By 1929 the number of vehicles had increased 2½ times, to 26.5 million, but State highway revenues had increased over 6 times, to $763.4 million, and the percentage of the highway burden carried by road users had risen to over 99 percent. Actually, when Federal aid is considered, the road users paid about $81 million more than the cost of building and maintaining the State highways. Some of this excess was spent for nonhighway purposes, but most of it was distributed as aid to the counties and townships.[1]
Impact of the Motor Vehicle
The period from 1921 to 1929 was one of rising prosperity, paced by the automobile industry which not only increased its production astonishingly, but also improved the vehicles while reducing prices. In the early 1920’s the industry introduced installment sales on a large scale and strengthened the secondhand car market. As a huge mass market for automobiles burgeoned, sales increased from 1.6 million units in 1921 to 4.0 million in 1923 and 5.3 million in 1929, valued at $3.4 billion. Motor vehicle manufacture became a major industry which, in 1929, employed 471,000 people.
Automobiles affected the national economy in innumerable ways. They greatly expanded the market for steel, glass, rubber and fuel. Thousands of garages and service stations sprang up along the new roads to care for the motorists’ needs. Auto touring had its impact on the travel business, spreading tens of millions of dollars throughout the country. New automobile factories, garages, tourist facilities and the large road and street programs helped to fuel the already imposing construction and business boom of the twenties.
The proliferation of motor vehicles also had its dark side. As millions of new drivers took to the roads, traffic accidents increased by leaps and bounds, their cost reaching nearly $1.3 billion by 1929. Highway fatalities more than tripled, from 10,723 in 1918 to 31,215 in 1929.[2]
On the streets of the larger cities, traffic congestion became unbearable. Police and city engineers tried frantically to keep traffic moving by instituting one-way street schemes, by developing automatic traffic signals and by assigning the right-of-way to arterial traffic with the innovative stop sign. One of the simplest and most effective measures for expediting traffic movement was by cutting back curb corners at intersections from the customary 4- or 5-foot radius to 12 or even 15 feet. This permitted vehicles to make right turns without swinging into the adjoining lane and greatly smoothed traffic flow.
With the increase in traffic and highway-related business, long “string towns” developed along the approaches to every city, and advertising signs by the thousands proclaimed the virtues of innumerable products and services to growing captive audiences. Because of these roadside activities, new highways became congested and dangerous within a few years of opening, creating demands for by-passes.
The increasing popularity of cars and automotive travel also had its dark side.
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