From the earliest history of the United States, individuals and groups have been lobbying state legislatures and Congress for funds to construct or maintain roads. These Americans believed that roads would encourage both settlement of the country and the movement of goods. President George Washington was an early advocate of road building in the new United States. As a young man, President Washington had surveyed routes for roads between Virginia and the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers (present-day Pittsburgh, PA), and as a major in the Virginia militia he was tasked with constructing a military road to this strategically important location. On a post-Revolutionary War trip to the West, he met Albert Gallatin, then a young surveyor, who would become a major voice for federal participation in the development of the infrastructure of the United States. At the end of the 18 th century, most roads in the United States were local roads that linked farms to nearby villages, which were often on waterways that were navigable for at least part of the year. Many of these roads were little more than broadened paths that were built and maintained locally, usually by citizens of a community who paid their taxes by working on the roads. In 1796, Ebenezer Zane successfully petitioned Congress to grant him land (to be surveyed at his own expense) in exchange for building a road and providing ferries to cross the rivers between Wheeling, VA, through the Northwest Territory to the river port of Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky Territory. Zane's "road" was a wide blazed trail called Zane's Trace, and was later widened and improved by the state of Ohio and became a part of the National Road. As Secretary of the Treasury in the Jefferson Administration, Albert Gallatin advanced the proposal that states exempt federal land sales from taxation and apply a percentage of the proceeds for road building. Congress adopted this proposal in the Ohio Statehood Enabling Act (2 Stat. 173). The act, signed in 1802, provided that 5% of the proceeds from the sale of public lands in Ohio was to be set aside for roads. In 1803, that act was amended (2 Stat. 225) to provide that 3% of these funds would be available for roads in the state, and 2% would be available for roads to and through Ohio. This form of federal assistance was later extended to all states that had public lands when they were granted statehood. In March 1807, the Senate directed Secretary Gallatin to prepare a report on the roads and canals existing and proposed in the United States. Gallatin submitted the report to Congress on April 4, 1808. In the summary, Gallatin wrote, The early and efficient aid of the Federal [italics in original] Government is recommended by still more important considerations. The inconveniences, complaints, and perhaps dangers, which may result from a vast extent of territory, can no otherwise be radically removed or prevented than by opening speedy and easy communications through all its parts. Good roads and canals will shorten distances, facilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and unite, by a still more intimate community of interests, the most remote quarters of the United States. No other single operation, within the power of Government, can more effectually tend to strengthen and perpetuate that Union which secures external independence, domestic peace, and internal liberty. The report recommended an interconnected system of roads, canals, and river improvements be built at federal expense. The plan was opposed in Congress on constitutional, budgetary, and sectional benefit grounds, and was never implemented. On March 29, 1806, President Thomas Jefferson had signed the Cumberland Road Act (2 Stat. 357). The act directed the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint three commissioners to lay out and build a road from the head of navigation on the Potomac River at Cumberland, MD, to a point on the Ohio River. Funding for the project would come from the Ohio 2% fund. The Cumberland Act required that permission be received from the legislatures of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania before construction could begin. After permission was granted, the road was constructed and named Cumberland Road. It was also known as The National Road. In 1816, President James Madison proposed federal funding for a system of internal improvements (including roads) in the states, asking that the Constitution be amended to let the federal government finance and construct the projects. A bill to finance internal improvements with funds from a bonus payment from the Bank of the United States passed Congress in 1817. President Madison vetoed the legislation on the last day of his term (March 3, 1817) because the constitution had not been amended. Over the years after its construction, Cumberland Road deteriorated badly from heavy traffic and a lack of funds for maintenance. Because of the road's deterioration, Congress passed legislation in 1822, which authorized the federal government to collect tolls that would be used for maintenance. President James Monroe vetoed the legislation and stated in his veto message that the collection of tolls implied a power of sovereignty that was not granted to the federal government by the Constitution. Congress provided funding for repairs to the road. After the election of Andrew Jackson as President in 1828, there was a belief that he would look favorably upon internal improvements. Legislation was introduced to extend the existing Cumberland (National) Road. Jackson vetoed it on the grounds that internal improvements in the states were the affairs of the states. The only other perceived solution was state operation of Cumberland Road as a toll road. In 1831 and 1832, the legislatures of Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia agreed to accept and maintain their sections of Cumberland Road. Jackson believed that as the federal government had complete authority over the territories of the United States, it could construct internal improvements in the territories without restriction. More federal funds were spent on internal improvement projects during the Jackson Administration than in all previous administrations combined—all of it in territories of the United States and the District of Columbia. In the absence of significant federal support for highways in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries, and with state encouragement and, often, investment, private companies built toll roads in many states. The roads were often financially unsuccessful unless they connected city pairs or provided a farm-or-factory-to-market route with sufficient traffic to cover costs. In discussing the failures of these roads, Secretary Albert Gallatin wrote, It is sufficiently evident that, whenever the annual expense of transportation on a certain route, in its natural state, exceeds the interest on the capital employed in improving the communication, and the annual expense of transportation (exclusively of the tolls) by the improved route, the difference is an annual additional income to the nation. Nor does in that case the general result vary, although the tolls may not have been fixed at a rate sufficient to pay to the undertakers the interest on the capital laid out. They, indeed, when that happens, lose; but the community is nevertheless benefited by the undertaking. The boom in turnpike construction began in the late 1790s and lasted, with a roughly 10-year interruption in the 1830s, until the mid-19 th century. By 1830, more than 8,000 miles of roads had been built or converted to turnpikes under state charters of incorporation. Very few toll roads made consistent profits for their investors and the failure rate appears to have been high even in the early years predating rail and canal competition. Despite these financial difficulties, the toll roads were, without a doubt, the best roads in the country, and had a significant role in short- and medium-distance freight and passenger movement between the cities and larger towns. With the spread of the railway networks, however, the toll roads lost nearly all their passenger and most of their freight business to rail competition. As the longer turnpikes failed, shorter toll roads were chartered as feeder lines to rail service. By 1900, most turnpike companies had gone out of business. State and local governments took over some of these roads in an orderly fashion and assumed the responsibility for maintenance of these routes. On a good number of roads, however, turnpike companies, in the face of financial failure, simply ceased operations and abandoned their roads. Because of the perceived chaos caused by what was seen as capricious abandonment of turnpikes, toll roads were often held in low regard. State turnpike legislation in the late 19 th century generally included provisions for the dissolution of toll companies and the orderly transfer of responsibility to state or local governments. The resistance to federal financial involvement in "internal improvements," such as roads, was based, in part, on constitutional concerns, discussed earlier, and also on budgetary constraints and state/regional rivalries. The budget of the United States was dependent on tariff revenues and was quite small by modern standards, and some feared a major commitment to road construction could overwhelm the budget. Sectional differences and state and regional rivalries also played a major role in the resistance to federal spending on roads because of concerns that federal road construction would benefit other states or regions more. With the invention of the modern bicycle and pneumatic tires in the late 1880s, bicycles rapidly became very popular. The less than ideal road conditions of the time, however, made bicycling laborious and even dangerous. The growth of cyclist organizations led to the establishment in 1892 of the National League for Good Roads, whose purpose was to coordinate the Good Roads Movement and lobby governments at all levels to improve the condition of roads. It was reported that farmers, feeling that they should not be taxed so city dwellers could enjoy a bicycle ride in the country, were not at first a part of this movement. After road lobbyists began working with the Post Office while it was developing Rural Free Delivery, farmers began participating in the push for road improvements. The Good Roads Movement had a profound influence on the states' initiation of state aid for the creation of highway departments and commissions.