A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1087 



FEDERAL AID TO STATES FOR ROADS 



Until the period immediately preceding the present century, the 

 counties and towns or similar units of government had entire jurisdic- 

 tion over the construction and maintenance of highways. Prior to 

 1900, however, the States began to aid the local units in establishing 

 highways of State-wide significance. 



With the advent of the automobile, the need for Nation-wide 

 systems of roads began to be keenly felt, and on July 11, 1916, by 

 the Federal Aid Road Act of that date, the Federal Government 

 entered upon the now well-known Bankhead plan of taking the lead in 

 modern highway development, under which a total of $1,005,381,470 

 of Federal money has been spent up to June 30, 1932. This has been 

 applied to the construction and maintenance of 101,389 miles of 

 roads and bridges, the total cost of which has been $2,296,431,593. 

 The distribution by regions is shown in table 1 1 . 



The effect of road extension and improvement upon the protection 

 and utilization of the forests has been great. Better roads have 

 brought the products of the forest nearer to market and thus increased 

 stumpage values in localities that were formerly inaccessible. They 

 have greatly facilitated the attack upon forest fires and thus reduced 

 protection costs. Roads have, however, exerted an adverse influence 

 of grave import in some localities through greatly increased fire 

 occurrence due to the carelessness of the traveling public. 



TABLE 11. Cost and mileage of Federal-aid roads 

 [Totals as of June 30, 1932] 



The highway program would go forward without reference to the 

 forests and does not need extended treatment here. The Federal 

 Aid Road Act represents, however, by far the greatest extension of 

 Federal aid to the States and is of importance in any discussion of 

 such activities. The more than 1 billion dollars spent thus far by the 

 Federal Government in aid of roads contrasts strikingly with the less 

 than 12 million dollars spent in aid of forestry under the Weeks and 

 Clarke-McNary Acts. The latter sum is only a little more than 1 

 percent of the former. This ratio may roughly indicate the relative 

 appreciation of needs on the part of the public. By no leap of the 

 imagination does it express the actual relative need which the public 

 has for these two forms of service. 



