The Development of Highway Planning

HIGHWAY AND URBAN TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

The Development of Highway Planning:

            In the United States before 1930, the primary attention of highway agencies was focused on establishing a system of all-weather rural roads. With this objective there seemed to be little need for “planning” the problem was to get the roads built.

            About 1930 the attitude toward planning began to change. City streets were in relative distress, and many rural highways were overloaded. The practice of using all federal aid and the bulk of state highway funds for the improvement of main rural highways needed examination. And yet what were the next most important groups of roads or streets? Should their improvement supersede the demand for reconstruction of much of the main system that was rapidly becoming inadequate for increased traffic?

            From the data at hand such questions were unanswerable. To get facts on which to base decision, the so-called “highway planning surveys” were under taken. Beginning with the Federal-Aid Act of 1934, Congress authorized expenditures not to exceed 1 ½ % of federal-aid funds apportioned to each state for the making of surveys, plans, and engineering investigations of projects for future construction. In addition, the usual “matching” provision was waived. By 1940, all the state highway departments were assembling the facts necessary to develop long range highway- improvement programs.

            Today, planning has become a basic activity of every major highway or transportation agency. Data assembled by the planning departments are used to develop programs for the years ahead, and in almost administrative decisions. New planning procedures are under continuous development; in many of these activities, scientific applications such as special instruments, statistical methods, and computer analysis are replacing the cumbersome and time consuming hand-labour methods of earlier days. But in spite of developments such as these, the planning premises and approaches of highway agencies and the proposals for highway improvements stemming from them are being challenged on many fronts. As a result, some projects, particularly urban freeways, are not being constructed at all and others have been substantially delayed. For example: a 1971 study by the Texas Highway Department indicated that an average of 8 years and 5 mo elapsed between authorization to proceed with a project and its opening to traffic, and even longer lead times are anticipated when the environmental impact statements called for by the Environmental protection Act are required.

The Planning Dilemma:    

            As indicated in Chapter 1, the United States is, for better or worse, tightly bound to the motor vehicle. Until the early or middle 1960s, the attitude of the public and their elected representatives toward highways, and particularly freeways, was highly favorable. Even today, such attitudes generally prevail toward highway investments in rural areas, although some critics blame the automobile for such problems as the removal of land from productive use, its failure or that of alternative transportation schemes to provide for the movement of rural residents, particularly the poor, and the overcrowding and despoiling of recreational and scenic areas. But a possibly large segment of the population and many social scientists and politicians charge the motor vehicle and the freeways and streets that serve it with primary responsibility for such urban problems as air and noise pollution, urban sprawl, displacement of the poor and minorities from their homes, and the detoriation of the central city and close-in residential areas. Thus, where a few years ago highway agencies proceeded with their urban programs with little interference and with a feeling of certainty, they now operate in an atmosphere of confusion, uncertainty and distrust. This situation is not peculiar to transportation, for agencies charged with other public responsibilities also are being subjected to strong criticism.

Costs of Highways

Costs of Highways

Determining Relevant Costs:              

           

            The total cost for improvements to a highway system or segment includes engineering and design, expenditures for planning, the outlay for acquiring rights of way, and the costs of constructing roadway, structures, and pavements. Selection of the cost items to be included in and excluded from specific economy studies requires straight and careful thinking. A detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this book. However, four of the most important considerations are as follows:

1.      In general, allocated costs, used for accounting purposes, should be omitted from economy studies. To illustrate, a given percentage may be added to estimated project costs for administration, planning, and engineering overhead. These costs probably will be incurred whether or not a specific project is undertaken; if so, they are not relevant in comparisons between possible courses of action. Stated differently, only the added or incremental costs are relevant.

2.      Expenditures made before the time of the economy study should not be considered. These are called sunk costs, in that they cannot be recovered by any present or future action. For example: the roadway and pavement of an existing road may be in good condition and have a substantial “book value” in the records of the highway agency. Nevertheless, if one alternatives in the economy study. Again, it would be improper to include costs incurred earlier for preliminary planning and design.

3.      All relevant costs must be included and all irrelevant charges excluded. In this regard, as mentioned earlier, transferred costs may be particularly trouble some. Assume, for example, that one of several plans for a proposed highway improvement requires a private utility company to move its facilities at its own expense. From a budgetary standpoint this cost is not chargeable against the project from a public works economy-study standpoint; however it is a proper charge. Economic resources are consumed. Even though paid from private rather than public funds.

