Page:Interregional Highways.pdf/4

IV wise planning procedure, assuring the orderly development of the facilities which are necessary in the public interest with maximum long-range economy.

By Public Law 146, Seventy-eighth Congress, section 5, Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald, was authorized and directed to make a survey of the need for a system of express highways throughout the United States, the number of such highways needed, the approximate routes which they should follow, and the approximate cost of construction, and to report to the President and to Congress, within 6 months after the date of the act, the results of the survey, together with such recommendations for legislation as deemed advisable. The act was approved on July 13, 1943.

The purposes of this directive by the Congress were identical with my own in requesting the investigation which has been made by the National Interregional Highway Committee. The Commissioner of Public Roads has served as the chairman of the Committee appointed, and the detailed investigations required have been made by the Public Roads Administration staff. The Commissioner of Public Roads has informed me that he concurs without exception in the report of the Committee, and desires that it be accepted as his report, complying with the direction of Congress in Public Law 146.

I am glad to endorse this suggestion, and ask that the Congress receive the report herewith transmitted as fulfilling the purposes of Congress in the directive laid upon the Commissioner of Public Roads.

Early action by the Congress in authorizing joint designation by the Federal Government and the several State highway departments of a national system of interregional highways is desirable, in order to facilitate the acquisition of land, the drawing of detailed project plans, and other preliminary work which must precede actual road construction.

These advance steps taken, the program can serve not only to help meet the Nation’s highway transportation needs, but also as a means of utilizing productively during the post-war readjustment period a substantial share of the manpower and industrial capacity then available. A program of highway construction will, in addition, encourage and support the many diverse economic activities dependent upon highway transportation.

From personal experience, as Governor of a State and as President, I hope that the Congress will make additional studies in regard to the acquisition of land for highways.

In the interest of economy, I suggest that the actual route of new highways be left fluid. It is obvious that if a fixed route be determined in detail, the purchase price of rights-of-way will immediately rise, in many cases exorbitantly; whereas, if two or three routes—all approximately equal—are surveyed, the cheapest route in relation to right-of-way can be made the final choice.

Second, experience shows us that it is in most cases much cheaper to build a new highway, where none now exists, rather than to widen out an existing highway at a cost to the Government of acquiring or altering present developed frontages.

As a matter of fact, while the courts of the different States have varied in their interpretations, the principle of excess condemnation is coming into wider use both here and in other countries. I always