PIONEERS OF THE PRESENT

As long as people are people, I suppose, we will continue to romanticize the past, glamorize the future, and downgrade the present.

The first two-thirds of that trait are commendable enough. Certainly the Padre Kinos, the Mountain Men, the Mormon Battalion, the miners and the military of bygone days deserve all the romanticizing they can get. Today's most accomplished writer cannot possibly portray adequately the toughness, ruggedness and austerity of the lives those people lived.

By the same token, today's most gifted Jules Verne can merely suggest to us glimpses of the vast vistas of the Space Age that lie before us. Never before has man been so sure of a future full of glamorous accomplishments.

But what about today? Isn't it too bad that the romance of the past and the glamour of the future tend to make mundane our current accomplishments that would make the pioneers of Arizona stare in disbelief? In our sophistication, should we not guard against becoming so blasé that we lose completely a sense of pride in the works of our pioneers of the present?

For example, how many people have stopped to wonder at the fact that today it is possible for us to travel in utmost comfort from North-Central Arizona to Southeastern Arizona, a distance of 299.2 miles non-stop in an easy 299.2 minutes?

With the completion in the last few months of the various links in the freeway system, the ordinary motorist can leave Flagstaff at the junction of Interstate 40 and the Black Canyon Highway (Arizona 79, Interstate 17) and travel on a completely access-controlled modern highway southward to Phoenix, around Phoenix, southeastward to Tucson, around Tucson, and eastward to Benson without meeting a single stoplight or stop sign. The posted speed limit on most of the route is 70 miles an hour during the daylight hours and 65 miles an hour at night. Allowing for traffic conditions, it is easy to make the run at an average speed of 60. Indeed, on a normal day a good, steady driver can take fifteen minutes out to gas up and get a hamburger and a cup of coffee and still make the run in less than five hours. Many of today's Arizonans and visitors take this sort of highway transportation pretty much for granted. Yet those of us who have been in Arizona for a few years imarvel at the accom plishments by the Arizona Highway Department that have made such transportation possible. The modern Arizona highway is very similar to a well written book: it flows so smoothly and easily that it belies all of the extremely hard work that went into it. As the Black Canyon Highway, for example, stretches southward from Flagstaff towards Phoenix, there is no evidence of the prolonged political controversy that preceded its construction. But there are still many Arizonans who remember vividly the countless meetings and unnumbered man-hours of discussion that preceded the creation of this north-south link between Flagstaff and Phoenix.

Not many years ago, to get to Flagstaff from Phoenix, the motorist traveled northwestward to Wickenburg, thence through Congress, up Yarnell Hill, across Peeples Valley to the tortuous White Spar Highway into Prescott, thence through Granite Dells. At Granite Dells, he chose either to follow U.S. 89 northward to Ash Fork, and there turn right on U.S. 66 το Williams and Flagstaff. Or at Granite Dells he could choose to cross storied Lonesome Valley and follow Alternate 89 over Mingus Mountain, down through Jerome and Clarkdale, over to Cottonwood and then up across the Verde Valley to Sedona,

The Way It Was In The Beginning

From SUNSET MAGAZINE — October, 1913 The State of Arizona had outlined on paper a great north and south and east and west system of highways, but the road fund was depleted. Where was the labor to come from to extend these radial lines of travel whereby the different cities of Arizona might be linked more closely together and the multitude of tourists might annually find ready access to all parts of this sightseers' wonderland? The solution was found when construction forces were recruited from the four hundred and fifty men in the State Prison. To encourage self-respect stripes were abolished and gray uniforms were substituted. To promote health and efficiency sanitary surroundings and wholesome food were provided. In different parts of the state road camps were established, and in one of the most remote about forty men were stationed with no guard except their own verbal assurances that they would not try to escape. A lesson in human nature was then afforded by the discovery that a prisoner's sense of honor is a more effective guard than a man with a rifle. Figures show a far lower percentage of attempted escapes from road camps unguarded than from those where the usual espionage is employed. And this fact affords the basic principle of the new penology, namely, a man reforms only as he is trusted and made to rely on himself. However that may be, highway and bridge construction is going forward rapidly in Arizona by means of prisoners' labor, and in this and other ways each man convicted, instead of becoming a public burden, is paying his debt to the state whose laws he transgressed.