4.      In certain types of economy studies. It is proper to make an allowance for the salvage value of a machine or structure at the end of its estimated useful life. As a general rule, salvage value should be neglected in economic studies for highways. It is conjectural at best to assume that an investment in a highway will have great worth 20, 30, or 40 yr in the future. One exception might be to assign salvage value to the land occupied by the road. Even in this situation only the raw value of the land in its predicted future use, after deducting the cost of converting it to that use, would be included. Other costs associated with acquiring the land in the first place, such as legal expenses and the cost of cleaning it of buildings cannot be recovered and would not be a part of the salvage value.

Proposed highway improvements often will bring changes in annual maintenance and operating costs. For present conditions, data for these should available from the cost records of the highway agency. Estimates of these costs for the proposed improvements must be projected. Here again, only the relevant costs are to be sure that only true cost differences are reflected.

A Framework for Highway Economy Studies

A Framework for Highway Economy Studies:

            Possibly the most difficult and error-prone phase of economy studies lies in placing the study in the proper framework or perspective. And if this phase is done incorrectly, inputs of the most reliable data and flawless procedures for analysis will still give erroneous results. Some of the guidelines to be followed in developing this framework are:

1.      Economy studies are concentrated with forecasting the future consequences of possible investments of resources. Past happenings, unless they affect the future, are not considered. This “forward” look is distinctly different from the “backward” look of accounting practice. This difference is illustrated by the discussion of incremental and sunk costs later in this chapter.

2.      Each alternative among which choices are to be made must be fully and clearly spelled out. As an example, if a freeway is proposed to parallel a busy street, there will be vehicle operating cost savings not only to those diverted to the freeway but, possibly, also to the remaining travelers on the street. On the other hand, traffic using this same freeway could increase congestion and vehicle operating costs on other traffic arteries. This likewise should be recognized. Thus, the first step in analysis is to make a complete list of consequences, both economic and other.

3.      A clear distinction must be made between economic analysis (the use of resources) and financial considerations (the use of money). It has already been indicated in Chapt. 03 that decision making involve dealing with three elements in sequence. These are (a) economic, which is the use of resources; (b) financial, which deals with getting and expending money and, (c) political and administrative, a catchall phrase for all the no quantifiable forces that bear on the decision. It was also indicated that rational decisions were more likely to be reached if the best alternative from an economic point of view were tested in sequence for its financial and political and administrative viability. It this alternative failed either of these two tests the next most viable alternative would then be examined, and so on.  In the past analysts sometimes erroneously have included financial considerations in economy studies. A first illustration is the practice of including interest as a cost only if money is to be borrowed to finance a project. But it can be seen that, regardless of the source of funds, the same resources will be consumed in constructing, maintaining, and operating the proposed highway whether the project is financed with borrowed funds or with current revenues. Two more among the common situations where financial thinking can lead to errors in economy studies involve allocated and sunk costs.

HIGHWAY ECONOMY

HIGHWAY ECONOMY

INTRODUCTION:

            Governments have, of necessity, provided certain facilities that the private sector could not furnish. Among them are highways and public transportation. The intents of the expenditure for highways are to raise the level of the entire economy by providing for ready transportation of goods; to assist in problems of national defense; to make easier the provision of community services such as police and fire protection, medical care, schooling, and delivery of the mails; and to open added opportunities for recreation and travel. Highways benefit the landowner because ready access makes his property more valuable. Their improvement benefits the motor-vehicle user through reduced cost of vehicle operation, savings in time, reduction in accidents, and increased comfort and ease of driving. On the other hand, road improvements consume resources, including land, which might be used for other productive purposes by individuals or by government and the vehicles travelling produce air pollution and noise. From the point of  view of resources use, then, highways can be justified only if, in net sum, the consequences are favorable-that is, if cost reductions to highway users and other beneficiaries of the improvement exceed the costs, including some allowance for the return on the money invested. There are as has been indicated before, numerous other factors to be considered, but this chapter focuses on the economic or resource-use phases.

            Highway economy was under discussion over a century ago. W.M Gillespie, professor of civil engineering at Union College, in his Manual of the Principles and Practice of Road Marking, stated that “A minimum of expenses is of course highly desirable; but the road which is truly the cheapest is not the one which has cost the least money, but the one which makes the most profitable returns in proportion to the amount expended upon it.”

