This victory for the truckers was widely publicized, and it seriously crippled enforcement of the code in other States. In the words of the PRA, “On high military authority, roads were pronounced expendable.”[1]
Although the highway administrators, including Commissioner MacDonald, were deeply worried about overloading, the rest of the country was more concerned about critical shortages of fuel, rubber, manpower and vehicles, and overloading was widely tolerated as a way to conserve all four. One highway administrator commented, “Unwise publicity has conditioned public opinion to the point where even arrests made of the most flagrant violators of trucking codes are considered obstructive of interstate war transportation plans.”[2]
The End of the Highway Boom
The great highway boom that began in 1921 and continued unabated through the Great Depression, came to an end in the complexities and frustrations of mobilization and war. Fiscal year 1941 was the peak year for the Federal-aid program with 12,936 miles of roads of all classes completed; thereafter completed mileage fell to 10,178 miles in fiscal year 1942, and 8,445 miles in 1943.[3] After 1942 practically all new work related directly to national defense. The diminishing Federal-aid funds were used to solve traffic problems in areas congested by war activities.[N 1] The forest highway funds went into mineral access and timber access roads to provide raw materials for the war effort.
The highway departments were feeling the pinch of scarcities even before Pearl Harbor. In June 1941, the Office of Defense Mobilization imposed materials priorities for all kinds of construction, ranging from A-1 for access roads to military installations and defense plants to A-10 on materials needed for maintenance repairs to Federal-aid highways. Materials for bridges, tunnels and shoulders for roads on the strategic network rated an A-2 priority if on primary highways or A-7 if on secondaries. By April 1942, it required a priority of A-3 or better to get steel of any kind, and at least A-1 to get track-laying tractors or other construction machinery. Only 15 percent of the total U.S. production of construction equipment was going to the domestic market—the rest went to equip Army and Navy engineer troops or as lend-lease to European allies.[4]
In April 1942, the Petroleum Coordinator for War limited the use of asphalt and tar in the 17 Atlantic Seaboard States to projects certified by the PRA as necessary to the successful prosecution of the war. This order was extended to the Rocky Mountains in July. The PRA channeled most of the available asphalt and tar into maintenance “since it is important that the condition of war transport arteries not be allowed to deteriorate.”[5]
To get around the steel shortage, the States changed their designs. Ohio began using wooden bridges on secondary highways. Arch culverts requiring no steel were substituted for reinforced concrete box culverts; steel reinforcing was omitted from concrete pavements.
Acute manpower shortages began to appear in certain categories of employees. In Michigan 40 percent of the draftsmen left the State highway department for the Army or other employment, along with 25 percent of the designers and 27 percent of the inspectors. The Pennsylvania highway department’s engineering staff dropped from 2,728 persons to 2,069 in 8 months.[6] Utah experienced such a serious loss of mechanics that it became difficult to keep its equipment running.
Contractors became scarce as bid prices advanced. In Kansas some contractors asked to be released from their road contracts in order to bid on defense work.
In the face of these difficulties, the States curtailed operations drastically. In April 1942, the War Production Board issued an order stopping all construction not essential to the war effort. Pennsylvania canceled its $50 million construction program. Indiana rescinded all bridge contracts and North Carolina abandoned all contracts already let except $3,145,000 of high priority defense access projects. By the end of 1943, State work was down to bare bones maintenance and a diminishing number of defense access projects.
The maintenance was actually insufficient to keep up with the increasing needs. Periodic resurfacing and strengthening, so necessary to preserve the integrity of pavements, was greatly reduced and reconstruction practically eliminated. The result was the rapid advance of decrepitude accompanied by soaring maintenance outlays as the State highway departments struggled to keep the ever-weakening highway plant in operation.
Rationing Highway Service
After the outbreak of war, the Government prohibited the manufacture of automobiles and the auto manufacturers converted their plants to arsenals for the production of tanks, aircraft engines and ordnance. The number of new cars produced dropped from 3,779,682 in 1941 to 222,862 in 1942 and only 139 and 610 in 1943 and 1944.[7] The few new cars available in 1942 were strictly rationed.
An acute shortage of rubber developed very early in the war and continued until the United States created its own supplies of synthetic rubber. The War Production Board rationed tires and recapping rubber to extend the dwindling supplies, but this did nothing to conserve the huge inventory of tires on the national fleet of 34.4 million vehicles. In July 1942, the President asked the States to reduce highway speed limits to 35 miles per hour, primarily to conserve rubber, but also to save fuel and engine wear.[N 2] Subsequent speed studies by the PEA in 15 States disclosed fairly good public acceptance of the reduced
- ↑ There were no regular Federal-aid authorizations for fiscal years 1944 and 1945.
- ↑ It had been common knowledge for 20 years that high speed operation greatly shortened tire life. In 1942 and 1943, investigations by the PRA and the Iowa Engineering Experiment Station demonstrated that the life expectancy of tires driven on concrete pavements at 65 miles per hour was only 18,700 miles, but that if the speed were held to 35 miles per hour or less, identical tires had a life of 56,500 miles.[8]
- ↑ H. Doc, supra, note 3, p. 63.
- ↑ F. N. Barker, The Development of Uniformity in State Regulations of Size and Weight of Vehicles, Convention Group Meetings—Papers and Discussions (American Association of State Highway Officials, Washington, D.C., 1943) p. 128.
- ↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1943, p. 25.
- ↑ Construction Machinery Purchases to be Placed on A-1 Priority Basis by WPB, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 128, No. 16, Apr. 16, 1942, p. 581.
- ↑ Bureau of Public Roads Annual Report, 1942, p. 43.
- ↑ War Cuts Into Personnel of Highway Departments, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 129, Sept. 10, 1942, p. 339.
- ↑ 1971 Automotive Facts and Figures (Automobile Manufacturer’s Association, Inc., Detroit, 1973) p. 3.
- ↑ Tire Wear and Costs, Public Roads, Vol. 24, No. 9, July–Sept., 1946, p. 248.
