198 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



Mr. BABCOCK. I might come in here speaking as a highway ad- 

 ministrator. I think if you find you put a speed of 35 miles per 

 hour into what you referred to as a highway design, something 

 you referred to as a freeway, you would find you would have an 

 untenable situation with the public. You can relax speeds some- 

 what and we have some examples. But when you start talking 

 of going down to 35 and 30 miles an hour, you come almost into a 

 hopeless situation of compounding reverse curves and so on. 



Frankly, the public demands more than that, particularly in the 

 larger cities where they measure their ability to get in and out of town 

 in terms of time. 



A DELEGATE. I would like to know what measures have been 

 taken to implement the recommendations to spare the natural vege- 

 tation along the highways or to reconstruct original landscape. In 

 some countries they are already trying to follow it up and I am espe- 

 cially interested to know what has been done in the United States. 

 Perhaps Mr. Sargent could answer the question because he was re- 

 ferring to exotic vegetation. 



Mr. SARGENT. If I correctly understand the question, I personally 

 feel that we are doing, particularly in our interstate system in the 

 United States, a very good job in terms of landscaping, preserving the 

 trees where we can feature them as part of the landscape as the high- 

 way goes through. I don't think we actually plant a tree every time 

 we cut a tree down, and personally, I don't think that is necessary. 

 Perhaps Mr. Whitton would want to comment on that. 



Mr. WHITTON. Mr. Sargent has answered the question quite 

 ably. I think that when we build a highway, regardless of what it is, 

 interstate, primary, or secondary, I think we should save all the 

 trees that we can save safely. The growth that is desirable to save 

 should be saved. Of course, we have to keep in mind that trees 

 up too close to the traveled way sometimes result in fatal accidents 

 and we have to be careful about that. There is another method of 

 developing suitable growth along the highway and that is by selec- 

 tive mowing under maintenance operations. Your local mainte- 

 nance man has a knowledge of what will grow into a nice looking 

 tree by the appearance of the sapling, and he can let it grow and 

 thus obtain a very fine appearance and fine growing type of vege- 

 tation vegetation that does not require pruning or cultivating 