Thence through Oak Creek Canyon and its switchbacks to the plateau and finally to Flagstaff. Less than twenty years ago, daredevil drivers used to brag about making the trip between Flagstaff and Phoenix in five hours.

Men of vision foresaw that the development of Arizona would require a far faster and far easier north-south highway, and engineering feasibility studies proved that the route of the present Black Canyon Highway could accommodate such a highway. The controversy came in, however, when the residents of various communities along the old route realized that the new route would bypass their towns. Their fear, of course, was that their business and property values would suffer as a result of the bypassing. It took years of persuasion and in-depth studies to convince everybody that what was good for Arizona was good for all Arizonans.

When these problems were solved, there remained tremendous problems of engineering that few of the planners of the highway and fewer still of the present users of the highway realized. Within the single Flagstaff-Phoenix stretch of 142 miles are encompassed most of the problems which make highway engineering in Arizona more difficult than it is in most of the other states. Flagstaff is at an elevation of some 7,000 feet. It is subject to severe winters, sub-zero temperatures, heavy snowfall, and severe summer storms. On the high plateaus surrounding it are encountered many varieties of rock, including some exceptionally hard varieties and some unusually soft and friable shales. Each variety presents the highway engineer with its own problems in draining and grading, and the varieties change frequently and at short intervals.

On the plateau and in the mountains the engineer often has the problem of finding enough usable dirt for building a stable roadbed; he has to locate it and move it in from somewhere else. This not only involves expense but also the problem of obtaining the right to the fill from the owner, be it a private individual or a governmental agency.

Every cut presents its own problems in rock mechanics. The engineer's objective is to build a highway with as open curves and as gradual grades as possible. This means that the highway has to be cut through many hills and mesas. A mini mum of material would have to be moved if the slopes of the cut could be left at 90 degrees; but even the toughest rock walls have a way of weathering and crumbling, thus causing rock slides. The problem, then, is to determine the steepest slope commensurate with safety, and each type of rock through which cuts are made has its own characteristics which must be studied before the final design is arrived at.

Today's highway engineer employs the rapidly advancing science of photogrammetry in making his preliminary surveys and to help him avoid as many cuts and curves as possible. Photogrammetry, in essence, is the use of aerial photographs to make amazingly accurate and detailed topographical and geo logical studies of the area involved. A few years ago it required a crew of many men working on the ground for many months to make such a survey. While the costs of aircraft and the appro priate camera equipment are so high that not many dollar savings are effected by photogrammetry, the modern methods are a great deal faster and more reliable. They allow the highway design engineers to get to work on specific problems even while the follow-up ground survey crews are completing the details of the staking and so on.

In both the mountains and the desert one of the most persistent problem materials Arizona highway engineers have to work with is clay. There are almost as many types of clay as there are of rock, and most of them make poor road bases. Each shrinks and swells at its own rate; clays hump and move and break up road surfaces. For 30 years and more Arizona highway engi neers have been researching one type of clay, Chinle, and they admit they still do not know how to control it. The ideal solu tion would be to dig out all beds of clay completely; but this would require almost unlimited funds, and unlimited funds are something Arizona's highway engineers never will have.

Another of the persistent problems in highway engineering, of course, is procurement of right of way. This is common to all states; but Arizona's right-of-way problems are somewhat differ ent because of the unusual pattern of land ownership within the state. Roughly 15 percent of Arizona land is in private owner ship, 13 percent in State ownership, and 72 percent is owned or controlled by the Federal Government. This 72 percent broadly falls into the categories of public domain, forest lands, Indian lands, and national parks and monuments. There are also huge military reservations, vast tracts of wilderness preservation systems and primitive areas, and wildlife refuges. Each presents its own special problems.

The securing of the right of way for a modern highway involves first a determination of the route desired. Then a legal description of each parcel of land on that route must be obtained. A title search must be made for each parcel, followed by an appraisal of each piece of land involved. (Frequently both a Highway Department staff appraisal and an appraisal by an independent appraiser must be made to assure service to both sides.) All appraisals are then turned over to a board of review for double checking.

