The Highway Dilemma; J.C. Sparks

THE HIGHWAY DILEMMA PERHAPS for the same reason that so many persons ex pect the government to resolve their personal problems, they also imagine that a remedy which failed when ap plied in small measure is bound to give good results if applied on a massive scale. The outcome, of course, de pends on whether or not the proposed remedy is suited to the problem. A small amount of the wrong medicine may do no more than postpone a patient's recovery, whereas a large dose might injure him seriously, if not fatally. By the middle 1950's, it was fairly obvious that the United States had on its hands a sick patient in the form of an acute highway problem. The federal government asked a study commission for recommendations to make the nation's roads adequate and safe for the growing commercial and passenger traffic. Mounting maintenance costs, increasing snarls of traffic, rising totals of highway accidents and deaths were some of the alarming symp toms of sickness in the system of highways, roads, and streets owned by city, county, state, and federal govern ments.

405 406 JOHN C. SPARKS A major automobile manufacturer conducted a con test for ideas which might help resolve the problem. Clubs and civic groups offered suggestions. Government leaders had recommendations. But the net result of all this was the one general idea, the one solution, of turn ing to the federal government. It could administer the largest possible dose of the same old medicine-bureau cratic planning, construction, and operation, financed on the grand scale through higher taxes. In 1956 the Federal Highway Program was initiated to provide a network of national highways estimated to cost $23.6 billion and to be completed by 1972. Today, five years later, the estimated mileage goal of the new highways has been increased slightly, but the costs are now estimated to be $41 billion, and many believe the figure may exceed $50 billion before completion. Fur thermore, the predicted completion date has been moved along three years to 1975. Other difficulties include prop erty acquisition at prices well above recent market values; construction work below specifications; over passes too low to accommodate commercial transports; houses disappearing before the government could re deem some of the acquisition costs through resale;l selec tion of costly routes when less expensive routes were available;2 and political considerations outstripping eco nomic considerations. Sharp criticism has been leveled at the program by various senators and others in posi1 "$40 Billion Highway Program in Trouble." U. S. News rl.:t World Report, March 7, 1960.

2 Karl Detzer, "Our Great Big Highway Bungle." Reader's Digest, July 1960.

THE HIGHWAY DILEMMA 407 tions to report the extravagant waste, bureaucratic bungling, and dishonesty. The only purpose in recounting the record of the Fed eral Highway Program is to shovv the poor condition of the patient after a big dose of the wrong medicine. Ob viously, it is important to determine the right medicine so that we may work ourselves out of the highway dilemma. Looking in the W rang Place No number or concentration of experts on road con struction or of wizards on finance can find the solution to the highway problem until the search is conducted in the area in which the solution lies. The evidence is clear that the wrong place to look for the solution to the highway problem is in the area of government. That practically all highways are owned by some particular form of government-federal, state, county, or municipal -is the problem and not the solution. Government is not creative~ although misguided and misunderstanding citizens and elected servants have time and time again mistaken compulsion for creation.

The proper role of the government should be to de fend our nation from outside attack, as a soldier, and defend us from lawlessness from within, as a policeman. Both of these tasks are very important, but neither is creative in nature. The company striving to develop a new vaccine for the elimination of cancer surely would not assign the project to the plant security police. Nor 408 JOHN C. SPARKS should we assign the development of highways to po litical policemen. We have too often hooked up coercive power to a creative field, and the results have ended in evitably in failure. When the hand of government is in serted in a problem requiring initiative, it becomes a dead hand-and the failure can be predicted. Government should not be in the creative field of highway construction and ownership. One cognizant of the coercive nature of government could have predicted years ago (and some surely must have done so) the di lemma with which we are faced today. Surely he would have foreseen the inadequacy of government roads to keep pace with the development of ideas for better con veyances that would come from millions of creative in dividuals acting freely. No one could have predicted in detail where the road facilities would be proven inade quate, just as no one could have predicted in detail sixty years ago just what the 1961 model Cadillac would look like. But if one had been aware of the creative na ture of a society of free men and the coercive nature of government, he could have predicted in general terms, but no less accurately, the dilemma of today.

