of instruction for every phase of the program. So clearly did he perceive not only the need for data, but the detail in which they should be collected and recorded, that only minimal changes were required as the procedures were introduced into field operations. Of course, as new equipment came on the scene, as mapmaking and reproduction processes advanced and statistical science developed, the early manuals and procedures were correspondingly updated, but the basic format never was changed.
While the facts assembled in the surveys eventually formed the base of planning and programing of all State highway departments, no use of the data was more effective or significant than their use, under Fairbank's direction and guidance, in forming national highway policy. As the author, again anonymously, of Toll Roads and Free Roads and Interregional Highways and subsequently in directing the organization of planning data for the Clay Committee and the Committees of Congress, Fairbank saw the realization of his 1934 vision in the authorization of the National System of Interstate Highways in 1944 and the start of its construction under the 1956 Act. He himself must have regarded the conception, birth and maturity of highway planning as his prime contribution, for in his own words appearing in Who's Who in America he accorded that function more prominence than any other of the many national and international contributions he listed.
Two other areas distinctly bore Fairbank's mark. One was research in highway economics and finance, an area in which it was particularly difficult to interest State highway officials and administrators. He pushed hard to develop research programs in this area, setting up a new division in his Office of Research for the purpose, and organizing and serving as Chairman of the Department of Economics, Finance, and Administration of the Highway Research Board.
Another area to which Fairbank gave personal and identifiable attention was the broad problem of deterioration of road surfaces brought about by the great increase in heavy axle loads. He early believed that failure of road surfaces was caused as much by the high frequency of heavy loads still within the legal limits as by the illegal loads. He believed that frequently repeated load applications caused fatigue and failure in concrete and organized university research projects to test and eventually to substantiate this concept.
To discover the effect of fatigue was one thing, but to convince others of its importance was another. As an illustration, Fairbank resorted to the eraser on his desk. While he would describe the research and portray the results before a group, he would show them he could bend the eraser double without its cracking. But, as he continued to talk, he would continue to flex the eraser not to a 180-degree bend, but only perhaps 45 to 60 degrees, and before long a crack would appear and soon the eraser would break in half, indeed a graphic analogy even if perhaps not convincing to a highway engineer that the phenomenon would apply to a concrete slab. Incidentally, Fairbank would later use each half of the eraser for its intended purpose—revising the first drafts of his writings.
Acceptance of the theory was of little value, however, unless the phenomenon could be quantified, and here the Highway Transport Committee of the American Association of State Highway Officials entered the picture, organizing, through the Highway Research Board, the first of a series of full-scale road tests, using an existing recently constructed concrete road in Maryland. As chairman of the Committee and as head of research in Public Roads, Fairbank entered strenuously into the conduct of that test and the analysis of its results, the details of which are described elsewhere in this history. Peculiarities in the rate of deterioration of different sections of the test road led to the discovery of a serious lack of uniformity of the specified subbase and, in turn, led Fairbank to insist on trenching both sides of the road for its entire length in an effort to explain the variations in performance, an example of his thoroughness as a researcher. Finally, while the next in the series of tests was being prepared, he personally oversaw the development of motion picture and exhibit material to be shown
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