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

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