Interregional Highways, Report of the National Interregional Highway Committee

[Beltway]

I see that this report is now online.  I have had a paper copy since about 2005, and I have commented on its contents many times on online forums for highways.

_Interregional Highways, Report of the National Interregional Highway Committee_, commissioned by the President of the U.S. in 1941, and published in 1944.
http://transportationfortomorrow.com/final_report/pdf/volume_3/historical_documents/05_interregional_highways_1944.pdf

This is the study that was utilized for the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, legislation enacted by the United States Congress, and which established a 40,000 mile National System of Interstate Highways, and required the Public Roads Administration to establish construction and operational standards for the Interstate Highway System.

This is a very large PDF document of 42 megabytes, and it is worth downloading to your computer for ease of access in the future.

Origin and concept for urban Interstate highways and metropolitan beltways is clearly laid out in this report.

_Interregional Highways_ made it clear that all the highways should have limited-access right-of-way, and full grade separation in the urban areas, with possible at-grade intersections on lightly traveled rural sections.  Mixed traffic of cars, trucks and buses would be handled.  Rural highways with more than projected 3,000 AADT should be 4-lane divided.  _Interregional Highways_ has a couple hundred pages of text, plus a series of maps and diagrams.

_Interregional Highways_ had conceptual schematics of generally how the urban freeways would be laid out, for a small city, medium city, and large city.  The small city would have the interregional highway pass nearby with major arterial thoroughfares connecting the city to the new highway, from each direction.  The medium city with one interregional highway had it passing through the heart of the city, and there was a partial beltway bypass of the city.  The large city had a full radial spoke system of urban freeways passing through the heart of the city with a downtown freeway loop, and there was a full beltway bypass of the city.  In all cases, the urban interregional highways had frequent interchange spacing of about one mile distance.

The urban area conceptual schematics are on Page 72, and the supporting text is in adjacent pages.