The idea of a transcontinental highway had been around since the 1890's. General Roy Stone, head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Road Inquiry (first ancestor of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)), suggested combining existing roads into a network and recommended that ". . . the most effective lines that could be adopted for this purpose would be an Atlantic and a Pacific Coast line, joined by a continental highway from Washington to San Francisco."
The transcontinental route should link highways along the East and West Coasts. The League of American Wheelmen Bulletin and Good Roads magazine (November 19, 1987), quoted General Stone as referring to the idea as "The Great Road of America." He knew his idea was too bold to be adopted at the time, but he explained: The whole scheme would carry with it something that would inspire the entire Nation.
It not any new scheme; it is not any new idea. It was the idea of Jefferson and Madison and Gallatin and many other great men who helped to start the national Road which led through Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana, and reached as far as the Mississippi River.
Click to read the full article: https://highways.dot.gov/media/31921
No comments:
Post a Comment