reasons advanced by proponents of Federal aid for toll roads was that such aid would give the Government some control over them—at least to the extent of requiring that the roads be freed of tolls after the bonds were paid off.
The 83d Congress (1953–1954) considered the thorny problem of Federal aid for toll roads but left it unsettled by directing the Secretary of Commerce to make a study and report his recommendations to the next Congress. This report, Progress and Feasibility of Toll Roads and Their Relation to the Federal-Aid Program submitted to the 84th Congress in 1955, showed that on January 1, 1955, there were 1,239 miles of completed “arterial toll roads” in the United States, plus 1,382 miles under construction and an additional 3,314 miles authorized.[1] Many hundreds of miles in the third category had not been studied, and their possibilities for revenue bond financing were unknown.
The BPR analyzed all highways, toll or free, that were not already adequately improved for future traffic up to the year 1984 or definitely scheduled for such improvement. The analysts found that about 6,900 miles of heavy-traffic roads were feasible for revenue bond financing, and of these, 6,700 miles were on the Interstate System routes.[2] Whether there could be additional self-supporting toll roads, therefore, would depend upon the policies of the Federal Government and the States in the use of public funds to improve the Interstate System. “Assurance of public funds to provide reasonably early completion of the system would soon spell the end of revenue-bond financing of roads in the system. Continuation of the present inadequate allocation of funds to this system, however, can only serve to increase the mileage that would be potentially feasible as tool roads.”[3]
The report then went on to describe the inadequate local service given by toll roads and the resulting need for parallel free highways. “Thus, even though a toll road may be readily self-liquidating, it can never relieve some public agency from the responsibility of continuing to provide local service . . . On the other hand, a properly located and designed free road can serve both the through and local traffic.”[4]
The Secretary recommended that there be no Federal support or encouragement of new toll roads but that Congress permit the integration of existing toll roads into the System where they followed Interstate routes and met Interstate standards and where there were available reasonably satisfactory alternate free roads. No toll roads should be permitted on any other Federal-aid system.
Congress incorporated these recommendations in the new law, and also authorized the use of Federal funds on approach roads connecting acceptable toll roads to the free portions of the Interstate System. This last was conditioned on the State’s agreement to free the benefited section of toll road after retirement of the original bonds.
New Leadership for the Bureau of Public Roads
When Commissioner MacDonald reached the statutory retirement age in 1951, only a handful of the oldest employees could remember a time when he had not been in charge of the Bureau of Public Roads. The Bureau’s budget had increased from $69 million in fiscal year 1919, when he assumed control over what was then a minor bureau in the Department of Agriculture, to $485 million in 1951—about half of the Commerce Department’s total budget. In those 32 years, MacDonald had supervised the spending of over $6.6 billion of Federal aid and forest highway funds without a hint of impropriety, although not without controversy at times. He had served under six Presidents and up to that time had the longest continuous tenure of any important policymaking officer of the Government.
Under “the Chief,” as he was known for most of his career, the Bureau of Public Roads had grown from a small but capable and dedicated group of road experts to the most prestigious highway organization in the world.
When the Korean emergency developed into a national crisis, President Truman recognized the confidence MacDonald enjoyed with the Congress and with the State highway departments by persuading MacDonald to continue as Commissioner for the remainder of his Administration.
Commissioner MacDonald retired in March 1953. In his farewell remarks to the press, he emphasized the importance of continuing the traditional Federal–State partnership:
‘first, it is a workable plan to accomplish a continuing program that involves both local and national services; second, it sets a pattern in harmony with the concepts of federal government.’
The original Federal Highway Act of 1916, he said, ‘recognized the sovereignty of the states and the authority retained by the states to initiate projects. All through the legislation since then, the same mechanism of checks and balances has been maintained evenly so that the states and the federal government both have to agree before they can accomplish a positive program.’[5]
Freed from the inhibitions of his office, MacDonald went on to state that the Federal gasoline tax revenue should be returned to the States as Federal aid, and that “it is time to give serious consideration to a charge for use of what we may call extra facilities such as controlled access express highways.”
President Eisenhower appointed Francis V. duPont as Commissioner in April 1953. A civil engineer, duPont had been chairman of the Delaware Highway Commission for 23 years and was thoroughly familiar with Federal and State road policies. In announcing his appointment, Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks made a point of also declaring that the administration had no intention of recommending that the Government retire from the taxation of gasoline as had been so loudly demanded by the 1953 Governors Conference. He also said that there were no plans to make any serious changes in the Bureau of Public Roads or its functions.
Mr. duPont assumed control over the Bureau with the expressed intention of making changes slowly, and then only after a complete review of its operations. In his first appearance before the House Subcommittee on Roads he suggested few changes in national policy. Toll roads, he said, were economically feasible at only a very few locations and would not solve the overall road finance problem. Congress, he recommended, should accelerate a solution to the vexing truck size and weight problem not by threats, but
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