Paved Roads & Public Money
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<P>Paved Roads & Public Money describes the evolution of transportation systems in modern Connecticut. It is the second book in a two-volume study that begins with the bicycle craze of the 1880s, and ends with the efforts of the Malloy and Lamont administrations to revitalize Connecticut transportation in the twenty-first century. The story includes aviation, highways, bridges, ferries, steamboats, canals, railroads, electric trolleys, and water ports in Connecticut and along the multi-state travel corridor from New York to Boston. Drawing on a wide array of primary material, Richard DeLuca examines how land, law, and technology have shaped the state and its transportation systems, giving special attention to the state's two largest transportation monopolies: the New Haven Railroad and the Connecticut Department of Transportation. The book focuses on key events in the development of transportation and legislation. It is arranged chronologically, and by highlighting themes from each period shows the implications of the state's transportation history on current debates about infrastructure and funding. It features 50 illustrations and three appendices: population by geomorphic region, a list of controlled access highways, and a list of notable highway bridges.</P>
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Paved Roads and Public Money
Bridge Detail on the Merritt Parkway
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As automobility became increasingly common, many other states formed highway departments and initiated statewide road improvement programs. As their number increased, they gathered at annual “road conventions,” like the one hosted by Commissioner MacDonald in Hartford in 1904, to share their knowledge and experiences. Some seven hundred highwaymen from twenty-eight states attended the Hartford convention, along with a federal representative from the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Road Inquiry.36 Such gatherings established a social bond among highwaymen and a national consensus on certain policy issues, in particular the need for federal funding of good roads. By 1914, as Congress studied the possibility of a national highway program, state highwaymen created a nationwide organization of their own called the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), which worked closely with federal officials and Congress to sort through the legal, legislative, and engineering details of a national highway effort.
There were several overriding concerns, first and foremost the legality of such a program. After efforts in the early 1800s to create a national highway program were vetoed by three different presidents on the grounds that the national government had no authority to build roads within individual states, the issue was resolved in 1907 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Wilson v. Shaw, which stated directly the government’s right under the Constitution to build interstate highways: “This power in former times was exerted to a very limited extent … and many of our statesmen entertained doubts as to the existence of the power to establish ways of communication by land … [but] land transportation has so vastly increased [and] a sounder consideration of the subject has prevailed and led to the conclusion that Congress has plenary power over the whole subject. Congress, therefore, has … the power … to authorize the construction of a public highway connecting several states.”37
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