Remarks by Federal Highway Administrator F. C. Turner, for Delivery before the 50th Anniversary Plenary Session of the Highway Research Board

Transportation in the Seventies and Eighties" I am pleased to take part in this fiftieth annual meeting of the Highway Research Board-Let me add my congratulations on this golden anniversary, and my wishes that the liRB will enjoy many more years of achievement on behalf of the public interest in highway transportation.In this panel we have been charged with the task of setting forth realistically what transportation is likely to be 10 and 20 years into the future.For highway engineers and administrators this is not a new or special task, because this is exactly what we have to be doing every day on every project which we undertake, and we start about 30 or 40 of them out anew on every working day.By law, we are required to design all Interstate projects for the types and volumes of traffic forecast to be using a projectConstruction Equipment FEBRUARY 1971/ 20 years beyond the year during which construction is to begin."With six-to ten-year leadtime --and sometimes longer between programming and the beginning of construction,!! is obvious that in all such cases we are compelled to be realistically forecasting the situation in specific dimensions and numbers for more than 20 years into the future.We customarily follow much the same procedure with other Federal aid projects also, even though the law does not specifically require it in cases other than on the Interstate.For a number of years, we have been making forecasts of highway needs into the future --20 years or more in response to Congressional directives, as well as on our own, as a part of the general management of highway programs of this country.Characteristically, then, and by the exercise of appropriate administrative leadership in the profession, we have been regularlydoing exactly what this panel is asked to do this morning.Looking backward from time to time, in order to see whether our previous projections had been accurate, I think it is fair to say that we have not been too far in error in our forecasting, especially in respect to broad totals and overall needs.Most of the errors are in individual project forecasting and these have been due in most cases to major developments under private control resulting from significant changes in the projected land use plan through operation of the zoning process.