A TALE OF FOUR CITIES / A REPORT ON EXPRESSWAYS

[Music] WCTV presents a tale of four cities a report on [Music] expressways hello I'm Russ hod for the past 3 weeks we've been looking at expressways in Dallas Houston and New Orleans today we shall visit Atlanta General Sherman didn't have an expressway system to travel when he went through the city and his march to the sea in 1864 he didn't need it he burned and sacked the city as he went today Atlanta is a resurrected City rebuilt by citizens who refuse to accept defeat determined to make their City greater and more beautiful than before much progress has been made in the last few years toward widening streets and building an expressway system there was some opposition for a while from various City officials and the program became bogged down in politics at present some 20 miles of expressways are in use in the we'll look at those from the air in a few moments the expressway committee headed by Shelby County Commission chairman David harsh after visiting Dallas Houston and New Orleans decided that Atlanta should be the last City on the tour this is Downtown Atlanta as seen from the top of the Fulton National Bank building the street system is very complex very hilly and radiating from a central downtown location known as fire five points to the Northeast about 12 M distant through the haze you can see Stone Mountain the Memphis committee was greeted by mayor William B Hartsfield and his assistants the Atlanta mayor had just been reelected by a margin of only 3,000 votes expressways were an issue in the campaign the mayor feels very strongly about them well gentlemen uh we are glad to have you here on the subject of expressways the Atlanta Expressway system completed will represent an investment of something over $85 million and believe me it represents far more than that a lot of weight time and trouble the engineers who designed this Expressway system said that if we had all the money and all the inclination and everybody read it that it would take 11 years to build this North South Expressway through Atlanta and we're getting close to that 11 years now we're working now in the central business area and believe me that is time consuming and expensive uh an expressway is not simply a road it's got to be considered as a major undertaking in the town it will have enormous repercussions on traffic there will be many side problems requiring the patience of your people there will be detours there will be dust there will be mud there will be the tarting up of side streets by the ukids carrying G and there will be delays in acquiring property while people take you to court there will be all kinds of incidental leases and there will be problems of merchants on the side streets to be uh considered it's a major undertaking but when once you complete it or any segment of it the people are going to love it and they're going to demand still more expressly you find it take you a long time longer a little longer than you expect but when you've got it you've got something that you can't do without and that's Atlant now bear in mind that these major traffic improvements are just like operating on a man uh who's sick you can't cut his leg off and you can't cut his hand off and pull out his teeth and operate on his brain and maybe take out an eye all at one time you put him on the operating table and try to do all of that too fast you'll kill him whereas if you do these things one at a time the patient survives and your town has got to continue living and doing business so that accounts for what sometimes seems like unseemly delayed you've got to live with these expressways while you build them Mr harsh uh I believe you have a question you want to ask me I'd like to know when you started planning your expressways the expressways um uh were the planning was begun I believe in 1942 when the state highway department had a nationally known fir of Engineers to come down and make a layout and they turn the report over to both the city and county and what was your square mile area at that time Atlanta at that time uh was uh around 37 square miles in land area and we had a population at that time of a little over 300,000 and what is the total uh miles of Expressway which you now have planned well we have uh uh finished and are using about 20 miles of Expressway and since that time we have uh expanded the city limits took in 100 square miles more and incidentally along with it 100,000 more people and that means 100,000 at that time which is more now and uh we enlarged the city to where we are now about uh I would estimate along with a chamber of commerce about 55,000 people inside the city limit and in the immediate metropolitan area about 885,000 and we think that these expressways are going to have the effect Mr harsh of spreading more people out into the adjoining rural counties the counties around Atlanta which are now rural are going to become City County as a result of the expressway will that be uh beneficial to Atlanta you think we think so of course all of those things raise governmental problems but uh uh solving of problems is what we are paid to do and undoubtedly there will be governmental complications in these rural counties as they change from rural to City counties but uh certainly the trading area will greatly benefit and the overall increase of the prage of your town and its business