Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-04-13
An Express Highway.

An interesting proposal in road build
ing and an indication of what the main
highways of the United States may be
in the future is the plan of the New
York & New England Motor Ways
Corporation to construct four-track
express artery from New York to New
Haven and eventually through to
Boston. With no intersections along
its entire length. the proposed highway
Will have q minimum speed of
thirty-five miles an hour on the fast
track and thirty miles an hour
on the track for slower moving
vehicles. The maximum speed will
probably be as fast as the motorist
cares to drive. The highway, according
to bill already introduced in the New
York Legislature, will cost approx
mately two hundred million dollars and
can be completed within three years from
the time that 1t is authorized. Each
motorist will be charged one-doTiar
toll fee. The States through which
the road will run can recapture it
within year after due notice is given
to the company operating it.
The plan to build this highway fol-
lows two of motordoms distinct tend
encies, the general widening Of all high
ways to permit two-way traffic in both
directions and the lifting of speed
limits. The roads of yesterday cannot
carry the traffic of today and every
State has come to this realization. And
while the construction of wide hard
surfaced highways is an expensive proc
ess the use of the automobile has in
creased to such proportions that no
longer should motorists for pleasure or
business be offered narrow strip on
which to travel from city to city. Con-
gestion on narrow roads both from the
standpoint of likelihood Of accidents
and the loss of time has been found to
be far more expensive than the con-
struction of the proper width of road.
With the present perfection of the
automobile, speed limits have naturally
undergone a revision upward and in
some cases have been abolished alto
gether. The quick-stopping, fast-accel-
Grating car of today with its balloon
tires and sturdy parts is more of men,
ace when driven slowly on a crowded
highway than when, with due judgment
on the part of the motorist, it is driven
fast. Most automobiles manufactured
are capable of speeds in excess of sixty
miles an hour and while this speed ten
or fifteen years ago was considered al
most suicidal and spoken Of in awe as
"a mile a minute" there are to-
day numerous stretches of wide concrete
road on which there is comparatively
little trsf1c and few intersections where
sixty miles an hour is a perfectly proper
and safe pace.
If the New York-New Haven project
does not go through Immediately it
seems almost a certainty that it and
others of similar kind will in the near
future. In fact 1t is not necessarily in
dulging in flight of fancy to predict
that within the next twenty-five years
or so motorists may set out from New
York on an express highway running
through to the West Coast and
that the speed at which they travel will
be of their own selection-that is, down
to very definite minimum which will
be as rigidly enforced as the maximum
has been in the past. The American
public has spent billions to get there
faster" and there is nc indication that
more billions will not be spent for the
same purpose.