HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 10 a. m., the Honorable J. W. Robinson (chairman), presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. Our first witness this morning is Mr. Herman A. MacDonald, who is the commissioner of public works in the State of Massachusets. I am very glad that the program is working out just like it is. We had yesterday Mr. White and Mr. Brown, who pretty well represented one section of the country. Mr. MacDonald, I am sure, will be able to take care of the other part of the country this morning. We are very happy to have you with us, Mr. MacDonald, and I am sure the committee will be pleased to hear from you. May I add that Congressman Goodwin, of Massachusetts, who is a very valuable member of the committee, is confined at home by illness, otherwise I am sure he would be here for he is a constant attendant at our Road Committee meetings. STATEMENT OF HERMAN A. MacDONALD, COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC WORKS, STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS Mr. MACDONALD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the topic assigned to me by the American Association of State Highway Officials is the Necessity for Urban Development of Highways. I regret very much the pressure of other work has not given me enough time to properly prepare and present a paper upon such a difficult, and yet extremely important, part of the highway program, but I trust that the few remarks that I make may be of some help to the members of the committee. Yesterday, as I sat here and listened to the eloquent plea of that soft-spoken, silver-haired man from Iowa, I was almost moved to tears as he pleaded for rural highways. You will remember, in his peroration, he told you that if you wanted to eat you would have to have more rural highways; if grandpap wanted to get the mail every day, you would have to have more rural highways; if sister Susie's boy friend was to come see her, he wanted him to get there without too much dust on his shoes; and if religion was to spread over this fair land of ours, you would have to have more and still more rural highways. I was almost tempted to get up and say, "Amen, brother," he made such a deep and lasting impression on me. After spending a night in your charming city of peace and contentment, where everybody thinks everybody else is just wonderful, and where everybody agrees with everybody else, and everything is just ducky, I really came to my senses and came to the conclusion that, after all, while Mr. Fred White spoke very eloquently on the rural highways, there must still be something to be said for the downtrodden people of the cities who are in a panic of congestion about 365 days in the year. Sometimes they remind you of the pyramids of Egypt, when they have to wait so long in order to move through traffic jams on the streets. So I changed my mind overnight, and if you will bear with me patiently for a few minutes, I will present to you what I have to say with reference to the necessity for urban highways. The CHAIRMAN. I am sure that the cities have a very good advocate. Mr. MACDONALD. From the beginning of Federal aid, so-called, highway construction resolved itself principally into a program of rural highway development, and many of the routes of this nature have been completed over the years. To anyone, however, who travels to any extent by motor vehicle, it is quite plain that something must be done to take care of the terrific congestion of highway traffic in urban centers. The day has gone when we can believe that all that is required of highway construction is that we construct broad highways up to the city gates and stop construction there. A long suffering public has decreed that there must be some relief and practically all highway officials from the Public Roads Administration down through the various State highway departments are convinced that relief must be given in this direction. One of the deterrent factors of this particular development has been the high cost of urban construction in comparison to construction in the open country. But we must face the facts-that, regardless of this and other obstacles, provisions must be made for safe, swift, and uninterrupted traffic in urban territory, as well as in the open country. For a motorist gains nothing if he has a smooth, uninterrupted journey to the city and then is held up there an inordinate period of time or runs the risk of being crushed in a traffic jam that has every one frantic with impatience and anger. As a city or urban territory attracts traffic from the surrounding country, it should receive aid in handling that traffic. After this war is over the congestion in urban territory is going to be more severe than ever before-and the sensible thing to do is to make provision for it now. The director of highways of California has put the situation very well in a letter to me, which reads in part as follows: The experience we have had in California is probably more or less representative of the practice in other States. After the establishment of the State highway departments and the solution of the financing of construction of State highways, all of the efforts of these departments were directed toward the improvement of a system of highways throughout the State, which were practically all rural in character. The only urban aspects would be those encountered as the road approached the city limits. This is where the improvement stopped. In some instances it was possible for the cities to meet the situation and provide improvement of certain of their city streets to tide the matter over for some time; but that was not true of the majority of the cities, and undoubtedly the problem was considerably more severe in the larger centers of population where a number of such important roads enter. The first move toward relieving the situation in this State was during the 1920's. At that time, provision was made for the State to carry the highways through smaller communities with 2,500 or less population. The problem, however, became increasingly difficult. Inadequately improved routes into and through cities caused congestion, and this congestion increased to such proportions in some of the larger municipalities that it was practically impossible to operate an automobile through the streets with