CONSTRUCTION: Ohio’s Super-Highway

In the biggest bond issue of its kind in Wall Street’s history, the state of Ohio last week raised $326 million from U.S. investors. Not only was the entire issue sold out on the first day, but by nightfall each $1,000 bond (interest rate: 31%) was commanding a $25 premium.

The tax-free bonds were issued by the Ohio Turnpike Commission to finance construction of one of the biggest single road-building projects in U.S. history: a 241-mile super-highway across the state, from the western terminus of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the Indiana border. It dwarfs both the original 160-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike, the first super toll-highway, and the new $250 million, 118-mile New Jersey Turnpike (TIME, Aug. 27). With both of these, after a 35-mile Philadelphia bypass links them, the Ohio Turnpike will provide a super-highway route (see map) enabling motorists to drive all the way from Hartford, Conn, to Indiana, at high speeds, with few toll stops and no traffic lights. When additional New England toll roads are completed interlinked highways will reach from Portland, Me. to Chesapeake Bay and Washington.

More Traffic, Less Money. The turnpikes are the newest answer to highway congestion. The U.S., the most mobile and mechanized nation in the world, is wearing its roads out faster than it builds new ones. At the same time, the amount of its passenger and freight highway traffic keeps growing. In 16 years, the load on U.S. roads has more than doubled, from 518 billion ton-miles in 1936 to some 1.4 trillion ton-miles in 1951. And the number of vehicles has grown from 28 million to 52 million. But the U.S. is spending only $2.5 billion a year on roads while $4 billion would be needed to maintain the 1936 ratio of spending per ton-mile of traffic. Yet no more can be spent out of present road-building revenues (notably gasoline taxes).

The Prudent Way. More & more states are discovering that one answer, where traffic is heavy enough, is to build roads that pay for themselves. Indiana and Illinois have tentatively outlined projects to extend the eastern super-highway route to Chicago; New York is building a 535-mile Manhattan-to-Buffalo throughway; Florida has plans for a 350-mile Jackson-ville-to-Miami speed road. Along with everything else, highway costs have been rising: Ohio’s Turnpike will cost $1,300,000 per mile v. a mere $476,000 per mile for Pennsylvania’s original mileage. Tolls are rising, too. The New Jersey Turnpike is charging 1½¢ per mile v. 1¢ for Pennsylvania’s to pay the difference for the greater speed, and especially the greater safety, of modern highways. Despite the higher charges, traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike is already exceeding the original estimates by 50%, with the result that the highway can probably pay for itself in 15 years, instead of 30 as planned. Not only do motorists prefer pay-as-you-go to suffer-as-you-wait, but as last week proved, any sound project can be readily financed.