conforming to the definition and including roads of high relative usefulness, not exceeding at the outset an aggregate mileage equivalent to 10 percent of the total mileage of rural roads in each State.
The selection will be materially influenced by the purpose of promoting desirable future uses of rural land as well as by evidence of existing settlement and usage; and to this end the highway authorities of the States are being asked to cooperate closely with committees that are being formed in each State and each county to develop programs of most effective land utilization.
It is obvious that the further improvement of secondary and feeder roads should be consistent with the probable future use of the lands served by them. That, to a certain extent, the selection of roads for improvement may be the means, over a long period, of fostering a desirable movement from less to more favorable lands is also seen as a possibility. Governed in this way, the improvement of secondary and feeder roads, by widening the margin of advantage between the less and the more favorable lands, may become a useful instrument for inducing an economically and socially beneficial resettlement of the rural population by a gradual and natural process.
Extended in the light of such investigations of need and usefulness as are here mentioned, the further improvement of secondary and feeder roads is desirable and necessary. It should be realized, however, that the construction of roads of this class approaches a margin below which the benefits, measured by any standard, must appear as less than the costs. Therefore, in providing for improvements of any roads forming part of the 2,618,000-mile total that serves only 13 percent of the total traffic, a careful selection is necessary.
NATURE OF THE RIGHT-OF-WAY PROBLEM
There can be no question of the need for the various classes of highway and street improvements described. In many instances they are already too long delayed, and with the growth in use and economic significance of highway transportation still continuing, the revision of facilities which were designed to serve a far less need for exacting and voluminous traffic will continue to grow.
The most influential causes of the delay in effecting the needed changes hitherto have been the inadequacy of available funds and the overpowering legal obstacles and inhibitions that stand in the way of obtaining essential rights-of-way; and these will continue to retard action and eventually build up a formidable burden of deferred construction expenditure unless early provision is made to deal adequately with this problem.
Thus far, the Government of the United States generally has been unwilling to assume any part of the cost of obtaining rights-of-way. In all work under the Federal Highway Act the responsibility to provide the right-of-way and to satisfy damage claims is placed solely upon the States. The Government has assumed a part of the right-of-way expense in other recent public works of various classes in which it has participated, but it generally has refrained from lending any assistance to the States and local governments in overcoming the difficult legal and procedural obstacles encountered. Undoubtedly these right-of-way difficulties have been the primary cause of delay in dispatching many of the most worth-while projects undertaken in
