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About Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1919-1980 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 1956)
Salem", Oregon", Thursday, December 13, 1956 Road Program Dwarfs Every Other Project Will Cost 25 Times as Much as It Did to Make A-Bomb By ROBERT E. JACKSON Jnlted Press Staff Correspondent NEW YORK -UP- The United aiates is on the threshold of a peacetime project which dwarfs anything this adventurous nation of ours has ever attempted. ii wm cost 25 tunes what it did to make the A-bomb. It will shoot Into our economy five times the amount spent on public works by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from the depression into his fourth term. It will employ a million men and women and affect the social, eco nomic and recreation habits of most or us. It literally will change the face of the nation. It might mean the difference between survival and oeam in time of war. It is going to take at least 13 years and will cost at least $51 billion! It is a national super highway uuuuiiig ana road improvement program of such magnitude that most Americans do not realize what is in store for tomorrow they will drive from New York to San Francisco without hitting a red light. 40,000 Miles Charted This "national system of inter state and defense highways," which will loop and furl the map of America like the ribbons on a vnristmas package, is no dream on a drawing board. Surveyors and bulldozers and an army of men with shovels already are at work. Forty thousand of the 41,000 miles on the network which will criss - cross all 48 states already have been charted.- The increased taxes on gasoline and tires to pay for the super-roads of the future already are biting your pocketbook. Congress authorized $27.5 bil lion for the project this year with only one dissenting vote, 90 per cent to come from the federal government, 10 per cent from the states. Commerce Department spokesmen estimate, however, that the eventual expenditure on this network and improvements on 750,000 miles of primarv and sec-1 ondary roads will cost $51 billion, 1 $38 billion of it from Washintrtmv I President Eisenhower approved the bill last June 29. In August the most colossal construction project in our history began be twen Fourth and O'Fallon streets in St. Louis on the Mark Twain Expressway. Free Of Charge Safety officials predict these roads of tomorrow will save the lives of 3,500 persons a year who otherwise would die in car acci dents. The system will carry 20 per cent of the nation's traffic. It will link 42 of the 48 state capitals, 209 cities over 50,000 population, 88 per cent of U.S. industry. For the first time this free - wheeling nation which operates 65 lis million vehicles three - fourths l of the world's cars, half of its'! trucks will have uniform na tional standards for its outmoded highways. Your journey will be like this: Free of charge, coast-to-coast. Taxis, buses and trucks yes. But no billboards, roadside stands, service stations, bicycles, or pe destrians. You will turn off to con necting highways for gas or food or to spend the night. You will travel 50 miles an hour past downtown business districts. up to 70 miles an hour on the open road. There will be no traffic lights, no railroad crossings, few intersections. ' Except in rugged terrain out west, the slightest bend in the road will be banked, the most gen tle grade leveled. All lanes will be at least 12 feet, shoulders 10 feet and the islands dividing op posing lanes 16 feet wide. Markers and signs may be uniform across the nations. Speed-Changing Lanes This could become so easy that you might fall asleep, literally bored to death. Swamps, brush fences, outcrops of rock even trout streams stocked with fish will be left at safe distances In the dividing islands to relieva monotony and provide scenery. Opposite lanes will be set at dif ferent levels and from 16 to 1,000 feet apart to prevent "driver hyp nosis" and cut the glare of on coming headlights at night. Four - fifths of this network will ' b be covered by four or more lanes. Tha turn lina ivilom enrviveeiP: only on 7,000 miles in the west where traffic will still be light in 1975. You will enter and leave the net work in many places on special speed changing lanes. The fed eral government will contribute to bypasses and local expressways for more than 100 cities but it will strictly limit the number of entry points. You can't get aboard from any old side road. But once you are aboard, the drive to work will be faster, vacation trips will be vaca tions, and on such roads as these, you have twice as good a chance of getting there. THE CAPITAL' JOURNAL' i POLICB GET OBSTETRICS COURSE NEWARK. N. J. UP-"Emer-gency obstetrics" is one of the courses in a police academy ses sion begun today by 135 rookie patrolmen. 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