camps along the route, widening, surfacing and build-ing sections of the Army’s pioneer road.[1] On November 20, 1942, 7 months and 17 days from start of work, a crude but motorable road was opened to truck traffic the entire distance to Big Delta.[2]
By the summer of 1943 the PRA had doubled the construction force and concentrated on further widening and improving the pioneer road as well as building new sections and some permanent bridges. At the peak of operations in September 1943, there were 1,850 PRA employees and 14,100 civilian employees of 81 contractors working with over 11,000 pieces of construction equipment on the job. As with the pioneer road, the bulk of the construction of the 1,420 miles of final highway was largely completed in a 4-month period at a final cost of $130.6 million.[3] On October 31, 1943, the PRA phased out its work on the all-weather truck route and turned the project over to the Army for maintenance.[4]
The Trans-Isthmian Highway
For years after completion of the Panama Canal, the only land link between the Atlantic and Pacific ends of the Canal was the efficient Panama Railroad, wholly owned by the United States Government. In 1939 the Army, concerned about the possibility of the railroad’s being knocked out by bombing or sabotage, recommended construction of a modern truck highway across the isthmus, and the State Department then negotiated a treaty under which the United States agreed to build the road from Colon across Panamanian territory to Madden Dam, and Panama agreed to supply the right-of-way.[N 1] Construction of the highway was assigned to the Public Roads Administration and the grading work was largely completed during the 1941 dry season.
When war was declared in December 1941, the Army urgently requested the PRA to finish the paving on a crash schedule extending into the wet season and also to accelerate work on a section of the Inter-American Highway extending from Chorrera to the strategic Rio Hato airfield. For both jobs the War Production Board assigned A-1 priorities. Despite the wettest dry season in years, the PRA and the Panamanian Government completed the 72 miles of concrete pavement and 42 bridges and opened both projects by July 1, 1942.
War Work on the Inter-American Highway
In December 1941, Congress authorized appropriations of $20 million as aid to the six Central American republics for the construction of the Inter-American Highway from the Mexico–Guatemala border to the Canal Zone. To be eligible for the aid, each country agreed to complete its part of the highway and to pay one-third of the cost. These assurances were received from the six countries by April 1942, and each with the help of the PRA developed a 4-year construction plan to push the road to completion.
As shipping losses to submarines mounted in early 1942, the Army became apprehensive that the United States might be cut off from the Panama Canal, and the General Staff decided to open a pioneer road through the remaining gaps in the Inter-American Highway, using military funds. The standards adopted by the Army for the pioneer road were much inferior to those agreed upon between PRA and the cooperating countries, but the Army agreed to follow the route chosen for the Inter-American Highway as closely as possible.
By mid-July 1942, the Chief of Engineers had assigned a staff to proceed with the pioneer road project. Contracts were made with the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador to complete the pioneer road in their respective countries using U.S. furnished equipment and with three American road contractors for the remainder. The PRA continued its work in Costa Rica and Panama and maintained engineering advisors to other countries where PRA assistance was requested.
The work began in Guatemala in November 1942, but ran into trouble almost immediately. The General Staff gave the Inter- American project a very low priority in its global schedule. Equipment and supplies essential for military operations elsewhere were grudgingly and sparingly committed to the pioneer road project. Stringent shipping restrictions also delayed the arrival of essential supplies. Finally, in October 1943, the Army decided the pioneer road was no longer strategically significant, withdrew the staff to other duties, and closed the project. The PRA continued construction on the project in Costa Rica. A short time later the PRA engineers returned to their technical assistance efforts in the countries working on their 4-year construction programs.
Postwar Planning
The Defense Highway Act of 1941 provided a small sum, $10 million, for postwar planning, and MacDonald was able to channel most of this, with the State matching funds, into projects on the interregional system proposed in the BPR’s toll road report of 1939.[N 2] However, actual planning proceeded rather slowly due to scarcity of engineers and planners, even though some States took extraordinary measures to overcome the manpower shortage by hiring high school students and older men and women for routine work. Urban expressways, such as the Bayshore Freeway in San Francisco and the Washington–Baltimore Expressway, predominated in most of this planning, but New York began studies for a superhighway system that would traverse the entire State from the New Jersey border to Lake Erie. Indiana made plans for rebuilding 60 percent of its antiquated State highway system on which the pavements were less than 20 feet wide.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike, opened late in 1940, had grossed $2.6 million in its first 11 months of operation—enough to pay all expenses with a good
150
- ↑ BPR, supra, note 11, pp. 29, 30.
- ↑ Alcan Highway Officially Opened—Trucks Go North, Engineering News-Record, Vol. 129, No. 22, Nov. 26, 1942, p. 740.
- ↑ R. E. Royall, Construction of the Alaska Highway (Public Roads Administration, Washington, D.C., 1945) pp. 69, 77.
- ↑ The Alaska Highway, H. Rept. 1705, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 26.
