Financing Street and Highway Improvements

The Symposium on “Equitable Distribution for Highway Purposes of Motor Vehicle Licenses and Gasoline Taxes,” conducted by the Highway Division of the Society during 1929, brought out the status of contemporary practice and opinion representative of the various governmental jurisdictions interested. The papers and discussions presented in this Symposium disclosed the fact that engineers in general concur in three basic principles. In this paper the writer discusses from an engineering point of view, and without prejudice, some of the factors that appear to have a controlling effect in the equitable assessment of highway costs, and calls attention to some research projects that could aid materially in ascertaining the facts that are needed. These facts themselves will vary from place to place and from State to State, but the same methods of attack upon the problem should result in some uniformity in procedure.