            The first detailed attention to highway economy developed about 40 years ago at lowa State College. It focused largely on the relative economy of various roads surfacing and, later, on the costs of motor-vehicle operation. The advent of the state wide planning surveys with the masses of data developed by them brought attention to many other factors of importance to the overall problem. Even so, attention to highway economy as a topic for detailed research and analysis has been small and sporadic. An accepting was that economic comparisons of alternative routes on the Interstate System were required by federal regulations. Many of these were based on the so-called Red-Book, developed by the AASHO Committee on the Highway Design. Further impetus for economic analysis on federal-aid projects many come through the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 (Sect. 186) which required that in 1972 the Federal Highway Administration.

The Planning Dilemma

The Planning Dilemma:    

            As indicated in Chapter 1, the United States is, for better or worse, tightly bound to the motor vehicle. Until the early or middle 1960s, the attitude of the public and their elected representatives toward highways, and particularly freeways, was highly favorable. Even today, such attitudes generally prevail toward highway investments in rural areas, although some critics blame the automobile for such problems as the removal of land from productive use, its failure or that of alternative transportation schemes to provide for the movement of rural residents, particularly the poor, and the overcrowding and despoiling of recreational and scenic areas. But a possibly large segment of the population and many social scientists and politicians charge the motor vehicle and the freeways and streets that serve it with primary responsibility for such urban problems as air and noise pollution, urban sprawl, displacement of the poor and minorities from their homes, and the detoriation of the central city and close-in residential areas. Thus, where a few years ago highway agencies proceeded with their urban programs with little interference and with a feeling of certainty, they now operate in an atmosphere of confusion, uncertainty and distrust. This situation is not peculiar to transportation, for agencies charged with other public responsibilities also are being subjected to strong criticism. 

HIGHWAY AND URBAN TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

HIGHWAY AND URBAN TRANSPORTATION PLANNING

The Development of Highway Planning:

            In the United States before 1930, the primary attention of highway agencies was focused on establishing a system of all-weather rural roads. With this objective there seemed to be little need for “planning” the problem was to get the roads built.

            About 1930 the attitude toward planning began to change. City streets were in relative distress, and many rural highways were overloaded. The practice of using all federal aid and the bulk of state highway funds for the improvement of main rural highways needed examination. And yet what were the next most important groups of roads or streets? Should their improvement supersede the demand for reconstruction of much of the main system that was rapidly becoming inadequate for increased traffic?

            From the data at hand such questions were unanswerable. To get facts on which to base decision, the so-called “highway planning surveys” were under taken. Beginning with the Federal-Aid Act of 1934, Congress authorized expenditures not to exceed 1 ½ % of federal-aid funds apportioned to each state for the making of surveys, plans, and engineering investigations of projects for future construction. In addition, the usual “matching” provision was waived. By 1940, all the state highway departments were assembling the facts necessary to develop long range highway- improvement programs.

            Today, planning has become a basic activity of every major highway or transportation agency. Data assembled by the planning departments are used to develop programs for the years ahead, and in almost administrative decisions. New planning procedures are under continuous development; in many of these activities, scientific applications such as special instruments, statistical methods, and computer analysis are replacing the cumbersome and time consuming hand-labour methods of earlier days. But in spite of developments such as these, the planning premises and approaches of highway agencies and the proposals for highway improvements stemming from them are being challenged on many fronts. As a result, some projects, particularly urban freeways, are not being constructed at all and others have been substantially delayed. For example: a 1971 study by the Texas Highway Department indicated that an average of 8 years and 5 mo elapsed between authorization to proceed with a project and its opening to traffic, and even longer lead times are anticipated when the environmental impact statements called for by the Environmental protection Act are required.

Research for Highways

Research for Highways:

            The Federal Highway Administration and other Federal agencies, the individual state highway departments, a number of universities, private or university related research groups and individuals, and many of the other organizations and associations mentioned here conduct research on highway problems. Many other agencies operating in parallel fields also have projects with strong highway implications. The output from these efforts is large; one estimate places it at 60 million pages per year. Thus, merely to find what research has been done or is under way is a difficult task. The Computer-based reporting by the Transportation Research Board, mentioned above, is offering at least a partial answer to the problem. Also, many reports are available through the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Va 22151.

           

The Conceive, finance, and properly organize, conduct, and report the findings of research is a difficult task, but its discussion is beyond the scope of this work.