Ten Years of Federal Aid in Road Building

Report Outline
Extent of the Federal Aid System
Federal Policy in Road Building
Financing of Construction and Maintenance
The Future Road Program and Federal Policy

The fiscal year ending June 30, 1927 completed ten years of federal participation in highway building as provided in the Federal Aid Act of July 11, 1916. On May 31, 1927 the country's investment in highways of the federal aid system, built with government cooperation, totaled $1,145,403,031, of which $505–960,673, or approximately 44% was federal aid. To date 60,594 miles of roads in the system have been built jointly by the states and the federal government.

A number of the states have gone ahead with their building programs without waiting for help from the government, and now about two-thirds of the federal aid system of 171,687 miles have been hard-surfaced, macadamized, graded and drained, treated with gravel, or given some form of improvement. Work on the remaining third has not yet been started.

In 1916 there were 287,047 miles of surfaced roads in the United States. At the present time the surfaced mileage is 521,915.