184 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



Highway design is a custom job and should not be obtained from 

 handbooks as so often is the case. 



Do these techniques cost money? 



In engineers' or architects' time and thought, yes. 



But in the cost of construction they are more apt to save money. 



On many rural interstate projects, we have gone to the effort to 

 avoid scars and fit the highway in with the land contour and have 

 saved large amounts of money mostly in items such as rock excava- 

 tion and river relocations. 



In the urban scene such economies are not always available but 

 if the social values which are otherwise destroyed were measured, 

 here too would the public's ultimate cost be reduced. 



Mr. BUCHANAN. As one of the few delegates from overseas to 

 this conference, perhaps I may be permitted to spend a moment 

 of my allotted time in expressing my appreciation at having been 

 invited to this distinguished gathering. I feel more than doubtful 

 whether, in the absence of detailed knowledge of conditions and 

 administration in the United States, I can really contribute any- 

 thing to the solution of problems as they are arising here. But I can 

 say that very much the same problems are arising in Britain, with 

 perhaps the difference that the same forces are arrayed against an 

 environment which tends, in both urban and rural areas, to be small 

 scale, intimate and delicate in character, and therefore all the more 

 susceptible to irretrievable damage. 



This panel is concerned with 'The design of the highway.' I do 

 not interpret this as meaning solely the design of expressways or free- 

 ways but the design of all surfaces that carry motor vehicles. This 

 presents one problem in open or rural areas, but an altogether dif- 

 ferent and much more formidable problem in urban areas. Here 

 the conflict is not between natural beauty and a manmade utility 

 in the form of a highway, but between the circulation of vehicles 

 on the one hand and the safety, convenience and general welfare 

 of the people who occupy the area on the other. Unless highways 

 are properly related to the development of the town they serve, then 

 there is the risk that the beauty will be no more than skindeep. 



The essence of the relationship between highways and develop- 

 ment is to secure a highway system which permits the efficient cir- 

 culation of vehicles to destinations without in the process wrecking 

 the environment by the widespread danger, noise, fumes, and vibra- 

 tion of motor vehicles and their universal intrusion into the visual 



