.

These advance steps taken, the program can serve not only to help meet the Nation’s highway transportation needs, but also as a means of utilizing productively during the post-war readjustment period a substantial share of the manpower and industrial capacity then available. A program of highway construction will, in addition, encourage and support the many diverse economic activities dependent upon highway transportation.

From personal experience, as Governor of a State and as President, I hope that the Congress will make additional studies in regard to the acquisition of land for highways.

In the interest of economy, I suggest that the actual route of new highways be left fluid. It is obvious that if a fixed route be determined in detail, the purchase price of rights-of-way will immediately rise, in many cases exorbitantly; whereas, if two or three routes—all approximately equal—are surveyed, the cheapest route in relation to right-of-way can be made the final choice.

Second, experience shows us that it is in most cases much cheaper to build a new highway, where none now exists, rather than to widen out an existing highway at a cost to the Government of acquiring or altering present developed frontages.

As a matter of fact, while the courts of the different States have varied in their interpretations, the principle of excess condemnation is coming into wider use both here and in other countries. I always ​remember the instance of the farmer who was asked to sell a narrow right-of-way through his farm for a main connecting highway. From an engineering point of view it would have been as feasible to build the new highway across the dirt road that ran in front of his house and barn. Actually the owner received from a jury an amount equal to the whole value of the farm. The road was built. The owner of the land thereby acquired two new frontages. He sold lots on one frontage for the former value of his farm. A year or two later he sold the other frontage for the farm value of his farm. The result was that he still had his house and barn and 90 percent of his original acreage, and in addition he had received in cash three times the value of what the whole place was worth in the first instance.

It hardly seems fair that the hazard of an engineering survey should greatly enrich one man and give no profit to his neighbor, who may have had a right-of-way which was equally good. After all, why should the hazard of engineering give one private citizen an enormous profit? If there is to be an unearned profit, why should it not accrue to the Government—State or Federal, or both?

The White House, January 12, 1944.

The President,
The White House.

My Dear Mr. President: I transmit, with my approval, the final report of the National Interregional Highway Committee appointed by you on April 14, 1941.

In your letter of that date to the Honorable John M. Carmody, then Administrator, Federal Works Agency, you expressed the hope that as a result of the Committee’s recommendations it would be possible to prepare detailed plans and specifications for the construction of a national system of interregional highways to utilize some of the manpower and industrial capacity which will be available at the termination of the war emergency.

The system of interregional highways which the Committee recommends has been found to meet in optimum degree the needs of interregional highway traffic, and I particularly commend to your notice the views of the Committee concerning the special importance of those sections of the system located within and near our larger cities and metropolitan areas.

The Defense Highway Act of 1941 authorized a Federal appropriation of $10,000,000 to be apportioned among the several States and matched by them to provide a fund for the making of surveys and plans for future highway construction. The funds authorized have been apportioned, and have been allotted in substantial part to the preparation of detailed plans and specifications for sections of highway included in the system the Committee recommends. The further application of these funds largely to the system, in my opinion a desirable requirement, will assure the availability of complete plans for the construction of important highways of an estimated cost of about $400,000,000.

More recently the Congress has authorized expenditure in each State of an amount of the unobligated balance of Federal-aid highway funds not exceeding the State’s apportionment of a national total of $50,000,000, together with matching State funds, for additional surveys and plans for post-war highway construction.

By these two measures generous provision has been made for the preparatory work of surveying and planning which is necessary to assure the readiness of a large body of highway construction projects at the end of the war. There is, however, another equally important measure of preparation that must be taken if work on the planned projects is to begin promptly when peace returns. Rights-of-way for the planned improvements must be in hand; and funds for this purpose, clearly expendable during the war, should be made available. The recent act of Congress (Public Law No. 146, 78th Cong.) provides ​for payment of the Federal share of the right-of-way costs of post-war projects only after construction has been actually begun. The States are required to advance from their currently reduced revenues, for the period of the war, the whole cost of rights-of-way acquired. Their inability to do this in many cases means that essential rights-of-way will be lacking when construction should be started, and the purpose of the wise provision that has been made for advance planning will thus be in large measure defeated. Moreover this right-of-way obstacle is likely to be most serious in the case of the very important projects that are being designed to relieve traffic congestion in cities, projects that will afford, if they are ready, large employment in the precise places where the need of employment will be greatest.

To remedy this unfortunate defect in the preparatory measures that have been taken, I strongly recommend congressional action to permit the Federal Government to pay promptly its proportionate share of the costs of rights-of-way acquired in anticipation of post-war highway imrovements.

