statutes without change. Where such restriction is found in the statutes of a State it is difficult for the highway authorities to acquire rights-of-way in excess thereof, regardless of what the traffic conditions to be met may require. The laws of practically all of our States pertaining to rights-of-way for highway and street improvements are archaic. They are based in almost all cases on provisions that were written into the statutes before the days of the automobile. They definitely are inadequate insofar as the authority which they confer upon the public officials charged with the duty and responsibility of providing highway and street facilities for present day needs is concerned.
It is easy to understand why changes in these laws have not kept pace with the expanding needs for greater highway facilities due to the development of the automobile and the phenomenal increase in volume of motor-vehicle traffic upon the highways. History demonstrates that legislative changes come about rather slowly. The same is true with respect to the attitude of the judiciary, where precedent is relied on to such a great extent. When we consider that the highway widths provided for in these statutes were adequate for all practical purposes less than 25 years ago, it is not difficult to understand why we now find the right-of-way problem one of the most difficult with which we have to deal. It is believed, therefore, that this will be corrected. In fact, the legislatures of a few States already have made very marked changes in the laws on this subject in the last few years, and it is reasonable to assume that legislatures of other States will do likewise. When the first Federal-aid road act became a law on July 11, 1916, a number of States had no highway department, and as late as 1920 there were some States that had highway departments in name only, all highway work actually being in the hands of county and other local officials. However, this has since been corrected.
It is believed also that the courts will take a more liberal attitude with respect to the taking of lands necessary for highway and street improvements on a basis that will be recognized by them as including within the term “public use” such additional areas as may be necessary for future widening, safety, parks, recreational, and sanitary facilities, preservation of scenic values, and the elimination of unsightly developments, such as billboards. In fact, while the courts have uniformly held that the question of what constitutes a public use is a judicial and not a legislative one, they nevertheless have sustained the taking of wider widths of rights-of-way than were required for the actual physical location of the traffic facility, and it is only reasonable to assume that they will be more and more responsive to the growth of traffic volume and the obvious necessity for expansion of the highway facilities to accommodate that traffic. It even may be that a few years hence we may find a disposition on the part of the courts to take judicial notice of traffic volume, traffic congestion, and the public need for expanding existing traffic facilities. In the case of City of East Cleveland v. Nau et al. (124 Ohio State 433, 179 N. E. 187), the Supreme Court of Ohio said:
We would not disturb the reasonable discretion exercised by municipal authorities in the appropriation of excess lands adjoining a street improvement when necessary for the furtherance of that improvement; but we cannot sanction an
