Mr. WHITTON. In previous years our association has presented estimates of immediate needs. This survey that we are showing here looks to the future, estimating the cost of the National System of Interstate Highways within 10 years and taking into account the traffic volumes anticipated 10 and 20 years ahead. The figures also include estimates for rural, urban, and access roads, and roads and streets not a part of the Federal-aid system or the State system. That is these columns, these lines down here. The Congress will receive soon from the Bureau of Public Roads a detailed report of its study. Our purpose in presenting this summary table is simply to underscore the dimensions of the reconstruction job that must be done. This measured need was made possible because our member departments in cooperation with the Bureau have been accumulating factual data for two decades in our highway planning surveys. While the estimates may vary slightly among the States, they are technically sound and completely valid as an overall appraisal of the construction that will be necessary to provide safe and efficient highways for tomorrow's traffic. This map of the Federal-aid system reminds us that many different kinds of highway facilities are essential to our complex automotive economy. Here are the roads which with their urban extensions Congress has already designated as having national interest. The dotted lines-and you will be unable to see them, they are too light-the dotted lines represent the secondary system of about 435,000 miles, sometimes called the farm-to-market roads. The heavier solid lines show the primary rural system, backbone of our highway network. These are the principal trunklines. They are 235,000 miles long and represent slightly more than 7 percent of the Nation's total road mileage. In the formulation of the much needed improvement program we hope that due consideration will be given by the Congress to all elements of our highway transportation system. A balanced program, recognizing the essentiality of all these roadways, is desirable because each performs an important and necessary function in our automotive economy. Senator SYMINGTON. Before you take that chart away, why is there a concentration of black west of the Great Lakes? Mr. WHITTON. This is the State of Iowa. Apparently they have more secondary roads in Iowa than we do in Missouri. I think that is the answer to your question, Senator. Senator NEUBERGER. Iowa has the greatest farm concentration of any State. That is my impression. Mr. WHITTON. This map of the Federal-aid system-this is a National System of Interstate Highways authorized by the Congress in 1944 for this purpose to connect by routes as directly as possible the principal metropolitan areas, cities and industrial centers to serve the national defense and to connect at suitable border points with routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the Republic of Mexico. A ceiling of 40,000 miles was placed on this system by Congress after the Bureau of Public Roads reported that this is the optimum for the purpose of connecting population and industry centers. Senator KERR. When did the Bureau make that estimate? Mr. WHITTON. I should say in 1944. I am guessing at that. Senator KERR. What would be your judgment about the need for revision of that figure in view of the events and developments of the past 10 or 11 years? Mr. WHITTON. I believe I am wrong about 1944. Senator CASE. 1947. Mr. WHITTON. I believe it was revised in 1947. It was approved by Congress in 1944 and I think there has been some revision, and finally the final revisions completed in 1947, and again approved at that time. Officially established in 1947. Senator GORE. Even yet there are not the full 40,000 miles included in the Interstate System? Mr. WHITTON. That is right. Senator GORE. What is the total mileage on the Interstate System now! Mr. WHITTON. I understand it is 37,400, or 37,600. Senator CASE. 37,600. Mr. WHITTON. As plans advance for the improvement of these routes, pressure will begin to build up for extending the system. But it is highly important in our judgment that the limitations be retained. If one break-through is permitted it will become virtually impossible to preserve the integrity of this key network of primary arteries. The system when established was to join centers of population and connect with main highways in Mexico and Canada. I doubt if centers of population have changed sufficiently since 1947 or will for the next several years to warrant a complete revision of the Interstate System. The map itself shows why the Interstate System carries top priority from a national standpoint. It binds areas and regions of the Nation together. It links together industrial resources vital to the national defense. Because of this predominant national interest, our association believes that the cost of constructing this network should be met largely by the Federal Government. I would like to place an overlay on this map to show some additional points. The first overlay is a sketch showing the location of the major cities in relation to size. These are the cities shown on the official map of the designated system. Notice how the interstate routes bind them all together in a single network. Although the system comprises only 1.2 percent of the total roads and street mileage in the country, it serves all the metropolitan districts, 90 percent of all the communities over 50,000 population, and carries more than one-seventh of all the vehicular traffic. When completed, in all probability it will carry considerably more of the total traffic. The completion of the system, in other words, will induce traffic. Senator CASE. What year was used for the population? Senator GORE. Have you noticed the degree to which throughout the center part of the Nation the lines run almost entirely either east and west or north and south? I wonder if the Bureau of Roads has thought of the need of some diagonal highways connecting the four corners of the Nation? |