the means to get on with the early economic studies perceived to be so important in decisions with respect to degree of improvement to be provided and to the appropriate sharing of the costs.
Connecticut conducted this traffic census during the period September 1922–1923.
Traffic counting is not modern phenomenon, dating back at least to the Romans. But modern traffic volume counting began not too long after the beginning of the automobile era. Certainly by the early 1920’s many States and cities were making at least sporadic traffic counts. Maine, for example, as early as 1916 began counting traffic for one week each year at 58 stations and was one of the first States to make a statewide survey (in 1924) for the purpose of developing the State highway system. California has a long history of counting at hundreds of stations for one day each summer, using maintenance crews, a practice continued well after the automatic traffic counter had come into general use.
Concern was not limited to rural areas, for Cook County in Illinois, with the Bureau of Public Roads cooperating, conducted a traffic survey in 1924 and used the results to develop a constructive program. Ohio, following generally the Maine method, carried out a full year statewide survey in 1925. The first metropolitan area traffic counting, also with Bureau of Public Roads cooperation, was conducted in the Cleveland area in 1927.
With this background, the Bureau of Public Roads entered into agreements with several States in the late 1920’s for cooperative traffic surveys, the Bureau usually supplying the supervision and the States the counting personnel. The New England States were among the early participants in these cooperative studies, presumably because of their relatively higher traffic volumes, but the most ambitious survey of this period involved the 11 western States[N 1] in a simultaneous program. Here the Bureau joined with the States in providing field supervision and, in the Washington Office, did much of the analysis and forecasting of traffic volumes. Efforts to move on from the traffic volumes forecast route by route to recommended programs to meet the traffic demands proved to be considerably less than successful, however, primarily because of uncertainties in forecasting (the use of motor-fuel consumption as a good indicator of traffic growth was still in trial stage) and inadequate knowledge of the capacities and condition of existing roadways.
- ↑ Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The Highway Planning Surveys
With the growing recognition of the need for more facts about highway program accomplishments to date and to establish a basis for estimating the direction and financial magnitude of future programs, the Bureau of Public Roads and some States had been considering the possibility of a broad data collection effort. Their deliberations bore fruit by the inclusion in the 1934 Federal-Aid Highway Act of the following wording:
Sec. 11. With the approval of the Secretary of Agriculture, not to exceed 1% per centum of the amount apportioned for any year to any State . . . may be used for surveys, plans, and engineering investigations of projects for future construction in such State, either on the Federal-aid highway system and extensions thereof or on secondary or feeder roads.
Though the word “planning” does not appear in this section, it is the basic and still controlling legislation that authorizes the ongoing highway (or now-termed highway transportation) planning process. The percentage figure has remained the same, but the “may” has been changed to “shall.” In addition, an optional ½ percent of all funds, except Interstate, has been made available for planning and research purposes. To avoid the appearance of directing how a State shall expend its own funds, with the change from “may” to “shall” was added the provision “with or without State matching.” While in the early years one State or another did not match Federal aid, these were the exceptions and now all States at least fully match, and many “over match,” Federal-aid planning funds, indicating the essentiality of the planning function.
But to get to the avoidance of the word “planning,” the reason lay in the fact that the word had come into disrepute in many sections of the country, and even in Washington, due no doubt to the increasing centralization of authority in Washington as the country was still struggling to emerge from the Depression. So the words “surveys, plans, and engineering investigations of projects for future construction” were in effect a euphemism for the word “planning.” While some States tried to interpret the wording as authorizing the funds for preliminary surveys and preparation of construction plans, the intent of those supporting the legislation and of the Public Works Committees of the Congress was clear, and Chief MacDonald yielded at no time to the use of the funds for anything less than the broad planning process envisioned by the Bureau.
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