SIZE OF PROGRAM REQUIRED
To what extent will the highway needs of the country—Federal, State, and local—be met if the present program is continued? Allowing for anticipated growth in vehicle registration and usage, the existing tax structure and other highway-revenue sources, there would be available for construction during the next 10 years a total of $47 billion. As indicated in the tabulation on page 18, the total estimated needs on all systems for that period will be $101 billion. The gap is therefore $54 billion.
This then is the deficiency in the roads program—documenting in dollars the goal toward which we must work, as the President has said, if highway transportation is to perform its vital job in an expanding economy. An enlarged construction program is essential on all systems of roads—local, State, and Federal. President Eisenhower underscored its urgency and its justification when he said:
It will pay off in economic growth * * * and we shall only have made a good start in the highways the country will need—
in the years just ahead.
V. A Financing Program
THE FEDERAL SHARE
The responsibility for financing road and street construction in the United States is shared by Federal, State, and local governments, with the States and local governments assuming the major portion. If the recommendations of this Committee are accepted, the Federal portion of the cost for this $101 billion of needed highways would be about 30 percent of the total, leaving to State and local units of government the responsibility to finance the remaining 70 percent.
The additional responsibility accepted by the Federal Government in this program is for the development of the interstate system together with its essential urban arterial connections. The existing Federal interest in our 3,348,000-mile network of highways remains unchanged.
This interest as expressed in the Federal Highway Act of 1916 in its presently amended form authorizes Federal contributions of $315 million to the primary system, $210 million to the secondary system, and certain amounts to urban routes and to routes on public lands.
The committee believes these contributions are essential to a balanced program. The funds now authorized for urban routes could be reduced to $75 million per year, because much of the work to be done with these funds as previously authorized is within the interstate system. Forest-highway funds in the amount of $22.5 million per year should be continued.
