Page:Toll Roads and Free Roads.pdf/149

Rh reason to avoid, so far as possible, any expenditure for new right-of-way and apply the money instead to the construction of the much desired surfaces.

If the need for better alignment and more adequate right-of-way had been felt, and funds had been held available for the purpose, actual obtainment of the rights-of-way would have been a difficult and slow process because of the objections and obstruction that would have been offered by individual landowners all along the projected routes.

But more decisive than either of these circumstances in accounting for the adherence to old rights-of-way, was the fact that there seemed to be no great need to depart from them. Long distance travel by road had not developed and was not foreseen. For the local movements from one town to its immediate neighbors the indirection of the old roads was not a disadvantage, but an advantage. Motor vehicles were incapable of high speed and were legally restricted to very low speeds. The desire for the present high speed had not been born in a populace still tied to its home places and regarding 30 miles an hour as a breakneck pace. The improved curvature obtainable by slightly cutting the corners of the existing rights-of-way was all that was believed to be needed, and all that could reasonably be foreseen, as required in the future.

It was not until the early years of the present decade that a change occurred. Then, rather suddenly, the speed capacity of motor vehicles was increased and new standards of highway design, particularly in relation to curvature, gradient, and surfaced width became necessary. By that time a large part of the present improved mileage had been constructed, and much of this earlier construction is now in some degree obsolescent, mainly because its curvature is too sharp. To correct its defects new right-of-way is needed in large acreage.

Moreover, there are other conditions that point to the same need, the need of additional right-of-way—mainly in the form of greater width. These are conditions associated with the private use of the land bordering the narrow strips within which the public highways are confined. Collectively such uses are described as “ribbon development.” They include an unneeded number of unsightly stands and other minor and temporary retail establishments catering inefficiently and with little profit to the purchasing power of Americans awheel; a multiplication of roadside residences and more substantial business places, crowded close to the roadway; the private opening of innumerable accesses to the highways, many so blind as to be positive menaces; and the erection of billboards in such numbers on the more heavily traveled roads as virtually to obscure the natural scene.

The mere presence of these numerous, close-crowding objects and establishments is a distraction to drivers of vehicles. Some of them, by every conceivable device, endeavor to attract the attention of drivers of vehicles from their primary responsibility; most of them contribute largely to the hazards of unexpected stopping, turning, and emergence upon the highways of both vehicles and pedestrians. All are positive menaces and must be controlled, and only the prob ability of material improvement lies in a general and substantial widening of the rights-of-way of the more important roads, together with effective border control. On such roads the availability of wider