Federal Aid as a Road Building Policy

Excerpt from the report: With the passage of the Federal-Aid Road Act and its approval by the President on July 11, 1915, the United States entered upon a policy of highway construction under the joint supervision and at the joint expense of the Federal and State governments which has come to be known as the Federal road policy. The immediate and, in some respects, the most important result of the new policy was that it led to the creation of highway departments in all States. The establishment of such State agencies was required by the act as a condition precedent to the extension of Federal cooperation; and there was the additional requirement that the highway departments established should have immediate control and supervision of the construction of the roads in which the United States put its money.