means proved to be the second toll era in the United States. The Pennsylvania Turnpike, opened just before the war, proved to be a great boom to military convoy and general truck movement during the war period, if less beneficial to the bond holders. After the war when the upsurge of traffic brought in more than ample revenue, pressures for toll roads appeared in other States. The Pennsylvania Turnpike’s success was accepted with some reservation because of the peculiarly favorable contrast with the existing routes, for the Turnpike tunneled through several ridges that the old road had to climb, utilizing the tunnels of a railroad line never actually completed. But the New Jersey Turnpike, opened in its full length in 1952 with no advantages of terrain, proved to be a bonanza and thereafter the toll road movement swept through State after State.
The toll road movement not only produced roads; it sparked an interest in Congress that had not been ignited by the reports of 1944 or 1948. In the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954, under section 13 the “Secretary of Commerce [was] authorized and directed to make . . . a study of the costs of completing the several systems of highways in the several States and of the progress and feasibility of toll roads with particular attention to the possible effects of such toll roads upon the Federal-aid highway programs . . .” The report, to be submitted by February 1, 1955, actually was prepared in two parts. The toll road portion was transmitted on April 14, 1955, still a remarkably short time considering that the Act was not approved until May 6, 1954. For those States in which needs studies had been completed, the information required for the report was not too difficult, but for those States which had not developed needs studies, a heavy workload was imposed.
Looking first at the toll road study transmitted in the report entitled Progress and Feasibility of Toll Roads and Their Relation to the Federal-Aid Program,[1] it found conditions far different than those in the late thirties when Toll Roads and Free Roads was prepared. Traffic volumes had increased, of course, not only in magnitude, but in relation to the adequacy of the road systems with its lagging improvement programs. And 16 years later there was actual toll road experience to go on.
With these favorable conditions, analyses were made, for which some data already had been collected, to show the characteristics of the traffic using the toll roads. The origins and destinations of trips, their purposes, the time and distances involved in the use of toll roads in comparison with alternate free routes, the tolls paid, and the proportion of travel on the existing roads that was diverted to the toll route indicate the types of information used in the analyses. Factors developed from these analyses were applied to all sections of the Interstate System and other routes believed by the States to have toll potential to estimate probable use of toll roads and the revenue the traffic would produce compared with the costs of maintaining, operating and amortizing the investment in the toll facilities. Any proposed toll sections that showed revenues over the amortization period equaling iy 2 times the total cost were considered feasible of toll financing. (The investment bankers of the time insisted on a “coverage” of 1.5. In the Toll Roads and Free Roads study, toll financing was assumed to be justified when the revenue and cost were equal to a “coverage” of 1.0. Thus, the 1954 study was conservative and in line with current practice.)
With the changes over the 16 years, however, 6,700 miles were found to be feasible of toll financing compared to the few hundred that might have been self-liquidating in 1938. All but 200 miles were found to be on the lines of the Interstate System, attesting again to its prime importance. Should it be desired to pool revenues from different routes, as did some States such as Pennsylvania, with the stronger one helping to carry those not quite feasible, additional mileage not measured in the study could have been included in the total.
At the time of the 1954 study, 1,239 miles of toll road were open and 1,382 miles under construction. In addition 3,314 miles had been authorized and another 2,253 miles proposed, exceeding somewhat, in their total of 8,188 miles, the 6,700 miles estimated to be feasible in the study.
Looking back to the 1938 study, it is of interest that every one of the toll roads in use or under construction in 1954 that lay along one of the six routes studied in 1938 was on a section of those routes then found to be among the highest in feasibility. While the magnitudes had changed over the 16-year period, the relative positions had not. This change again exemplifies the psychological effect of the Depression. The 1938 report noted that nearly everyone who could afford a car owned one, that their average incomes were low and that they could ill afford to take long trips, to say nothing of paying tolls. That position was buttressed by the road use studies showing that only 1 percent of trips exceeded 100 miles in length. (Even so they were important, for they produced 25 percent of the vehicle miles.)
But 1954 was a boom period. Cars were better, incomes higher and rising and the new toll roads were giving opportunity for more long trips. (More recent figures show that the percentage of trips of over 100 miles has doubled, indicating that freeways, toll or free, have opened a new market for the highway product, and expanded the horizons of American society.)
With 6,700 miles estimated as feasible of toll financing, more if “pooling” within a State were permitted and perhaps still more if “pooling” on a regional or national basis were accepted, one may wonder why the report did not recommend at least some measure of toll financing in the face of such unmet highway needs and the good public acceptance of toll roads. This question was argued intensely in the Bureau of Public Roads, but in the end it was decided not to recommend any change in the 1921 provision “That all highways constructed or reconstructed under the provisions of this act shall be free of tolls of all kinds.”
Partly it is likely that the Bureau did not wish to depart from such a long-standing provision without some indication of congressional interest; and partly it was the strong belief that a toll-financed system was not desirable. It was reasoned that toll roads,
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- ↑ H. Doc. 139, 84th Cong., 1st Sess.