will be very beneficial I believe you had a question you wanted to ask me Mr Simmons mayor in the acquisition of the property for the right away of these expressways obviously you dispossessed an awful lot of families and perhaps business too was it possible to relocate these people in places there without too much disturbance yes uh uh incidentally that creates a very beneficent side result uh an intense activity in the real estate business relocating people and buying new this is for industry that has been moved out or stored now in the field of relocation of people uh you have to move very sympathetically and give people time to change for instance uh we uh in one leg of the expressway we relocated five churches they were negro churches but we had to help them relocate our land agent uh in one case uh built a garage for an office building that was going to lose a parking lot and that became the consideration of taking it and in the field of relocation of uh people of small means for instance uh uh our one leg of our Expressway goes through a negro section and in that uh instance we use the services of the local Urban lead to help find new homes for those negro people and uh I think we got away with it f shap but it is a great problem and one that you must be to pad to cope with when you extend these expressways to the outer section of the city has it created new land for the development of additional subdivisions and new land for the expansion of the industry of course the expressway system uh creates uh new areas which then have quick access to other areas and the value of land goes up in those areas and uh when the expressway moves out towards the rural areas it creates new living space subdivision developers will go there and create uh new subdivisions now immediately along the expressway you must remember that if they are limited access you cannot build on them and that uh uh brings the the the thought that you must see to it that ample Bri are installed across over the expressway and that service roads are established along the side so that the real estate along the side may be used you say that it has increased the price of the land do you have any idea what the increase in price has been just approximately Mr Simmons Atlanta is such fast growing town and there's so much increase in real estate that I couldn't tell you but unquestionably the express has added a great deal of value to what was formerly a neglected and inaccessible land and uh a great many new buildings have been built some Office Buildings have gone out along the express way away from town the especially the institutional type of business for instance the American Red Cross had a very beautiful building now they left the center of the town going out on the expressway many other uh companies that no necessity to stay in the center of town moved out because they had quick accessibility to the balance of the town north and south well I noticed your city engineer Mr Fowler here Mr fower do you have a question yes Mr Mayor can you tell me what the effect of building these expressways has been on your central business section that's uh quite an important question Mr fer they do have an enormous effect and you must do what we are trying to do now see that there are plenty of access ramps on and off ramps on the expressway as it goes through the business area so people may easily turn off of these ramps and get easily into your Central Business area if you don't do that all you have built is a channel bypassing the Central Business area so the question of on and off ramps into your business area is highly important and I hope you look after that because that's exactly what we're doing here in Atlanta right now may I'd like to ask you this you mentioned this previously about getting enough uh under passes or over passes from one side of the expressway to the other so it's not to divide your town into sectors what has your experience been about that well of course that's a matter of cost there will be those trying to hold down the cost and there will be those trying to get more ramps and more bridges uh I think you just got to consult with your state and your federal engineers and make sure that there is sufficient access across the expressway you run into little problems like this our police department has found they've got to have little turnarounds on this place somewhere because if they see the law being violated on the other side of the the express way why they're inaccessible unless they got a way to turn around and Chase that violator do you have any did you have any trouble with the fire department not having exess from one side of the express way to the other they got the same problem uh you've got a firefighting problem as well as a traffic problem that should be at appropriate intervals Bridges or underpasses and that's all a matter of consultation with your engineer I think one other question is par me I hear most how the property owners are dealt with I'd like somebody to tell me just the process beginning end well you're going to have to set up a land department and put on a lot of uh of skilled and honest people to deal with your property owners it incidentally requires the services of appraisers and lawyers and as I said to begin with there's a great deal of engineering and a great deal of legal work to be done before these Act expressways actually