DEVELOPMENT ALONG HIGHWAYS - PLANNING PROBLEMS AND PROPOSALS

Abstract

Creation of a "complete highway" - complete to serve the public, for service and utility, for safety, for economy, and for beauty-should be the criteria to be followed for planned development along highways. As we all know, there is an intimate relationship between the highway and its roadsides. The highway affects adjacent land sides, often stimulating their development; and, in turn, these land sides affect the movement of vehicles on the highway, often interfering with their safest and most efficient operation. Therefore, whatever measures taken to improve the character of highway service will also improve the nature of the road sides, and vice versa. Today all the major cities in the world and their surrounding suburban areas are suffering from a malady we might call "auto intoxication". The automobile has changed our economy, and also changed the pattern of our communities. Limited transportation faciliti es earlier necessitated compact urban centers. The development of the automobile and its increased use as a means of daily transportation, and the companion improvement and building of roads into hitherto inaccessible area on the outskirts of cities have created a metropolitan pattern so common place that we have a clich�Ã�©' to describe it- "urban sprawl"....