Similarly, we can predict today the greater dilemma which will face us still unsolved in succeeding years un less government surrenders this highway problem and responsibility to private initiative. The alternative to public or government ownership of highways is private ownership. There are but these two possibilities. The alternative to the government ownership of anything is private ownership, whether it THE HIGHWAY DILEMMA 409 be the automobile industry, chemical industry, the postal system, or the corner grocery store. Regardless of the in dustry or service, these are the alternatives of ownership. The government-ownership record is not enviable. It has become a socalled insurance company for millions, but with a Social Security sales program so unconvinc ing to the discernible that it must force its captive "policy holders" to pay their "premiums." In its opera tion of this compulsory "insurance" scheme, it pays out benefits in order to win votes and increases the amount of these benefits without regard to its financial status.

Government entry into the electric power field under the guise of flood control, its entry into local education and its threat to wield even a heavier hand of authority through federal aid, its slow and expensive jaunt into atomic power-these are vivid bits of evidence of the record of government ownership and control in creative fields. For the purpose of illustrating the great accomplish ments of private initiative, let us suppose you had lived in 1900 and somehow were confronted with finding a solution to anyone of the following problems (within the next 61 years): 1. To keep roads adequate for use of conveyances, their operators, and passengers! 2. To increase the average span of life by 30 years! 3. To convey instantly the sound of a voice speaking at one place to any other point or any number of points around the world!

410 JOHN C. SPARKS 4. To convey instantly the visual replica of an action, such as a presidential inauguration, to men and women sitting in their living rooms all over America! 5. To physically transport a person from Los Angeles to New York in less than four hours! 6. To build a horseless carriage of the qualities and capabilities described in the 1961 advertising folder of any automobile manufacturer! Without much doubt you would have selected the first problem as the one easiest of solution. In fact, the other problems would have seemed fantastic and quite likely would have been rejected as the figment of some one's wild imagination. Now, 61 years later, let us see which of these problems have been solved. Has the easiest problem been solved? No! Have the seemingly fantastic problems been solved? Yes, and we hardly give them a second thought. No Accident It is not accidental that solutions have been found wherever the atmosphere of freedom and private owner ship has prevailed wherein men could tryout their ideas and succeed or fail on their own worthiness. Nor is it accidental that the coercive force of government-when hooked up to a creative field such as transportation has been slow, plodding, and unimaginative in main taining and replacing its facilities.

How could roads be built and operated privately? I THE HIGHWAY DILEMMA 411 do not know. This is a subject to which none of us di rects his creative attention. We never think creatively on any activity pre-en1pted by government. It is not un til an activity has been freed from monopoly that crea tive thought comes into play. But go back to 1900. Could any of us then have told how to solve the five problems to which solutions have been found? Suppose, for instance, that someone could then have described the looks and performance of a 1961 automobile. Could any of us have told him how to make it? No, no more than we can describe how to privately build and operate highways today. But we can be sure that the exciting and miraculous equivalent of other private-ownership developments will occur with respect to highways when they are freed from governmental monopoly. A privately-owned highway company would continu ally seek to satisfy its customers by providing safe facili ties for them and their vehicles, most likely far beyond our imagination. It would continually seek to improve its facilities in order to increase its own sales and attract customers from its competitors. The tie-in of achieve ment and financial reward would be direct-and the re sults would be as astounding as penicillin, television, or power-steering. Could we not logically expect a develop ment in highway facilities as amazing as the contrast be tween a jet-engine airliner and the first invention of the Wright brothers?

Who can say what thoughts will come to light when men are free to own, build, and operate highways and 412 JOHN C. SPARKS tryout their own ideas, assuming their own risks of penalty or reward according to their abilities? I cannot predict the exact development in highways which would be comparable to the development of four-wheel brakes to an automobile, or to the development of the coaxial cable or microwaves to the communications industry. I cannot predict the exact nature of the ingenious thought of some man unknown to me, perhaps yet unborn. But I can safely and accurately predict he will exist some where just as soon as government relinquishes its mo nopolistic and compulsory hold on highways, and he will bring forth and tryout an idea which will be but one of many advances that will come through a private high way system. This is the direction toward which we must head if we hope to be successful in finding our way out of the highway dilemma. It will cost nothing but courage to try freedom. Private ownership, private initiative, the hope of reward, and the expectation of achievement have always been primarily responsible for the advancement of mankind-accounting for an almost infinite number of "fantastic" accomplishments. Privately-owned high ways could be another.