historic context of maryland highway bridges built between 1948 ...

SECTIONTHREEHistoric Contextthe road between 1945 and 1950 (Kaszynski 2000:137; Public Administration Service 1952:11;State Roads Commission 1964:8-10).The SRC focused its resources on addressing the deterioration as best it could. The first twoyears following the war, 1946 and 1947, were spent keeping highways minimally drivable andmaking surveys and plans for future construction. Construction and maintenance costs doubledin the post-war years above the cost-of-living index. Postwar design standards also pushed upcosts with twenty-foot pre-war pavements being widened to a safer twenty-four feet, thereduction of grades requiring more excavation, heavier traffic requiring thicker pavement, andcontrolled-access expressways necessitating grade separations and interchanges (LeViness1958:162). Yet the legislature and Governors in the period moved forward with new plans andways to pay for them.Major construction activities resumed in 1948 with the implementation of Governor WilliamPreston Lane Jr.‘s (1947-1951) highway construction plan that was enthusiastically approved bythe state legislature in 1947 and which provided $200 million over five years. Governor Lane‘sroad program called for new construction of expressways, dual highways, and two-lanehighways. Existing roads were to be improved by widening and resurfacing until they could becompletely rebuilt in the future. A network of secondary roads was also planned. In 1948 theSRC‘s Chief Engineer prepared a report entitled Desirable Standards for Roads of the StateHighway System of Maryland. The standards delineated dimensions for highways and associatedstructures that were to be designed according to the expected levels of traffic for each project(State Roads Commission 1949:61; 1960:3). In the four years of Lane‘s administration, the SRCbuilt or repaired 757 miles of roads at a cost of over $106 million, began the interstate andexpressway system and started work on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Road building in Marylandincreased from a yearly average of $7 million to over $33 million in the same period (LaViness1958: 157).Lane‘s administration also contributed to modernizing Maryland‘s highways by planning andpartially constructing some of the state‘s first controlled- or limited-access highways. The year1947 was a significant turning point in the design and construction of highways in Maryland inthis regard. Up until that time, it had been the policy of the SRC to permit unrestricted access toall highways, both new and existing. That changed when the General Assembly approved theExpressway Act of 1947 that legally established the concept of controlled access expressways inMaryland and approved a $200-million bond issue for major highway improvements thatincluded a number of new expressways. The Act defined an expressway as a major thoroughfarecontaining two or more lanes in each direction with medians separating the lanes, gradeseparation structures at all intersections, and entrances or exits from the road limited to specificlocations (LaViness 1958:161).The dangers exhibited by the example of US 1 showed that limiting access not only made roadssafer but also made them more efficient. Prior to this time roads were operated with ―unlimitedaccess‖ that allowed anyone who could afford land along a road to construct entrances andoperate a business or build a residence. The busier the road, the quicker it became congested bycommercial buildings, signs and other devices to attract the passerby and convince them to slowor stop (Brean 1955:116). The concept was hard to sell in much of the state, but the Laneadministration vigorously supported the principle and began construction of the Baltimore-Washington Expressway (later Parkway), one of Maryland‘s most important highway projects of\15-SEP-11\\ 4-10