Bill uh Mr Jones I believe you had a question you want to ask me now yes Mr Mayor I would like to know if you find it necessary to go through any parks or public playgrounds well uh I'll answer that by saying an Express way of no respect to the persons or property I don't think we've gone through any big city parks but we did go through part of the property of Georgia Tech uh we went through uh part of the property of Maris College one of our large Catholic colleges here and uh we had to eliminate uh several churches and when we do build the East West Expressway it's going right through one of our large golf courses we're going to have to abandon it as a golf course and save part of the property for a small park that's a public golf course that's a public Atlanta City Golf Course the key golf course but do you think when you finish this program that you have outlined that you would be done with Express ways that you can rest on your lives no sir I think an expanding growing town uh with greater population more Leisure more people using automobiles is going to require more and more expressways and the total mileage you have under your programming or your study now is how many well when we finish this North South Expressway right in here through the town it will be approximately 24 miles when we finish the plan perimeter roads that are part of this Expressway system it will mean a total mileage of 70 miles of Expressway system I believe that answers my question mayor I certainly want to thank you for your kindness and that of your staff it's been very educational for us and I'm sure we'll go along way towards influencing the citizens of Memphis that they must have express way well they can't do without it thank you sir thank you mayor Hartsfield assistants escorted the Memphis committee on a tour of the Atlanta Expressway system the present system is in the shape of a y with the stem of the Y being in the southern section of the city here is one leg of the northern section as it cuts across the campus of Georgia Tech University not much land was taken from the school but it was necessary to take one small slice off the corner of the the campus it's just a few blocks from this overpass to the downtown section of Atlanta where construction is still going on it's difficult to realize the magnitude and the beauty of an expressway system from ground level so our camera crew headed for Fulton County Airport on the edge of the city this is one of the finest small airports in the country it's for private planes only and CA Personnel man the tower it is run by the Fulton County Board of Commissioners we started at the southern end of of the expressway like most people we were under the impression that interchanges were all of the same general style we find there are as many variations as there are Engineers each interchange is designed to fit the peculiar needs of that location you can see here that construction is going on very close to the expressway on land that was formerly inaccessible you will notice that this Expressway system does not always go in a straight line as did the Central Expressway in Dallas as we said earlier Atlanta is very hilly and at times the expressway skirts a small hill rather than cut through it we were surprised to learn later that the Atlanta Transit company buses use the expressway as the expressway nears the downtown area it seems to end abruptly this is the area where construction is still going on it would be impossible to work on this whole section at one time it is done peace meal as mayor Hartsfield remarked earlier you operate on one section at a time so as not to kill the patient downtown Atlanta might never recover if this whole section were closed off while construction was finished Atlanta has made great strides in the matter of parking in the downtown area at the moment there is enough off street parking to adequately take care of all the vehicles that enter the area plans are in the works for more parking areas near the off and on ramps which will funnel traffic into and out of the downtown section as you can see the engineers and designers provided for adequate Landscaping an expressway is not an entirely New Concept in handling traffic as we said in an earlier program the Romans used them 2,000 years ago also to alleviate congestion Rome banned the parking of Chariots on Main Streets during feast days and restricted downtown deliveries During certain hours this is Georgia Tech's Football stadi and campus this is the section of Expressway you saw from ground level a few minutes ago as you can see it has made little difference in the appearance of the school in the northern part of the city the expressway branches out into two legs one going to the Northeast the other to the Northwest this is the why we spoke about it was necessary to get some motorist from the Northeast to the Northwest leg and this beautiful engineering Marvel is the result imagine the confusion at rush hour if this were an ordinary road with no divided strips no elevation for Lanes to cross one another above all imagine the death toll here is a portion of the Northeast leg with its attendant off and on ramps for secondary roads in the past 4 weeks we have seen some fabulous Creations by the expressway designers from the air each interchange is easy to recognize from ground level because of their very size they look some what