The Highway Department's Division of Right of Way then begins negotiations. The objective is to pay no more and no less than fair market value. In the case of private land, the State can condemn property by the right of eminent domain and thus obtain title. In Arizona, however, this practice is followed only in the very rare case, because here the rancher's operation can be seriously disturbed, a businessman's livelihood can be deeply affected, a developer's plans changed drastically. Most of the problems are connected with the fact that Arizona is so sparsely settled, distances are great and private land is scarce. Thus the Property Management Division of the Arizona Highway Department makes every effort to help displaced people relocate satisfactorily. The department has, for some time, advocated paying additional moving costs for the person adversely affected by a forced move. While such funds are not available now, the department hopes that in the future they will be, so that forced moves can be made on a more equitable basis.

When a link of the Interstate Defense Highway System is proposed to cross the public domain, usually the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior has given the land involved without charge because of the Federal involvement in the highway system. However, in the case of Indian lands, the appraised value of the land must be paid to the Indian tribe after the appraised value has been approved by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the tribal council.

In the case of national forest lands, the U.S. Forest Service usually has granted without charge a special use permit to the

U.S. 93 near Santa Maria River on Wickenburg-Kingman highway

State, while more recently the Federal Government has given the State an easement deed to the land.

Years ago State land was given for the highway system without charge; but more recently the State Highway Department has been required to pay the appraised value of the land to the State Land Department upon approval of that appraisal by the State Land Commissioner. This is because revenue from certain classes of State lands has been earmarked for certain funds.

Once all of the surveys and feasibility studies have been made and accepted, when all of the various lands involved have been cleared for right of way, then the State Highway Department must synchronize its activities with the United States Bureau of Public Lands. First it must show that it has made a reasonable determination of needs. Essentially this means that it must prove itself a sound prophet of the future needs of the State and of the Nation. In 1956 the Congress passed an act pertaining to the Interstate Highway System which placed emphasis upon the defense aspect of our highway transportation network. It authorized an interstate system of 41,000 miles of highway to link together 90 percent of all cities having a population of 50,000 or more. While this mileage would represent only approximately 1.2 percent of the total national highway system, it was expected to carry 20 percent of all highway traffic in normal times. However, in the event of national emergency war or natural catastrophe - this system is designed to handle huge volumes of traffic with maximum efficiency accruing from its controlled access and multiple-lane features.

Thus the initial planning of any link in this system requires that the State Highway Department be expert in demography. It must know where traffic will originate and what the destination will be. It must foresee where Arizona's rapidly burgeoning population will concentrate, and thus what points on the map should be connected. And it must be able to make reasonable forecasts of the changing patterns in traffic.

Next it must produce its location studies and its ground surveys. It must then show that its rights of way are clear and finally that its designs are up to acceptable standards. Design standards are based on a number of factors. The primary one is public accommodation. The highway must at one and the same time provide adequate service for the population along its route, even while controlling access to the highway proper. It must be constructed to handle the volume and type of traffic most Likely to need it. The design must take into account how many trucks will use it in years to come and what the loading of those trucks will be. It must think ahead to the number of passenger cars and their weights and speeds. Insofar as possible the design must take into account even such difficult predictions as the sizes and weights of loads to be carried by military vehicles of the future in the event of war or the threat of war.

In Arizona special problems enter into the design package. One accrues from the semi-arid climate. In the desert regions, for example, there can be months on end without any rain at all, followed by sudden cloudbursts in which as much as two inches of precipitation can fall in as little as half an hour. The design of the highway must be such that torrents of water pouring down from the mountainsides in arroyos that have suddenly become raging streams can be diverted, passed under the highway, and redirected into the natural run-off channels.

