[PRCo] Penna. Highway History

[Fred Schneider]

Hey guys ... this started out as simply a note to Ed Lybarger to discuss
materials for docent training at Arden and what info is available. But
by the time I got done, it occurred to me that some of today's research
does a great job of explaining why trolley cars disappeared.  Remember
as you read this, Pennsylvania only owned 13% of the roads in the state
as late as 1930 and most of the roads that were paved were owned by the
state.  Yet the word was convenience and it was still much more
convenient to get in your car and drive to town than walk three miles
through the mud to the nearest interurban stop.


Spend all day in the State Library rummaging through the files.  No time
to put it all in order yet, but a few conclusions

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Motor Vehicle Registrations went from 43,282 in 1911 to 540,215 in 1917
to 1,044,499 in 1920 to 1,413,622 in 1928.  Note the virtual doubling of
vehicles from 1917 to 1920!  Wow!!!  As difficult on the infrastructure
as it was in Eastern Europe after the walls went down in 1989 and the
autos flooded in.  In 1929 that licensing function went to the
Department of Revenue and they didn't send any summaries to the state
library.  Maybe at PHMC.

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Prior to 1910 there were only 1,100 miles of state-owned roads ...
little scattered pieces here and there ... nothing allowing you to go
anywhere ... improved was telford waterbase macadam or something that
was well drained.  Typically the synonym of road was mud.   Maybe 90,000
or more of local lanes that required aqua lungs in the spring.

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It is impossible to get any commonality out of highway paving data
because of a steady increase in miles under the state jurisdiction and a
lack of reports for counties, boroughs, and cities.  There is also a
problem with the definition of the word "improved," which meant a gravel
road that didn't turn into mud in 1909 but meant paved just ten years
later.   In 1928, 5429 miles of the state owned or state aided roads
were earth, cinders, gravel, shale, loose tone, or oil sprayed over
stones -- 46.9% of all state owned or maintained roads.  In 1936, 26.9%
were unimproved.  Over this whole time, total statewide road mileage ...
state or local government or private ownership ... was about 100,000
miles.

In 1930, we get a report that there were 103,204 miles of roads in the
Commonwealth ... not much different than 1910 because we hadn't yet
invented suburbs ... but of those 84,011 were unimproved.   At the state
ownership level in 1930 there were 9402 miles of improved roads and 4001
miles of unimproved roads ... why the huge difference?  The state kept
inheriting roads from counties and boroughs.  So, in 1930 we were proud
that 70% of the state highways were paved but at the county and local
level of ownership only 11 percent of the roads were paved.  And still
we sold Model A Fords like there was no tomorrow.  We also drop out the
word private on July 3, 1930, when the New Holland Pike from Lancaster
to Leola was freed.

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There are some other items which tell more graphically what was going
on.  Example:  In 1917-1918 the Federal government demanded that
Pennsylvania keep the Lincoln Highway and the National Pike open in the
winter as defense highways.  The Department of Highways noted that in
the spring, "many of these roads were transformed into quagmires and
superhuman efforts were needed to keep these roads open."   How about
that, you can plow snow above frozen dirt but look out when it al
melts.  By 1921 the state was keeping 1100 miles of road open in the
winter, the next year it was 1700, the next year 3000 and by 1932 state
plow crews were taking care of 11,000 miles of road ... still not all
the roads but getting close.  .

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The state made a concrete test road eastward from Rheems, Lancaster
County, PA in September, October and November 1919.  When the mud dried
up the next May, they poured more concrete.  In all, eighteen sections
were laid with a different mix of aggregates for analytical purposes.
Most of the roads the state "reconstructed" from that point forward were
done in concrete but one needs to remember that main roads were 18 feet
wide (I said roads, not lanes) and secondary roads were 16 feet wide.
Remember ten years later when they called what is now route 28 the Death
Highway and condemned the Allegheny Valley trolley tracks to widen
it.    Today the standard two car garage is 22 feet wide!

Fred Schneider