Page:Report of Joint Board on Interstate Highways.pdf/27

-26- For instance, the northeastern States hold the attitude toward the system that the routes should be of a transcontinental character and that an interstate route that extended only through two or three States should not be included. It would have clarified somewhat if the situation if the conflicting ideas of interstate vs. transcontinental had been given better definition and obviously, the system as now laid out is to be diminished, a distinction in these ideas will have to be developed.

In the Western group the general attitude was that roads of immediate importance should be included and the understanding seemed to prevail that additional routes would be added from time to time. At the Chicago meeting on the other hand the attitude appeared to be that the States of that group were prepared to lay out at this time a system of interstate connections that would comprise all likely routes for an indefinite period, and the other roads built in the future would be tributary to the system now planned.

There follows a tabulation showing the per cent of the seven per cent system, and the per cent of the total public road mileage represented by the selected routes as the system now stands.