The Vidette-Messenger Centennial EditionThe 1936 special edition celebrating Porter County's centennial year . . . .
The following article has been transcribed from the August 18, 1936, issue of The Vidette-Messenger, published in Valparaiso, Indiana. This particular special edition focuses on Porter County's centennial celebration and contains a 94-page compendium of Porter County history up to that time.
Return to the index of articles from The Vidette-Messenger's Porter County Centennial special edition.
Source: The Vidette-Messenger, Valparaiso,
Porter County, Indiana; August 18, 1936; Volume 10, Section 4, Page 17.
Valparaiso Man Designs Highway Transportation System of the Future
Revolutionizing
of the American system of highways is proposed in designs drawn by Noah M.
Amstutz, of Valparaiso, research engineer, after ideas originated by T. E.
Steiner, of Worcester, O., president of the Victory Coal Company, Tunnellton, W.
Va., and active in other business enterprises.
The plan was presented to high officials, organizations and the public press,
with the result that a resolution was introduced in congress by Congressman
Jennings Randolph, of West Virginia, including the Steiner plan.
The idea was developed by Mr. Steiner with assistance of Mr. Amstutz of giving
employment to idle men and vitalizing industries as a means of national
recovery.
Four super-highways are proposed, one east and west and three north and south.
An approximate twelve billion bond issue is expected to buy the right-of-way and
build the four highways, leaving enough to amortize the interest on the whole
issue for a period of five years at which time all road should be completed and
then the income will pay the interest and provide a singing fund to retire the
bonds.
The right-of-way of each highway would be 450 feet, forty-five feet of which
would be for private cars, forty-four feet for trucks and buses, twenty feet
between, with barrier fence in center for parking, thirty feet outside for
ditches, drainage cuts and fills and road bed protection, and 125 feet for
landscaping and beautifying and preserving natural scenery. Every twelve miles
the right-of-way is to be widened to 3,000 feet providing service centers and
entrance and exit ramps.
The highway is to be lighted all the way for safe and comfortable night driving,
and to miss all cities, but to provide feeders from cities into it where entries
are provided.
Income is to be derived from tax paid by private cars at the rate of one-fourth
cent per mile and the bridge tolls; from taxes derived from trucks and buses
paid on the basis of benefits derived; from franchises granted to railroad
companies to operate trucks and streamlined buses trains; from airplane
companies to operate airplanes along lighted highway over the landscaped 125
feet; from landing fields at service centers and for gasoline stations, repair
shop, restaurants, tourist camps, swimming pools and so forth.
These highways will be built, operated and maintained independent of the states.
The states through which they are built will receive most of the gasoline tax
derived from purchases within their borders which will enable them to build and
maintain their existing roads.
The government can maintain military camps in these service centers and can use
the whole road for military purposes.
With completion of these four super-highways other similar super-highways will
be built in other sections of the United States.
Super-highway advantages are enumerated as follows: Catch up with the
streamlined age and utilize speed and safety that manufacturers have built into
automobiles; solve the unemployment problem, do away with federal relief and
enable the government to balance the budget; employment of idle capital in a
self-supporting and self-liquidating project; an additional means of national
defense in transporting armies and armoured fleets in times of war; the
investment of idle capital would be the nucleus around which would radiate a
stimulation of all business in the United States.
Article transcribed by Steven R. Shook