In New York, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, despairing of ever completing the Thruway System from diversion-depleted current revenues, authorized a study of revenue bond financing backed by tolls. When this study showed that tolls alone would not carry the project, the Legislature created the New York Thruway Authority and empowered it to sell $500 million in bonds backed by the State’s credit.[1]
Some State legislatures decided to wring as much as possible of the needed revenue from road users in the form of tolls on the theory that “every dollar that can be obtained from private sources to extend existing toll highways will mean a dollar of regular highway income released to match federal aid for highway building in some other part of the state.”[2] Other States, notably New Jersey, switched from pay-as-you-go financing to revenue bonds backed by tolls to build their most expensive and heavily traveled arteries. Between 1950 and 1954, the legislatures of 19 States created independent toll road authorities or authorized their State highway departments to build toll roads.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1950 permitted the States to borrow funds in the bond market against future Federal-aid apportionments. However, this authority did not make any new money available to the States or enhance their credit or change their own constitutional debt limits; and further, Congress carefully disclaimed any obligation to provide the future Federal-aid funds that might be used to redeem the bonds. Consequently, only a few States availed themselves of the privilege, and these for comparatively small amounts.
The Financial Dilemma of the State Highway Departments
The prices bid for highway construction peaked in late 1948 and then stabilized at about twice the prewar level. Highway maintenance costs also doubled because of the war and postwar inflation. This put the State highway departments in a double price squeeze at a time when highway traffic, and particularly truck traffic, was increasing alarmingly.[N 1] As the States put increasingly more of their income into maintenance, the money left for new construction, including Federal-aid matching, became less. The purchasing power of this remainder was only half that of the prewar period, yet the increased traffic demanded much heavier, wider and costlier roads than the prewar models.
Traffic growth was not uniform but was concentrated most heavily in the industrial States and, to a large extent, on a very small mileage near and between the large cities. Yet it was politically impossible for the highway departments to concentrate their funds on this small mileage. Their programs were designed to distribute highway work rather evenly over their States, and in a situation where all roads needed some improvement, it was not possible to deny some areas in order to build a few miles of costly superhighways near the cities.
Practically all of the States agreed that the most troublesome congestion was on the selected Interstate System routes. These had long been the most important traffic arteries and were now the oldest and most obsolete. Most of the highway departments made a determined effort to upgrade these old roads, and through fiscal year 1948 they channeled about 22 percent of their postwar primary and urban Federal aid and matching money, amounting to $384 million, into interstate projects. These totaled over 2,000 miles, including 800 bridges and grade separations, but this was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the obvious needs.
- ↑ In the 4 years from 1947 to 1950, registrations of privately owned vehicles increased by 11.2 million units—to a total of 48.60 million.[3] Annual vehicle miles of travel by passenger automobiles increased by 21 percent and by trucks 37 percent. In 1950, about 48 percent of the travel was in urban places, the rest on the rural roads.[4]
Congress Orders Reevaluation of Defense Highway Needs
As the States struggled to keep up with continual traffic increases, Western Europe was approaching economic collapse, and relations with the Soviet Union were deteriorating to a state of “cold war.” In 1947 Congress acted to provide massive military and economic aid for Turkey and Greece to help them resist Communist aggression. In April 1948 Congress approved the $17 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. In June 1948 the Soviets blockaded Berlin, and the United States responded with a massive air- lift to break the blockade.
In the tense atmosphere of these events, Congress became more conscious of the growing inadequacy of the country’s highways, and particularly the Interstate System to sustain a possible remobilization. It added a provision to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1948 requiring the Commissioner of Public Roads to study the needs or potential needs of the Interstate System for national defense in cooperation with the Secretary of Defense, the State highway departments and the National Security Resources Board and report back to Congress not later than April 1, 1949.
The study began with a detailed inventory which disclosed an amazing diversity of geometric standards, widths and types of pavements, and dimensions and strengths of bridges among the 37,800 miles of existing roads in the System. The average age of the road surfaces was 12 years and 13 percent were more than 20 years old and nearing the end of their useful lives. In the rural sections, 6,000 miles had surfaces less than 20 feet wide and only 4,147 miles had more than two lanes. On 6,273 miles, the shoulders were less than 4 feet wide. There were 1,262 grade crossings with main line railroads and another 785 with branch lines and spur tracks. Of the 12,048 bridges on the System, only 677 were found to be below AASHO’s H 15 capacity, but there were many more of inadequate width, including 52 one-way bridges less than 18 feet wide. Of the existing bridges, 1,245, aggregating 29 miles in length, were of wooden construction.[5]
The PRA and the States measured the traffic using each section of the System and estimated the cost of upgrading each section to handle this traffic according to the standards proposed by AASHO for Interstate highways. They found that many sections would have to be completely relocated to meet the design speed, sight distance and gradient requirements and
- ↑ New York OK’s Thruway Authority, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 144, No. 13, Mar. 30, 1950, p. 19.
- ↑ V. Boughton, Toll Highway Construction to Reach Peak in 1954, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 152, No. 1, Jan. 7, 1954, p. 31.
- ↑ 1955 Automobile Facts and Figures (Automobile Manufacturers Association, Detroit, 1955) p. 21.
- ↑ Bureau of Public Roads, Highway Statistics Summary, 1955 (U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, Washington, D.C, 1957) p. 72.
- ↑ Highway Needs of the National Defense, H. Doc. 249, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., pp. 10–23.
