The Quiet Highwayman

The U.S. got a topnotch builder last week to straw-boss its 41,000-mile interstate-highway program. In Washington, Federal Highway Administrator Bertram Tallamy chose Ellis Leroy Armstrong, 44, a nondrinking, nonsmoking, noncussing Mormon who heads Utah's Road Commission, to be his "executive vice president" and the man responsible to oversee actual construction. As commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, Armstrong not only must pour the concrete, but also smooth the waters as conciliator between the states and the Government on history's biggest public works project.

Low Pressure. Armstrong learned his engineering at Utah State ('36), sharpened it as a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation dam engineer from 1936 to 1953. Moving on to Egypt's controversial--and still unbuilt--Aswan High Dam project as a U.S. consultant, he showed plenty of diplomatic savvy in reconciling the divergent views of U.S. and Egyptian engineers during preliminary work. Later he took over as director of dams on the St. Lawrence Seaway project, another job that required low-pressure diplomacy to resolve the conflicting desires of the U.S. and Canada. Last year Armstrong took a pay cut of almost 50% to go home to Utah and a $14,000-a-year job as director of the state's Road Commission. Utah was lucky to get him. Armstrong lifted Utah from 48th to 34th among states in getting its share of federal highway work under way, increased the amount of contracts let by Utah almost fivefold. Of his new $17,000-a-year federal assignment, Armstrong says: "This is a job of coordination and cooperation on a gigantic scale. We won't have to resort to any Russian methods to get it done."

Armstrong's toughest task will be to needle those states that have lagged behind building schedules (see map). Several states are bogged down because they cannot raise their own 10% contribution to match the Government's 90% outlay. Among the laggards: West Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho.

High Gear. Fastest progress has come in the large, rich states, notably California and Ohio, which were pushing their own major road-building programs when the federal-aid Highway Act was passed in 1956, came into the program well prepared. Most of the modern state toll roads already built will be incorporated into the new interstate system, e.g., the straight, broad New York Thruway, the Pennsylvania and Ohio turnpikes. Solid advances in building new roads also have been scored by Maryland, New Mexico, Missouri, Washington and Illinois.

Despite the scattered slowdowns, the highway program is beginning to move out of first gear. Construction of 1,952 miles of the massive interstate system is already completed, another 3,159 miles abuilding. Within a year, says the Bureau of Public Roads, concrete results will become visible across the nation. In 1958 alone, $6.2 billion will be spent on public highways. And next year the figure will ride up to $7.1 billion, more than half the amount that travel-loving Americans are expected to spend on new cars in 1959. Total estimated road outlays from 1959 to 1962: $30.2 billion.

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