program became one of meeting the complex transportation and social problems in urban areas and the needs for intercity and interstate motor vehicle transportation. The changing focus in national highway needs and in national transportation objectives had been anticipated by BPK leaders and had prompted their early efforts in the fields of highway planning and needs studies, highway research sponsorship, highway design and construction, highway traffic operation, and highway transportation economics. This capability to meet the demands of changing national interests with major program changes and with a modest, but flexible, staff is the real success story of the Bureau of Public Koads. It is a story of dedicated and competent public service which has earned the confidence and respect of the American people over a 60-year period. Professional excellence with total integrity has marked that performance from the beginning.
But what about tomorrow? Is it not only natural to expect that this impressive story of accomplishment will continue well into the future?
Engraved on the facade of the National Archives building is the phrase “What is past is prologue.” This is certainly true with respect to the long and successful highway building era in America. We cannot contemplate the present without knowledge of the past nor forecast the future in ignorance of either.
The national highway program is in the throes of major change in direction and emphasis. These changes are emanating from complex issues and problems associated with growing questions of government involvement. For instance, the appropriate roles of Federal, State, and local governments in highway construction, operation, and maintenance are being reconsidered. We realize that the Interstate System is going to require a continuing process of resurfacing, restoring, and rehabilitation to maintain the high level of transportation service demanded by the public. This will be quite expensive and probably beyond the financial capability of the States to do it adequately. A program for Federal participation in the upgrading and rehabilitation of the Interstate System has been authorized in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976.
The Federal role in other highway systems—the Primary, Secondary, and Urban Systems—will also be examined closely and debated in the coming months and years. It appears likely that more of the responsibility for planning the construction, maintenance, and operation of these systems will shift away from the Federal and further toward State and local levels of government over time, consistent with the policy of increasing the decisionmaking flexibility of these levels of government to deal with issues of lesser national significance.
During the past 10 years, although the total investment for all highway functions by all levels of government has increased substantially, inflation has eroded the highway dollar so seriously that actual construction activities on highways has in fact decreased. In the same 10-year period, the number of miles of highways in the United States, the number of registered vehicles, and the number of vehicle miles of travel have all increased substantially. These facts indicate that, at best, we have maintained approximately the same level of performance on our highway system during the last 10 years. As more facts are gathered, however, we may learn that the highway system’s overall performance has deteriorated. A major issue, then, will be to determine appropriate funding levels to maintain a reasonable performance level on our highways and to provide for those funds fairly and equitably in accordance with the benefits derived by the users of the highway system. Included in this issue is the question of what funding mechanisms can be used to adequately finance the Nation’s highway system—for example, shall we retain the Highway Trust Fund or establish a Transportation Trust Fund? Or should we return to general revenue funding for highways? And how will rising State and local funding needs be satisfied? These are questions which will also be debated during the coming months.
More attention will be given in the coming years to upgrading public transportation, including light and heavy rail mass transit and railroad facilities. At the same time, more rigorous analytical procedures will be needed in making such large transportation investment decisions through cost-effectiveness studies and analyses of alternatives. Highway builders, the engineers who developed the highway system that is the envy of the whole world, may be expected to assist in the rehabilitation of the fixed rail systems in the Nation. We may expect that State and Federal highway organizations will become more closely involved in this new major thrust within the transportation family.
A major objective now and in the years to come will be to make better use of the highway facilities we already have. Land and other resources in many areas are becoming scarce, and fuel is becoming more precious. Accordingly, we may expect to see in the future a continuing emphasis on the more efficient utilization of our existing facilities. Better traffic management, auto-restricted zones in our dense urban areas, preferential transit bus and carpool treatments, better utilization of air space and below ground space in rights-of-way—all of these concepts will receive more attention in the coming years, especially in the more densely populated urban areas where efficiency is paramount.
More attention will be given to the conservation of energy and the development of new sources of energy. We will need to discipline ourselves to use less fuel by driving at slower speeds and developing more fuel efficient vehicles. It would be comforting to predict the development of new, clean, infinite sources of energy. After all, the United States did not become a great Nation by saving energy, but by using huge quantities of it. We may again reach a time when we can use all the energy we want without polluting the atmosphere or depleting finite resources, but this day is far off, and in the interim, conservation must be our watchword.
Improved highway safety will continue as a high priority goal. Significant improvement has been realized in very recent years, due in part to the nationwide 55 mile per hour maximum speed limit. Since 1973, the actual number of fatalities, as well as the fatality rate, have been significantly reduced. But we must continue to improve highway design and
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