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The Sixties:  Turbulent times and the decade of mobility

This edition features the 1960’s, a decade of political and social turbulence with events that would shape the nation and the world for many years to come. Vietnam, the assassination of the Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King, the passage of the Civil Right Bill, the first manned trip to the moon, and more. 

The 1960’s was a decade of technological transition, too, as computers were coming into primary usage in mainstream businesses, and engineering innovations in building roads and bridges, and in equipment and trucks was moving rapidly.

It was a time when all of the pieces to the road-building puzzle were put into place with the start of the great Interstate project, which began in 1956 coming to an end in the mid-sixties. Feeder and secondary roads supporting the Interstate were being built and maintained during the decade, and the era of the mammoth earthmoving machines, and innovative paving equipment and techniques came into being.

The move from city to suburb and the migration west

The 1960’s were a decade of great mobility with steady migration from the cities to the suburbs, and from east to west. 

In the Better Roads Forum column in the January 1960 issue, Editor and Publisher, Alden F. Perrin, wrote about the move to the suburbs from the cities.  “…the movement of people from the heart of the city to suburban areas have created a problem that counties all over the country have been trying to cope with. An important part of this problem is the county road in an area that is rapidly developing from rural to suburban or urban. In all probability the road will certainly become a city street.” 

This op-ed piece goes on to say that these problems included counties that “rarely builds storm and sanitary sewers”; getting the “city to accept a county obligation within a city”; “road improvements (which) can’t wait for incorporation”, and “developers (who are) required to pay for road improvements”. 

Ironically, these problems have again cropped up in many parts of North America today where suburbs have burst out almost overnight with some as far as 70 miles from the city center to rural areas.

The Continuing Crisis

In the March 1960 issue of Better Roads, it was reported “in order to work within the limits imposed by congress and the highway trust fund, the Bureau of Public Roads has imposed severe restrictions on state highway departments. These restrictions are resented by some state highway officials who think the federal government is interfering too much in what should be regarded essentially as a state program”.

Forecast

And this interesting tidbit from March 1960…”The Highway Departments of 48 states expect that in 1976 there will be 114,000,000 registered vehicles and they will be driven 1,200,000,000,000 miles that year consuming 97,000,000,000 gallons of fuel”.

Kennedy weighs in on highways

March 1961…. with talk of suspending the Interstate program in mid-stream, the following was reported by BR:

“In his message to congress February 28, President John F. Kennedy declared that he was ‘wholly opposed to either stretching out or cutting back our highway program,’ and urged congress not to rely on either solution.” Kennedy said that “it would be unwise at a time when our ‘slump-ridden economy needs greater…not lesser construction activity…. and to postpone the completion of the Interstate system only further postpones the day when our highways will be adequate….”

California’s problems

With the population of the state of California exploding, Better Roads in November 1960

reported “during the next 20 years 100,194 miles of county roads and city streets in California will need improvement at a total cost of $12,752,000,000….”

Elvis has left the building….

Here’s an amusing item from the from the January 1962 issue of Better Roads…

“Rocks and Roll. Elvis Presley fans have given the Tennessee Department of Highways some extra work. His mansion near Memphis has attracted swarms of worshippers, who park to gape. Highway shoulders in the area developed dangerous potholes. It did no good to put gravel down because girls carried off the pebbles as souvenirs. So the department had to send out a crew to patch the holes and give the shoulders an asphaltic surface.”

A meandering economy stymies road construction

The economy in 1963 moved along slowly, which had an inferior affect on the funding available for road building. Better Roads reported in “the 1963 sessions of state legislatures passed an astonishing variety of laws...only three states passed gasoline taxes …in 1963, and five states approved road-bond issues.”

Sounds like a monorail to me!

The August 1964 issue of Better Roads posted an article titled “Travel by Computer”.

“Mechanical engineering students at MIT have been working on an automated automobile and road as an approach to the solution of highway problems. …the “Commucar’ could be driven anywhere, but it could be also used under automatic control on special roadways. Arms on each side of the compact, electric vehicle would draw power from a side rail on the throughway. Trips would be programmed for computer control. The students are convinced that their solution to the nation’s transit problems is better than (most) and that the special arteries can be laid over existing roads and mass-transit systems”.

Buckle-up for safety

Better Roads’ January 1965 issue featured an article on seat belt usage in highway departments…

“Most safety experts agree that seat belts in use can mean the difference between life and death….” In a survey of 47 highway departments, “46 are using seat belts on some if not all passenger carrying vehicles…and 24 are using them on some trucks”.

The Passing of an Industry Giant: Alden F. Perrin

On April 23, 1965, founder and publishing director of Better Roads, Alden F. Perrin, died. He was 78 years old. 

In 1931, with an idea for a magazine to serve highway engineers and officials, he founded Better Roads. The magazine has grown for 75 years based on Mr. Perrin’s principals and sound publishing philosophy…. that the publication should serve its readers, and serve them well. 

In 2004, Alden F. Perrin was recognized as one of the Top 100 most influential private transportation design and construction professionals of the 20^th Century by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) Foundation.  click here for more on Alden Perrin.

Computers become a big part of the industry

While not every agency, engineering firm and contractor adopted computer systems by the late 1960’s, some did. In the January 1967 issue, Better Roads interviewed officials with the Utah Department of Highways in a story titled “Computer Turns Days Into Minutes”.

“Highway engineers can obtain answers to important engineering questions in time to make the best possible decisions. The computer has become an essential engineering tool, involved in every part of highway design…. Calculations that sometimes took months under manual methods are now accomplished in a few hours…”

“Of Men and Machines”

By the end of the sixties, advances in construction equipment technology had reached new heights as bigger, more productive and efficient machinery was on the jobsite. From the introduction of the hydraulic scraper in 1962, the first articulated motor grader in 1967, the emergence of the hydraulic excavator and sophisticated paving equipment by end of the decade, the sixties were rampant with new products and new innovations.

John Benson, Executive Director of CIMA, the Construction Industry Manufacturers Association, (now the Association of Equipment Manufacturers) wrote in an article previewing CONEXPO ’69 in the January 1969 issue of Better Roads, “ Innovations in construction equipment have traditionally been regarded as refinements aimed at increasing the productive capabilities of that equipment…. advances are being made because of the ever-accelerating accent on the faster, more work-producing equipment”.

Among the innovations sited by Mr. Benson to be introduced on equipment at the 1969 show were hydrostatic drive, automatic braking systems, automated batch plant systems, audible warning and signal light systems, and laser technology.

Mr. Benson goes on to tout Conexpo ’69 by saying “we used to call it the Road Show, which will be held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago…. More than 160 leading manufacturers of construction equipment will exhibit more than 1000 pieces of machinery valued at $25 million” with 250,000 square feet of exhibit space and 80,000 attendees.

For the record, at Conexpo 2005 nearly 2000 companies exhibited at the show utilizing 1.88 million square feet of space with more than 124,000 attendees.

“Building Roads to Serve All the People”

In an editorial titled “Building Roads to Serve All the People” Editor, Stanley E. Boie wrote in the December 1969 issue of Better Roads, the last issue of the decade, “Most of us concerned with the business of highways have had little difficulty accepting the oft-repeated slogan, ‘Highways are for people’, a sentiment that should followed today as we plan, design and fund our highways and bridges.

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