Highway Development During World War II
The Federal Highway Act of 1940 became law more than a year before the Pearl Harbor incident made the United States an active belligerent. The Act provided that, on request of the Secretaries of War and Navy or the head of any other official national defense agency and by order of the Federal Works Administrator, Federal-aid highway funds previously authorized could be used, without matching, to pay for preliminary engineering and for supervising the construction of projects essential to the national defense.
The decade of the 1940’s was marked by two contrasting developments: (1) The cessation of normal highway construction during World War II followed by (2) accelerated construction expenditure accompanied by an increase in borrowing for highway purposes after the war. At the outset, the Nation was entering a period of wartime economic boom that hastened what might otherwise have been a long, slow pull out of the Depression. But the boom found materials, equipment, and labor for normal civilian purposes in short supply.
In 1941, 78,000 miles of highway were designated as the strategic network developed in cooperation with the War Department and used in selecting high-priority projects for construction. Approximately 20 percent of the mileage in this network was found to be seriously inadequate, and the proportion was found to be even higher on other essential roads, such as those providing access to war industries, ammunition depots, and military establishments.
The Defense Highway Act of 1941 appropriated funds for construction on the strategic network, to be apportioned according to the standard formula but with State participation limited to not more than 25 percent of the project cost. Funds were authorized, without apportionment, for projects on access roads, these funds to be available with or without State matching and usable for purchasing right-of-way and for off-street parking.
Policy for the conservation of critical materials called for (1) deferring all nonessential highway construction that would consume large amounts of such materials; (2) substituting less critical materials, where possible; and (3) deferring construction through maintenance operations. These practices plus the inability of governments to stretch the available resources in materials and manpower to cover routine maintenance added to the large volume of unmet highway needs that had been accumulating since the early 1930’s.
Highway expenditures, which had not yet returned to their pre-Depression level, again began to decline. County and local governments, both rural and urban, were receiving from 45 to 47 percent less from their own sources than they had in 1930. Though in 1941 State-collected highway revenues were 36 percent above their 1931 level and the States had stepped up their aid to rural local governments, still the funds available for local roads were substantially below the 1931 figure. Construction expenditures for county and rural local roads reached a low point of $72 million in 1944.
In 1943 and 1944, total expenditures on city and village streets reached their lowest level ($321 million) since 1920. The principal cause was the war-imposed curtailment of construction, which totaled only $71 million in 1943. Expenditures at the Federal and State levels also declined until the close of World War II.
The 1943 Highway Act amending the Defense Highway Act of 1941 served as a bridge between wartime and postwar programs. It extended the emergency funding programs of the 1941 Act and amended the definition of construction in order to continue the use of Federal-aid highway funds for the purchase of right-of-way. It also broadened the provisions related to reimbursing the States and other governments for road damage resulting from national defense and other war-related activities.
Executive Order 8989 of December 18, 1941, created the Office of Defense Transport (ODT) as a wartime agency to assure continued essential operations and maximum use of domestic transport facilities for the successful prosecution of the war. The ODT’s Highway Transport Division, supervising motor transportation, pursued the objective of the order through issuance of orders governing full loading, delivery schedules, and interchange of freight. It also pressed for allocations of fuel, tires, and other critical items in short supply to enable domestic truck transportation to perform its service.
Postwar Problems
When the war ended in 1945, highway agencies entered the postwar period under conditions of great difficulty. It had become apparent that during the period preceding the war, insufficient effort was put into the construction and maintenance of roads and streets to insure that the quality and condition of the highway plant would keep pace with the demands of traffic. The agencies were therefore faced with the necessity of a widespread modernization and reconditioning of highway facilities, both rural and urban. The problem was complicated by the fact that construction and maintenance costs, which rose very materially during the war period, become inflated with the general rise in prices that followed.
The Federal Government’s grand plan of attack on postwar highway problems was embodied in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which added some important new provisions:
- A new National System of Interstate Highways, not to exceed 40,000 miles in length, was authorized.
- A specific system of secondary Federal-aid highways, not limited in size, was provided for.
- Recognition was given for the first time to a system of urban extensions of rural Federal-aid highways.
- Authorizations were made by systems in a 45-30-25 ratio for primary, secondary, and urban (ABC) systems for each of 3 successive years. No funds were specifically authorized for the Interstate System.
The apportionment formula adopted for the Primary System was continued, giving equal weight to the
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