TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...

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12 cities and towns. By 1947, Governor William Preston Lane, Jr. and the General Assembly were willing to approve increases to the gas tax, car registration and highway user fees, as well as issuing $100,000,000 in highway construction bonds between 1948 and 1952 in order to finance new road and bridge construction. 7 The financing scheme, which also included the fifty percent federal match, enabled the SRC to start construction of Maryland’s expressway system. 8 However, the two new highways, MD 295 and US 50, and the new Chesapeake Bay Bridge that were completed by 1952 were not sufficient to keep up with statewide traffic growth, nor was it the complete system envisioned by the SRC. The SRC’s second highway construction program, known as the Twelve-Year Program, was created to construct new and improve existing highways between 1954 and 1965 throughout Maryland. The program required additional increases in the state’s gas tax of one-cent, car registration and highway user fees and new bonds for highways on new locations. Additional financial support came from the Federal Government in 1956 following the passage of the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways program, thereby funding ninety percent of highway construction projects. 9 The SRC continued to design new highways, and in 1959 the construction program became the “Go Roads” program, promising to finish 100 miles of highway construction or reconstruction every year until 1965. Between 1948 and 1965, the SRC constructed more than a dozen highways on new locations and improved more than fifty others, including building more than 557 bridges, ensuring Maryland’s drivers had an adequate and safe road system. In order to complete the projects, the SRC incorporated its standards for design and construction and repeatedly used certain types of bridges to reduce design and construction times. By using these standards and timesaving methods, the SRC produced a highway system that met accepted national standards that was similar to many highway systems in other states. The SRC understood that traffic would increase annually and that the roads would need to be widened. Within ten years of completing construction of some highways, the SRC returned to widen the roads to six lanes due to increased traffic. For example, the typical four-lane highways that were built between 1948 and 1965 have been replaced by six-lane roads with concrete medians and paved shoulders, and noise walls to reduce the sound of traffic in nearby neighborhoods. 10 The bridge decks have also been widened and no longer retain their mid-century concrete parapets with one or two strands of Alcoa aluminum or Bethlehem steel railings. In addition to incorporating accepted design standards, each new highway had sufficient right-of-way limits to accommodate future traffic volumes, growing suburban developments and the need for military preparedness. The planned expansion of the highway system continued 7 Herbert R. O’Conor was Maryland’s Governor from 1939 to 1946, while William Preston Lane, Jr. served as Governor from 1947 to 1951. 8 The terms “expressway” and “freeway” are used by the SRC engineers to describe the type of highways they were designing and constructing in the post-War period. In Maryland the terms were synonymous and meant that the highways were initially four-lane roads, divided by a median with access by private property owners adjacent to the road and other drivers restricted to above-grade interchanges. The highways had a design speed of 70 m.p.h., although actual speed was restricted to 65 m.p.h. 9 In 2010, the federal funding limit is 80% while the state’s share is 20%. 10 The SRC widened both I-495 (Capital Beltway) and I-695 (Baltimore Beltway) within ten years of completing each road because of increased traffic.
13 after 1965. Those developments have altered the highways and bridges built during the 1948- 1965 period. Although isolated examples exist in many parts of the state, none alone or taken together retains sufficient integrity or cohesiveness to explain the significance of “The Five Year Plan,” “The Twelve-Year Program,” or “The Go Roads Program.” Evidence of eighteen years of road building by the SRC can be found in several ways. State highway maps provide a summary view on one sheet (Attachments 1 and 2), while project plans and the SRC’s biennial reports from the study period provide information through drawings, photographs and writing. 11 The physical signs of the transformation of Maryland’s landscape can also be found in the borrow pits and excess fill berms left by builders that remain near the highways. In some instances new highways divided farms, destroyed neighborhoods and forced property owners to relocate. Although the Governors and General Assembly, the SRC, and many citizens regarded the new highway construction as beneficial for residents and Maryland’s economy, the public works projects altered Maryland’s landscape. 11 Full scale State Roads Commission Maryland State Highway Maps from 1946/1947 and 1965 are included here in Attachments 1 and 2.
Page 1 and 2: "TOIORROW'S ROADS TODAY" EXPRESSWAY
Page 3 and 4: 3 SHA identified 286 highway bridge
Page 5 and 6: 5 Table of Figures Figure 1: US 40
Page 7 and 8: 7 Until 1941, Maryland did not have
Page 9 and 10: 9 plate metal girder bridges. The n
Page 11: 11 Epigraph “Tomorrow’s Roads T
Page 15 and 16: 15 Figure 1: US 40 over the Patapsc
Page 17 and 18: 17 State Struggles The SRC also pro
Page 19 and 20: 19 As the SRC finalized the bridges
Page 21 and 22: 21 This central shore location was
Page 23 and 24: 23 William Preston Lane, Jr. and th
Page 25 and 26: 25 The BPR and National Park Servic
Page 27 and 28: 27 project. The highway bonds sold
Page 29 and 30: 29 highways that connected county s
Page 31 and 32: 31 Figure 10: I-695 at Dulaney Vall
Page 33 and 34: 33 Figure 12: Atomic Energy Commiss
Page 35 and 36: 35 Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956
Page 37 and 38: 37 Maryland continued to apply for
Page 39 and 40: 39 SRC expanded the road to a four-
Page 41 and 42: 41 completion of the two interchang
Page 43 and 44: 43 Figure 17: Governor Elbert N. Ca
Page 45 and 46: 45 Each of these bridges provides u
Page 47 and 48: 47 Bibliography American Associatio
Page 49 and 50: 49 Maryland-National Capital Park a
Page 51 and 52: 51 ____________, Report of the Stat
Page 53 and 54: 53 Appendix A: Results of Field Inv
Page 55 and 56: 55 Steel Deck Truss - similar to St
Page 57 and 58: 57 Concrete Encased Steel Beam, SHA
Page 59 and 60: 59 or Bethlehem Steel types would b
Page 61 and 62: 61 Eligible Bridges The following b
Page 63 and 64:
63 to carry boats. Sometimes carrie
Page 65 and 66:
65 Bridge Condition Ratings - Throu
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67 to the arch below. The first arc
Page 69 and 70:
69 Deck Bridge - A bridge in which
Page 71 and 72:
71 Embankment - Angled grading of t
Page 73 and 74:
73 Girder - A horizontal structure
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75 Headwall - The device placed at
Page 77 and 78:
77 Lag - Crosspieces used to connec
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79 Parapet - A low wall along the o
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81 of multiple members of a truss.
Page 83 and 84:
83 Spandrel - The roughly triangula
Page 85 and 86:
85 Swing Bridge - A movable deck br
Page 87 and 88:
87 Unit Stress - The stress per uni
Page 89 and 90:
Appendix D: SHA Bridges Included in
Page 91 and 92:
91 Eligibility Description Bridge N
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
101 Eligibility Description Bridge
Page 103:
Appendix E: Resume Anne E. Bruder i
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