(These desert cloudbursts present not only design problems but construction problems as well. One unfortunate contractor building reinforced concrete box culverts for a highway alignment one recent summer felt not a single drop of rain all summer long; but four times his concrete forms were washed out by torrents created by cloudbursts in the mountains upstream from his work site.) In the Federal Government's view this planning and research aspect is so important that in 1964 the Federal Government made it mandatory that 11/2 percent of the funds for any interstate highway go into the planning phase. Today in Arizona there exists an organization representing the Metropolitan Phoenix, Tucson and other areas to participate in this continuing transportation planning process.

The next step in the creation of a modern interstate superhighway is preliminary approval of the plan by the Bureau of Public Roads without the encumbrance of funds. The second stage encumbers funds upon the receipt of certificates of rights of way and assurances that proper arrangements have been made with the utility companies to relocate utilities where necessary.

Telegraph Pass complex on Interstate 8 near Yuma is an outstanding example of desert-mountain road building The third phase is the calling of bids. Pre-qualified contrac tors are invited, through the three-week advertising campaign, to receive plans and specifications. They then are given a period of time to study the plans and specifications and to draw up their bids. The bids are presented sealed, accompanied by a certified check for at least five percent of the amount bid as assurance of good faith.

The lowest responsible bidder usually is awarded the job if his bid is not more than 10 percent above the State estimate, as approved by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. Final approval of the award of the job must be concurred in by the Bureau of Public Roads.

Once the award is made and the contract is signed by both parties, the contractor must post a 100 percent performance bond. As the work progresses, the State Highway Department and the contractor make monthly estimates of the accomplish ments to date, and the State reimburses the contractor pro rata, but retaining 10 percent each month as assurance of completion. The State is then reimbursed by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads for that agency's responsible share. The contractor is subject to periodic, indeed almost constant, inspection by the State Highway Department, and documents all expenditures. The Bureau of Public Roads also makes periodic inspections.

Upon completion of the project, the contractor's work receives a final inspection by the State Highway engineer and the Bureau of Public Roads. If the work is approved and the contractor certifies that all his bills have been paid, he then is released from his contract and receives final payment.

Not everybody realizes that the funds used for both State and Federal highways come exclusively from motor user taxes, that is, taxes on gasoline, diesel fuel, motor oil, registration fees, weight fees and so on. No property tax money is used. Federal funds come from motor user revenues also and from the excise taxes levied on tires, automobiles and other equipment.

Federal involvement in the building of highways dates back some 53 years to the first Federal-aid Road Act which was passed July 11, 1916. The first World War had focused attention on the deplorable inadequacy of our road system during a national emergency. The Act of July 11, 1916, therefore, authorized the Federal Government "to cooperate with the states through their respective State Highway Depart ments on a nationwide highway program with Federal financial assistance." The legislation also provided that "all roads con structed under this Act shall be free from tolls of any kind."

After a comprehensive study of the nation's highway needs and progress under the 1916 Act, Congress passed a Federal Highway Act of 1921. This act brought into being the system now known as the Federal-aid Primary System. It established a matching-fund system, normally 50 percent State and 50 percent Federal, with a sliding percentage increase of the Federal share for those states with large areas of public lands.

This initial act also recognized the differences between the states in ability to pay and so on and allowed for factors of area, population and mileage of Rural Free Delivery and Star Mail Routes. It required that the states maintain at state expense highways constructed with Federal aid and that each state maintain an adequate engineering and administrative organization.

And one of its most important provisions was that it required that states participating in the program have laws prohibiting diversion of motor fuel and other motor-user taxes to purposes other than construction and improvement of roads.

There was a Federal Highways Act of 1944 which estab lished the National System of Interstate Highways, a super network of the most important 41,000 miles of the Primary System. It was the act of 1954 which placed increased emphasis upon the improvement of the National System of Interstate Highways, while the 1956 act gave increased importance to the defense aspect.

The Federal share of the matching ratio of the Interstate Defense System has increased to go percent Federal funds plus 10 percent of the percentage of public land within the State, with a ceiling of 95 percent. Under this formula, the Arizona matching ratio is 04.4 percent Federal and 5.6 percent State.

