1930’s was not entirely dispelled from official thinking even by the exigencies of war. The view then held, and reflected even in Interregional Highways, was that the return of the troops after the war and the sudden cessation of war industry would, without advance preparations, produce massive unemployment and perhaps even a depression such as followed World War I. No one could foresee that the pent-up demand for consumer goods, so long missing or in short supply, and the desire for new products on the market as a result of advances in technology associated with war production would take years to satisfy. And this same psychology, parenthetically, probably accounted for the persistent underestimating of traffic growth for several years after the war.
Another area of preparation for peace during war is seen in the growing concern for the problems of urban transportation. The predominantly short range of highway trips and the buildup of traffic in and near the cities disclosed in the studies for Toll Roads and Free Roads were emphasized and further quantified by the early studies of the National Interregional Highway Committee. These findings led Fairbank to repeatedly urge State highway officials and other groups to recognize the urban problems they soon would be facing and to gain the cooperation of city officials in an approach to what he saw as a mutual responsibility. Beyond that he saw the need for gaining an understanding of urban transportation needs and characteristics paralleling what the highway planning surveys were producing for the rural areas. And he called on his staff to devise appropriate study procedures.
Obviously many of the techniques fully satisfactory in rural areas could not be applied in cities. Procedures for counting traffic and determining origins and destinations of trips in rural areas could not simply be transferred to the networks of closely spaced city streets. While traffic volumes on rural roads where traffic had little choice of route were indicative of improvement needs, volumes on city streets, with traffic having almost infinite choices of routes, had little significance. Traffic often followed the improvement program, shifting from one street to another as the relative capacity or riding quality shifted with the construction and maintenance programs. What was needed was information that would reveal the composition of traffic as shown by the portions that were through trips as contrasted with the longer-range trips within the area and the short-range neighborhood trips, and trips not only by motor vehicle but by transit as well. Generally these were all being accommodated on the same streets, and the need was obvious for street systems that would permit separation of trips with their disparate interests and permit the design of the different elements of the system to be compatible with the type of service they would provide. Origins, destinations and purposes of trips were required, and stopping even a small sample of vehicles to interview the drivers, as could easily be done in rural areas, could hardly be practicable on busy city streets. Beyond that, the closely spaced network would permit easy avoidance of an interview station. And interviewing transit passengers presented new and not easy problems.
After exploring a variety of methods, some theoretically and some on the ground, with little prospect for satisfying results, the home-interview method was accepted as a possible approach. George Gallup was having considerable success in his early opinion polls. His method involved interviewing the right number, as determined statistically, of representative members of the different occupational groups comprising the total population, such as doctors, plumbers, teachers, housewives, laborers and even unemployed. This approach offered serious problems in attempting to adapt it on a scale necessary to a transportation survey. Fortunately the Bureau of the Census at that time was exploring means of reducing the costs of its complete censuses by the use of sampling methods. It was its view that by preselected geographic samples, say one house in ten, a representative sample of occupational groups would be obtained. That approach would also provide a geographic spread of interviews for origins and destinations of trips needed in travel studies. So the Bureau of the Census, while exploring for their own purposes and finding in the highway field a companion interest, agreed to assist by joining in assaying the statistical soundness of the samples and to assist in supervising one or two early studies so selected. Thus was born the home-interview approach, the basis of today’s urban transportation planning process. While still in wartime, 1944, the first home-interview studies to ascertain urban travel habits were launched (not without some trepidation to be sure) nearly simultaneously in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Little Rock, Arkansas. Certainly the State and city officials deserve a great deal of credit in agreeing to undertake such a novel program on the basis of assertions of belief by three Washington Office representatives that the approach would work! But work it did, and from there it grew.
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944
All these preparations for peace in time of war, mostly in the planning area, led to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. With all the Federal-aid acts since 1916, it is difficult and probably not useful to try to single out one or a few that are the most significant. The 1916 Act, the first, was organic legislation that got it all started. The 1921 Act stands out by introducing the system concept. More recently the 1956 Act, setting up the Highway Trust Fund and authorizing funds to complete the Interstate System, must be one of the most significant. But none can stand out above the 1944 Act as “landmark” legislation.
First, it authorized apportionments for a 3-year period beginning at the termination of the war emergency or at the concurrent resolution of the two houses of Congress, and it authorized a large amount ($1.5 billion).
Second, it authorized funds specifically for expenditure on the “Federal-aid highway system in urban areas,” not for a Federal-aid urban system. (Originally the routes were "extensions" of the rural Federal-aid or Federal-aid secondary routes, and later “portions” of those routes.)
Third, it required the selection of a Federal-aid secondary system for which secondary funds were earmarked.
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