496 ANNUAL KEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



and 10 years were required to complete it, the average rate of expendi- 

 ture being therefore only $37,000,000 per year or less than half as 

 great as the rate of expenditure on Federal-aid roads this year. 



Comparing the magnitude of the Federal-aid program with the 

 entire highway program of the United States, the significance of 

 Federal aid is indicated by the fact that the amount of Federal money 

 allotted to projects actually under construction at the end of this 

 fiscal .year, namely, 8103,925,094, was only slightly less than the 

 total expenditure of $106,861,053 from State funds for highw^ay con- 

 struction during the calendar year 1919 as reported -to this bureau 

 by the States,^ The estimated total cost of these projects was 

 greater than the whole expenditure during 1919 by States and local 

 governments. 



LOCATION AND CHARACTER OF FEDERAL-AID ROADS. 



The Federal-aid road act as amended requires that any road to 

 receive Federal aid must be a rural post road, defined as any public 

 road a major portion of which is now used, or can be used, or forms a 

 connecting link, not to exceed 10 miles in length of any road or roads 

 now or hereafter used for the transportation of the United States 

 mails. 



In addition to seeing that the roads for which aid has been requested 

 by the States comply with this statutory requirement, the bureau has 

 also made an investigation in connection with each project submitted 

 to ascertain that the road in question is of sufficient general import- 

 ance to warrant the expenditure of Federal-aid funds in its con- 

 struction. 



The Fedoral-aid funds mil not be expended entirely for so-called 

 national roads. A large part of the money will be expended in 

 improving the roads which radiate from market and shipping points 

 into the surrounding agricultural country, the class of roads which in 

 the last analysis are most closely identified with the development of 

 the country. 



In many of the States, particularly those of the East which have 

 highway departments of long standing, the majority of the trunk- 

 line roads have already been improved. In these States Federal aid 

 is given to assist in filling the gaps which remain in the trunk systems, 

 and for the construction of the more important lateral roads. On the 

 other hand, there is a decided tendency in the younger States of the 

 West to utilize their apportionments of Federal aid on trunk-line 

 highways of national importance. As an indication of the extent to 

 which this policy governs, there was at the end of the fiscal year a 

 total of 8,620 miles of Federal-aid road which had been approved, and 

 which constituted parts of the several transcontinental trails, such as 

 the Lincoln Highwa}^, the Bankhead Highway, the Dixie Highway, 

 the Jackson Highway, and others. This mileage represented 30 per 

 cent of the aggregate length of all Federal-aid roads approved, and 

 $58,745,359, or 36 per cent, of all the Federal aid approved. Eighty 

 per cent of the mileage in Indiana is included in one of these marked 

 roads, 86 per cent in Nevada, 54 per cent in Arizona, 50 per cent in 

 Washington, while in Pennsylvania and New York, which have already 

 constructed most of the roads of this catagory, the mileage represents 



1 Based upon reports from all States except Florida and Louisiana. 



