Page:Highway Needs of the National Defense.pdf/69

Rh traffic assumption is very conservative, the computed cost per vehicle-mile is correspondingly conservative. A cost little more than seven-tenths of a cent per vehicle-mile over a 20-year period would probably be a more reasonable measure of the capital burden of the proposed improvements spread over a 20-year period.

Rural and urban vehicle-mile costs

These figures are based on the improvement cost estimated for the system asa whole. For the rural sections only the capital investment would have been repaid by a payment of about 14.1 cents per vehicle-mile of the 1948 traffic, or a maximum of about 7 mills per vehicle-mile in 20 years, a figure that may be reduced in view of the probable traffic increase to less than 6 mills per vehicle-mile.

For the urban system the corresponding vehicle-mile payments and costs are 26.7 cents for 1 year’s traffic; 1.33 cents for the traffic of 20 years continued in the 1948 volume, and probably little more than 1 cent as traffic is likely to develop in a 20-year period.

Comparison of the costs given for the urban and rural sections indicates that the improvement of the urban sections as proposed, in terms of the traffic served, is slightly less than twice as expensive as the proposed improvement of the rural sections.

DATA BY STATES

Table 1 shows the mileage of the system as it is proposed for improvement in the rural and urban areas of each State and the corresponding total mileage; and the estimated costs of improving sections of the system in urban and rural areas of each State and the corresponding percentage of such costs in relation to the respective national total costs.