any comfort or safety, and certainly not with any speed. Local traffic, mingled with a large volume of through traffic, produced congestion for both classes. In New York it is the same story. Millions should be spent to secure some relief from congestion in urban centers and the money could be spent to excellent advantage. In New Jersey a large amount of the highway expenditures is for the purpose of taking care of traffic through cities, and the report states that "the conception of the State highway system being rural connections to the populous centers is fast disappearing. Cities are our greatest traffic potential and our greatest bottlenecks." The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is planning to spend $43,000,000 in Philadelphia and $20,000,000 in the city of Pittsburgh, and they are planning to spend $95,000,000 in urban bypasses. We have neglected the solution of the problem which would move traffic swiftly and safely over short distances in a short period of time, and after all, much to the surprise of many of us, by far the greater percentage of motor-vehicle trips are relatively short in distance. Through Nation-wide traffic surveys we find that from 80 to 90 percent of the traffic approaching the average large city is destined to enter the city itself. Bypasses around the smaller municipalities are obviously needed and to a certain extent around the large municipalities. They are quite essential because they not only carry the through traffic around the cities, but they act as feeders from which arterial routes into the city may be located. From the traffic surveys, however, it is quite apparent that the most important problem is to get the traffic into the heart of the city itself. This means the development of the arterial trunk line, express, or limited access highways. Roads will be so located that they will pick up, carry, and distribute traffic into the various areas of the city rapidly and with the least amount of interference. The majority of the cities have exhausted their credit as far as the financing of major highway programs is concerned. Consequently, relief from the States and Federal Government must be sought if the long-expected problem of urban highway development is to be properly approached. The inhabitants of the urban areas contribute their share of the road tax dollar. The question is one which requires some careful and delicate balancing. We have now reached a point where the apparent neglect of the urban problem over many years makes it essential that there be some provisions made for this purpose. Despite the magnitude of requirements on main rural highways and local rural roads, city streets in many cases represent even higher degrees of inadequacy and often the most costly requirements for modernization. For while the recognized priority of rural highway improvements for many years necessitated principal attention on this tremendous task, the growth of urban vehicle registration and the concentration of traffic in the cities were rapidly shifting the most urgent need for highway improvement to the larger cities and metro politan areas. Today, over half of all traffic is on city streets and in the suburban fringes where are found 28 percent of all motor vehicles and 50 percent of the population. The nine and a half million motor vehicles registered in these cities number 200 per mile of surfaced street and 1,800 per square mile. The long established emphasis upon rural highway improvement has continued, however, despite these shifting needs, and today the city and its environs constitute the most critical areas in highway transportation. Urban highways must provide the circulatory system without which no city can survive; failure to recognize the basic role of this system in the conduct of industry and community living is dooming city after city to economic strangulation. The local_rural road system contains over 900,000 miles of surfaced roads and over 600,000 miles of graded and drained roads. Many of these need to be improved to higher standards, while others require no further development or are actually over-developed. As one author has stated, since 1910 progress in transportation in urban territory has been as follows: Then, 10 minutes and 20 seconds by horse and buggy; now 14 minutes and 12 seconds by automobile. The Public Roads Administration has aptly expressed the consternation, of both highway engineer and motorist in the following words: When one observes the countless impediments that embarrass the movement of twentieth century traffic through eighteenth century streets, one wonders how long it will be before complete congestion will result. In Massachusetts where the urban population is 82.69 percent of the total poulation as compared with Nevada, 19.34 percent; Arkansas, 12.23 percent; Idaho, 19.79 percent; Mississippi, 12.51 percent, et cetera, we have a serious traffic congestion problem. In Boston alone there should be expended approximately $35,000,000 to eliminate very serious congestion. Within a radius of 50 miles of the city of Boston live over 4,300,000 people. In the official metropolitan district of Boston live 2,350,000 people. Only four metropolitan districts in the Nation outrank it in population and industrial wage earners. So we in Massachusetts have a very urgent problem in urban development of highways. Throughout the Nation there are countless similar situations. In urban development it is hoped that it will be made as flexible as possible, leaving the final decisions with the State highway departments and the Public Roads Administration. It would be most difficult to administer the urban development part of the bill if the provisions are rigid and inflexible. Of the population of 131,669,000 of the entire country, 62,617,000 are in urban territory of a population of 10,000 or more. So you will see that approximately 50 percent of the road users' taxes are in the urban areas. Let us bear in mind these facts in our post-war planning. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. MacDonald. I am sure we will have some questions. There are one or two that I have before I call on other members of the committee. I am wondering just what picture you present in your State with reference to the authorization under this bill, if this bill were passed as is. Just what position are |