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Motor Transportation - A Forward View: A Symposium: The Trend of Modern Highways

MacDonald, Thomas H.

Highway construction and use are undergoing changes that are relatively slow but none the less sure and continuous. Changes in motor vehicles, in the sources and amounts of highway revenue, and technical advances in road building methods, are some of the more important factors that will influence future highway trends.

Scientific highway planning and administration are necessary to provide highways to serve urban and rural needs with the road-user taxes that can be made available. Factual data are being provided that will permit the scientific planning of State-wide and nation-wide systems. This is the outstanding trend in the highway field.

Stabilization of soils to produce foundations of predictable behavior, elimination of intersections at grade with railroads and other highways, and provision of facilities for free flow of traffic from congested to suburban areas, will be important parts of future work.

An important beginning has been made in construction of super-highways and such work will be continued. Present policies indicate that their location will be integrated with population centers, and that the layout will not be on the transcontinental basis.