TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
TOMORROW'S ROADS TODAY - Maryland State Highway ...
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35<br />
Federal Aid <strong>Highway</strong> Act of 1956<br />
The biggest change to <strong>Maryland</strong>’s highway and bridge construction plans occurred in<br />
1956 with the passage of the Federal Aid <strong>Highway</strong> Act of 1956, which mandated a 41,000 mile<br />
nationwide highway system. President Dwight D. Eisenhower succeeded in persuading both the<br />
governors of forty eight states and Congress that it was necessary for the country to have an<br />
integrated highway system that would allow people to travel by automobile from one place to<br />
another without encountering stoplights or stop signs at intersecting roads. While there was<br />
dissent about constructing the interstate system, most Americans and their leaders agreed that a<br />
modern system would help improve the economy, increase driver and automobile safety, and<br />
benefit the nation. 58<br />
By 1956, the discussions about creating a national highway system had been ongoing for<br />
twenty years. One of the Congressional authors of the Act was Representative George H. Fallon<br />
of Baltimore, who was Chairman of the House Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on<br />
Roads. He had been a supporter of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and his knowledge of the<br />
funding plans for both <strong>Maryland</strong>’s Five Year Program and the Twelve Year Program provided<br />
him with the framework for the federal funding plan. It also made him willing to work with<br />
Representative Hale Boggs (LA) and his highway funding bill. Boggs was a Member of the<br />
House Ways and Means Committee and his plan called for increasing the federal gas tax by one<br />
cent, as well as using other highway user taxes. Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee was<br />
Fallon’s financial counterpart in the United <strong>State</strong>s Senate. The Secretary of the Treasury George<br />
Humphrey recommended that a highway trust fund be created to designate the highway monies<br />
from increased gas tax and user fees. Together they put together the funding solution for<br />
financing the interstate system. The Federal Government agreed to partner with the states, with<br />
the federal government paying ninety percent, and each state paying ten percent of the highway<br />
construction costs throughout the nation based in part on the interregional road system first<br />
considered by President Franklin Roosevelt. 59<br />
<strong>Maryland</strong> was designated to have 354 miles of interstate, and by the 1960-1962 Biennial<br />
Report, 120 miles were open to traffic. This included a portion of the Jones Falls Expressway<br />
(I-83) which was then under construction in Baltimore City, and expected to open in late 1962. 60<br />
58 Among the dissenters were the architectural critic, Lewis Mumford and planner, Jane Jacobs. Mumford’s article<br />
“The <strong>Highway</strong> and the City,” The <strong>Highway</strong> and the City, New York: Harcourt. Brace and World (1958), pp. 234-<br />
246; and Jacobs’ book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Random House (1992) lay out<br />
their arguments against interstate highways, especially in cities.<br />
59 Richard H. Weingroff, “Federal-Aid <strong>Highway</strong> Act of 1956: Creating the Interstate System,” Public Roads (1996)<br />
downloaded from www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure October 6, 2009<br />
60 <strong>State</strong> Roads Commission of <strong>Maryland</strong>, Forging Ahead, An Interim Report FY 1960-1962, n.p