Arizona's allotted portion of the 41,000 miles originally envisioned in the Interstate Defense System was estimated at 1,200 miles. Final alignment has brought the total to 1,167. Of this, about 65 percent is now complete. The State must make a report every two years of the uncompleted portion remaining and estimate the cost to finish it. The schedule for completion depends largely upon the availability of Federal funds and somewhat upon the judgment of the Federal Gov ernment as to the importance, relative to other projects in the nation, of the completion of Arizona's portion.

When Arizona's Interstate Defense Highway System is complete (and there is no way of predicting accurately at this time exactly when it will be; it is simply safe to say it should be well within the next decade) Arizona will be laced with a superb highway system which would have been impossible to predict even 25 years ago. Interstate 8 will enter Arizona at Yuma and proceed eastward to Casa Grande. Interstate 10 will enter Arizona at Ehrenberg and proceed eastward to Phoenix, thence south to Tucson, thence east to Lordsburg, New Mexico. Interstate 40 will enter Arizona at. Topock, run east and north to Kingman, thence generally eastward to Seligman, Ash Fork, Williams, Flagstaff, Winslow, Holbrook, Sanders and finally leave the state at Lupton enroute to Gallup, New Mexico. Interstate 17 will run south from Flagstaff to Phoenix. Interstate 19 will run south from Tucson to Nogales. And finally Interstate 15, enroute from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas, Nevada, will cross a 32-mile stretch of extreme northwestern Arizona in the Virgin River area.

Incidentally, some of the problems involved in engineering and constructing a highway in this various and rugged southwestern terrain are illustrated by a three-mile stretch of road in the Virgin River gorge. In this one three-mile piece, it is necessary to build five bridges. Two of these have both abutments on the same side of the river; each bridge in effect crosses the river twice, bridging a loop. The cost of drainage and grading on this stretch will amount to $14 million. Granted this is an extreme example, it does serve to show the type of problem that can be encountered.

In the right-of-way department, similar extremes are encountered. In some places the median between opposite bound segments of a highway may be four feet. In other places, such as some on the Black Canyon Highway, the two sections of the highway may be separated by as much as a quarter of a mile or more.

Arizona's highway engineers and personnel of the Arizona Highway Patrol are agreed that most of the safety slogans bespeak fundamental truths: speed kills; alcohol and gasoline

Above photos show the high risks and varied engineering problems involved before the new Burro Creek bridge became a permanent part of the scenic landscape on U.S. 93 The evolution of a modern bridge is a long range program from planning board to reality Don't mix; you should buckle up for safety; and so on. But in cold, professional bull sessions, they boil automobile safety down to a matter of a driver's alertness. He is out on a straight, open, smooth highway traveling at 70 miles an hour. Mile after mile the road runs hypnotically under his car. His eyes begin to droop, his attention wanders. Suddenly a minor problem develops on the road in front of him, but he does not perceive it until too late. The result is a fatal crash. Sure, if his speed had been slower, he might have become alert in time, and in this sense, speed did, indeed, kill.Another man has had "just two beers, Officer." Again, he is traveling at 70 miles an hour, and his alertness is dimmed, his reactions are impaired. The result is fatal.

Yet the public cries for more controlled-access highways, with straighter alignments, more open curves. And national defense considerations dictate that such roads be built. They are as safe as engineering skill and forethought can make them. Yet they cannot prevent the hotrodder, no matter what his age, from traveling at rates of speed too great for his experience, his ability as a driver, or his alertness at any given moment to control. The modern automobile is capable of traveling far faster than is safe for the average driver, no matter what the conditions and no matter how alert he may be.Thus the Arizona Highway Patrol is established, maintained and directed as a life and injury saving organization. Its primary purpose is not to arrest and penalize offenders. It is to save lives. Its officers are equipped with the most modern electronic speed-detection devices; they are trained to perceive the first symptoms of a decline in a driver's alertness; and they are provided the most efficient equipment for intercepting and detaining the unsafe driver.