While the interregional system proposed constitutes, as a whole, the most heavily traveled section of the entire highway system of the Nation, it is obvious that there will be imperative need after the war for a large expenditure to repair the deterioration now in progress and eliminate critical deficiencies on other roads of national importance. Neither for planning nor for construction, therefore, do I believe it would be wise to limit the assistance of the Federal Government to routes included in the interregional system.

The plan suggested by the Committee, which would provide for the designation of an interregional system approximating that proposed, as, in effect, the primary routes of the Federal-aid system and, the appropriation of Federal funds for these and other classes of highways in accordance with need, but with particular provision for the urgent municipal needs, is in my opinion the wiser course. I, therefore, join with the Committee in its recommendation to that effect.

Sincerely yours,

January 5, 1944.

Maj. Gen. PHILIP B. FLEMING,
Administrator, Federal Works Agency,
Washington, D. C.

SIR: In a letter under date of April 14, 1941, addressed to the Honorable John M. Carmody, then Administrator, Federal Works Agency, the President appointed a National Interregional Highway Committee of seven members to serve in an advisory capacity to the Administrator. He directed the Committee to review existing data and surveys and, upon completion of its review, to report to him not later than October 1, outlining and recommending a limited system of national highways designed to provide a basis for improved interregional transportation.

The President expressed the hope that our national needs would be paramount in the deliberations of the Committee and that as a result of its recommendations it would be possible to prepare detailed plans and specifications. This, the President, stated would permit us, upon the conclusion of the defense program, to utilize productively some of the manpower and industrial capacity then available to construct a national system of interregional highways.

The President also directed the Federal Works Agency to furnish such staff as necessary for the efficient functioning of the Committee and to compensate its members for travel expenses incurred.

The following persons were asked by the President to serve as members of the Committee:

Thomas H. MacDonald, Commissioner of Public Roads, Federal Works Agency.

G. Donald Kennedy, State highway commissioner, Lansing, Mich.

Bibb Graves, former Governor of Alabama.

C. H. Purcell, State highway engineer, Sacramento, Calif.

Frederic A. Delano, Chairman, National Resources Planning Board.

Harland Bartholomew, city planner, St. Louis, Mo.

Rexford Guy Tugwell, chairman, New York City Planning Commission.

All of those invited accepted membership and responded to the call for attendance at the initial meeting which was held at Washington, D. C., on June 24, 1941. At this meeting, the Committee elected as its chairman, Thomas H. MacDonald, Commissioner of Public Roads; and as its vice chairman, G. Donald Kennedy, State Highway Commissioner of Michigan. Mr. H. S. Fairbank, Public Roads Administration, was appointed secretary of the Committee and a small staff was supplied by the Public Roads Administration. The research and writing of this report are the work primarily of Mr. Fairbank, assisted by this staff. In addition to Mr. Fairbank, the ​Committee desires to record its appreciation of the helpful services of this staff, and owes special acknowledgment to Harold E. Hilts, Edward H. Holmes, Arthur G. Siegle, Joseph Barnett, John T. Lynch, Olav K. Normann, D. W. Loutzenheiser, Clarence F. Rogers, David R. Levin, Conya L. Hardy, Mary S. Austin, and Margaret H. Davies for important contributions to the report. Finding that it would be unable to complete its review and essential further investigations by the date originally set by the President, the Committee on October 2, 1941, submitted a preliminary report to the Federal Works Administrator and requested an extension of time which it was hoped would be of short duration.

Shortly thereafter the Committee was deprived of the counsel of one of its most valued members by the death of the Honorable Bibb Graves, former Governor of Alabama. The appointment of Dr. Rexford Guy Tugwell as Governor of Puerto Rico made it difficult for him to continue his active participation, and the exigencies of war have further greatly lengthened the time required. It is believed, however, that the final report transmitted herewith is not too late to serve the President’s intended purpose to define the general character of a national system of interregional highways, the construction of which, if begun with the termination of the war emergency, will permit the productive utilization of much of the manpower and industrial capacity then likely to be available.

The Committee therefore hopes that you will approve its report and transmit it to the President for such favorable consideration and use as he may deem it to merit.

Very respectfully,

Thomas H. MacDonald, Chairman.

G. Donald Kennedy, Vice Chairman.

C. H. Purcel.

Frederic A. Delano.

Harland Bartholomew.

Rexford Guy Tugwell.

January 1, 1944.