which it may need to transfer or to points on the circumference of the city nearest the urban section of its ultimate destination, and the distribution of outbound traffic in a reciprocal manner.
In some cases it may be feasible to construct the distributing belt line within the city generally somewhere within the ring of decadent property surrounding the central business area. Such a belt line, connecting at appropriate points with radial arteries extending out of the city, may avoid the cutting of a new route directly through the business sections, and may either serve as a substitute or supplement for the outer belt line.
At smaller cities the case is somewhat different.It is necessary to consider the volume of traffic carried by the rural highway as well as the size of the city to determine whether a bypass would be useful. Where such a smaller city lies between larger ones closely spaced, the usually heavy traffic moving between the larger cities is likely to be a preponderant part of the volume on the main highway at the limits of the smaller intermediate city, and the diversion of this traffic over a bypass around the smaller city may considerably reduce the traffic volume on the connecting streets in the city. A bypass in this case may be not only a great convenience to the through traffic but also may considerably relieve a troublesome condition within the city. A case in point is the town of Havre de Grace, Md., a small city of 4,000 population located at the head of Chesapeake Bay between Baltimore on the south and Wilmington, Del., and Philadelphia on the north.It is obvious that very little of the average daily traffic of 5,000 vehicles on U.S. 40 at this town is destined or has any reason to enter the town.
Where, on the other hand, the main highway approaching such a small city carries a relatively light traffic and larger cities are fairly distant, as is often the case in the more sparsely settled sections of the country, a major part of the traffic may either be originated in or destined to the small city or for other reasons desirous of entering it. As an illustration of this case, the city of Las Vegas, N. Mex., may be cited. A large part of the average daily traffic of 700 vehicles on U.S. 85 approaching this small city of 4,700 population may be desirous of entering the town and construction of a bypass might solve no traffic problem and accommodate very few vehicles.
If further, we consider the case of the smallest urban communities—the highway or ribbon towns that at intervals stretch out along main highways and vary from a block or two to several blocks in width—the bypassing of such places is not only helpful to the preponderant through traffic, but is usually necessary for the avoidance of congestion and serious accidents and the protection of life on the main street of the little community.
At cities large and small throughout the country there exists today a need for the belt-line routes and bypasses here described.But if they are to be and remain the useful facilities they should be, they will have to possess one feature that is present in none or virtually none of the circuit routes thus far built around urban communities; i. e., they will have to permit access only at their points of junction with the main routes approaching the cities or towns and a very limited number of intermediate points.
A so-called bypass route or belt line that is left open to access from the side at all points becomes in a very short time just another city
