Beginning about 1950 and rapidly developing in importance since that time, sociological and economic impacts on communities have become the principal and often overriding factors in the location selection process. This has been particularly true in the more densely settled areas of the country. People who in the past wanted a highway in order to have a way to get places suddenly did not want that same highway reconstructed near their residences to attract and better serve large noisy volumes of traffic in which they had no particular interest. Over the last few years, esthetic values have become more and more important, and this emphasis, of course, has culminated in the current determination to preserve and enhance the environment.
The highway location problems now are to find those places to build the roads that will provide an adequate highway facility for the particular traffic to be served and, at the same time, cause a minimal disruption of families, a minimum disturbance of the landscape, and the least adverse effect on such things as established school districts, church parishes, park areas and historical sites. The FHWA’s role in location is largely to make certain that State highway departments have placed in proper relationship the various engineering, social, and environmental elements of highway location.
The Environment
Pollution in the Horse and Buggy Era
“King Mud” was the environmental problem that most concerned the early traveler. Farmer and villager, horseman and wagoner, to all of them, the mud of the roadway was an unwelcome but frequent companion. Large towns might be isolated for days after a heavy rain. Horses floundering up to their bellies in thick mud were a common sight, and the farmer, unable to get his produce to markets that were empty, was confronted with spoilage and loss of income. The better roads were found primarily in the major cities, where carriages and wagons of many different kinds were in daily use. As the number of conveyances increased, so did the number of horses that pulled them, and as the horses multiplied, they began to be denounced as polluters of the environment in harsh terms similar to those applied to automobiles today.
Nineteenth century urban life generally moved at the pace of horsedrawn transportation. Evidence of the horse could not be missed. It was seen in the piles of manure littering the streets, attracting swarms of flies and creating a stench, and in the numerous livery stables that let loose an odor that could only mean “horse.”[1] The city streets were usually the repository for overworked, mistreated horses that died making their rounds. Atlantic Monthly, in an 1866 article described Broadway as clogged with “ ‘dead horses and vehicular entanglements.’ ” The carcasses added another dimension to the smells and the swarms of flies. In 1880, New York City removed some 15,000 dead horses from its streets, and Chicago carted away nearly 10,000 horses as late as 1912.[2]
Because of this problem, the cities constantly feared epidemics of cholera, smallpox, yellow fever, or typhoid. Medical authorities blamed the spread of these diseases on filth in the atmosphere and believed that the horse was the chief offender. In 1752, Boston authorities voted funds to clean the streets to avoid smallpox infection, and in 1795 during the yellow fever season, they asked neighboring farmers to collect manure from the streets, free of charge.[3] Even in 1908, Appleton’s Magazine, in an article “The Horse v. Health,” blamed most of the sanitary and economic problems of cities on the horse. The article calculated that the horse problem cost New York City some $100 million each year.[4]
However, disease was not the only hazard caused by the horse. Even in the 1700’s, noise pollution was already becoming a problem in the cities. The clopping and clanking of horses’ iron shoes and the iron-tired wheels of carts and wagons made ear-shattering sounds on cobblestone pavements. Boston, in 1747, banned traffic from a major street so that noise would not disturb the sessions of the General Court. Later Benjamin Franklin noted the “ ‘thundering of coaches, chariots, chaises, waggons, drays, and the whole fraternity of noise’ ” that offended the ears of Philadelphians. A New York ordinance in 1785 banned teams and wagons with iron-shod wheels from the streets, and as late as the 1890’s, an article in Scientific American referred to the sounds of traffic on busy New York streets as making conversation difficult.[5]
The solution to these problems, critics agreed, was the horseless carriage. As the motor car and the truck began to replace the horse, benefits were clearly seen. Streets were cleaner, pollution from manure was diminished, the number of flies dropped, goods were transported more cheaply and more efficiently, and traffic moved faster. By the early part of this century, the advantages of the motor vehicle over the horse were accepted in nearly every quarter.
The Conquest of Mud and Dust
While the motor vehicle gradually diminished the problem of sanitation, it was beginning to show some of its own disadvantages. Mud in the rainy periods and dust in dry continued to plague the traveler through the close of the 19th century and well into the 20th, and the automobile seemed to only exasperate this problem.
Dust, although a minor factor, still bothered anyone riding, driving or walking on or near a highway. “ ‘The dust raised by an automobile, when running at a rate of less than twenty miles an hour, is not any worse than that raised by many wagons, but when this limit is exceeded, the automobile becomes the dust nuisance.’ ”[6]
Many methods were used to try to control the mud and dust problem. Sprinkling roads with crude oil or absorbent salts, while effective, was considered too expensive, and water was recommended to provide “ ‘a better, smoother and more dustless surface than we now enjoy.’ ”[7]
Martin Dodge, Director of the Office of Public Road Inquiries, reported on an experimental road project in the District of Columbia in 1900. This project, the Queens Chapel Road in the District of Columbia, was selected for a controlled oiling application for dust control. The annual report stated: “This road was treated several weeks ago and so far as we are now able to judge the new system is a suc-
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