For example, the Black Canyon Highway is such a temptation to people to drive fast it must be intensively patrolled. One patrolman recently told this writer that his specially equipped car would run 140 miles an hour easily. When the writer expressed surprise, the patrolman said that he has to use that maximum several times a day. "You'd be amazed," he said, "at how fast people drive on this highway. Just last night, about midnight, I had to pursue one car for several miles before I caught him. I ran more than 10 miles at 140 miles an hour to overtake him, and I booked him at an accurate 118.9 miles per hour.It is the Highway Patrol's duty to stop such people before they kill themselves. It is also the Patrol's duty to intercept people who show signs of weariness or sleepiness. Along the route of the interstate system, as well as all other state highways, in Arizona there are roadside rest areas provided for the traveling public by the State Highway Department. These are primarily safety devices. They attempt to induce people to pull off the road at frequent intervals, walk around, sit under the shade of a roadside tree, have a cup of coffee or a bottle of pop out of their picnic baskets, get a drink of water and refresh themselves, restore their alertness and proceed more safely.Many people are also surprised to learn that the Highway Department's permanent maintenance camps scattered along the entire state highway system serve vital safety functions. They are equipped with extensive first-aid supplies and staffed by people thoroughly trained in first aid. They also are tied together with Patrol Headquarters and with each other and the state civil defense organization by two-way radio. In the event of a national emergency or a natural catastrophe, these camps will assist tremendously in directing evacuation traffic and in maintaining communications.

To date, according to the Arizona Highway Department's last annual report, there are approximately 40,000 miles of improved highways within the state of Arizona. The county systems account for about 17,000 of these miles, while there are about 12,500 miles on lands administered by the Indian service, the Forest Service and the National Parks and Monuments agencies. City streets account for about 5,000 miles, while the balance of some 5,400 miles is in the state system.

The interstate system today has a little over 1,200 miles in it, other Federal-aid primary roads total about 1,761 miles, Federal-aid secondary roads about 1,756 miles and non-Federal-aid state highways about 640 miles.

Perhaps these numbers become a little bit more meaningful when it is pointed out that only 40 years ago, in 1929, Arizona had a total of 281 miles of hard-surfaced roads. This included city streets, county and state highways and Federal-aid highways. Spread that total out on Arizona's land surface of 113,680 square miles and it doesn't go very far. It becomes minuscule when it is realized that these 281 miles were simply the easiest to build, and they were mostly right in or immediately adjacent to the population centers.

From the beginning of Arizona's statehood in 1912 through the first 45 years of its history, the total investment in Arizona highways was a little less than $307 million, to June 30, 1957. Between July 1st of 1957 and June 30, 1967, an investment in Arizona highways was made totaling $646,183,756, or in that single decade more than twice as much as had been invested in the four and a half previous decades. As of this writing, the total investment in Arizona highway construction has exceeded a billion dollars, and the rate of expenditure accelerates as the need constantly grows.

A glance at a map of the national system of interstate and defense highways demonstrates eloquently that the planners of this system, primarily the Congress, have been acutely aware of the strategic importance of Arizona in the event of a national emergency or natural catastrophe requiring evacuation of the densely populated areas of Southern California. All three of the major west-to-east evacuation routes (Interstate 8, 10 and 40) come directly to the heart of Arizona, while the northeastward route, Interstate 15, crosses Arizona's northwest corner. Interstate 40 and Interstate 10 both funnel traffic farther eastward, while Interstate 40 is one of the four major transcontinental arteries of the entire country. These are effectively interconnected from the Mexican border to Interstate 40 at Flagstaff by a continuous system almost straight up through the center of Arizona.

When this great interstate system was in the planning stages, as mentioned earlier, many of the hosts of Arizona objected that such a system would encourage visitors to speed on through the state without pausing to enjoy its many wonders and hospitality. Fortunately their fears have been proved unfounded. The Interstate Defense Highway System has served rather to give people quick and easy access to the various sections of Arizona they want to visit. Then the visitor exits from the freeway, and has more time to spend roaming the many scenic state and county routes to the myriads of wonders tucked into every section of the state.

Romantic as the accomplishments of yesterday's pioneers might be, and glamorous as in the future of the Space Age, it seems appropriate to suggest a salute to the pioneers of the present, Arizona's highway engineers who are making life in Arizona so much easier and pleasanter for us today and for those who will follow in the immediate future.