the same this is a figure eight on the northwest leg of the Atlanta Expressway there are very few people who could say that this interchange detracts from the appearance of the city there is no chance for head-on collisions the traffic flows smoothly and quickly here again new land has been opened up for development this is only 20 M of the planned 70 Mi of the Atlanta system the circumferential route encircling the city is still in the planning stage as is the East West Expressway here is an ordinary Crossover with on and off ramps on each side to give access to the surrounding territory here at the extreme North End of the city is the last interchange in the system this is a heart-shaped Affair it's hard to say which of these various styles of interchanges are the more efficient some are designed to handle a maximum volume of traffic others are designed to fit roads Crossing at odd angles others for roads Crossing at right angles beautiful from the air Tactical for the driver it was time to talk to the people of Atlanta we set up our cameras on famous Peach Tree Street what is your name sir Clifford Ariel Ariel yes sir Mr Ariel do you uh travel the expressways in Atlanta well uh not not not too in work I travel them when I'm going out of town and in town do they help you then oh yes definitely well you evidently live then to the east or west in Atlanta no I yes I live to the northeast of Atlanta other words the expressway goes off the wrong direction for you that's right uh understand of course they have other expressways coming through that the highway 78 will eventually be an expressway do you think that the people of Atlanta are uh happy with the expressway they now have well as far as I can understand I think they are yes and I think it has been a big Improvement for for through traffic coming into Atlanta and people who live out from Atlanta coming into town to work of course the the times that we have been to Atlanta we've always come in from the wrong direction we come either from the east or the west and haven't had a really had a chance to ride on the expressway uh have you heard any expressions of opinion as to uh whether the expressway has hurt their property in any way well uh no I haven't I have heard a lot of people say that they thought maybe that it might uh hurt their property but then after it got through I think the beautification of the of the expressway itself has helped their property um uh would you think that uh the expressway taking some of the traffic off of these streets surrounding it uh some of the other major streets would help their property any I think possibly it would yes sir oh could you tell me why it took as long to build the expressway in Atlanta as it has no sir I can't give you an answer on that I'm no contractor well it uh we've heard quite a few uh people say that it's taken an awful long time to build we talked to one gentleman this morning that said that already they're obsolete well I don't think that they are obsolete now uh it is it is quite feasible that uh that they should have made three lanes to start with instead of only two lanes on each side I think it would have taken care of a lot more traffic but under the circumstances they handle a lot of traffic thank you very much Mr Ariel thank you some of the people we talked to were turst and to the point and in a bit of a hurry what is your name please Mrs Williams Mrs Williams do you uh travel the expressways in Atlanta mhm all the time do you like them yes I like the I like them when they're not uh when they're when they're clear and free and you can get through them you find that they're pretty crowded in the morning yes uh why would that be I mean wouldn't you think that they should be able to handle all the traffic for which their design well I think Atlanta has grown F so so fast since expressways were open that it's been impossible to to keep in other words they're almost obsolete by the time they get get in action yeah uh do you you travel it every morning you say yes how long does it take you to come to work uh about 15 minutes from my house which is a great saving over the former time what was the former time uh 25 City how far out do you live 9 miles Beyond Buckhead do you live close to the expressway yes about how close about 2 miles do you think that the expressway has affected the value of your property you mean favorably or unfavorably either way I look say favorably because it makes it more accessible I see in other words you think the value of your property has risen then because of the expressway uh are they beautifying the expressway here they're trying in spots I got to go work okay fine thank you so much who should know more about Atlanta traffic conditions than a man who drives the Streets of Atlanta all day we have here a gentleman from the Atlanta transit system I believe driving there's a bus on the Atlanta Streets what is your name Sir Paul long Mr long yes sir you drive a bus on the Atlanta Streets Atlanta Streets and the expressway well the bus goes over the expressway we have uh about oh eight or 10 limited services that run over Expressway limited uh you would call that an express bus or whats we in Memphis would call it an Express Bus uh do you find that it uh saves you any time well a normal trip on Route 23 oor on the street it takes about 45 minutes from uh on the same trip on a limited bus on expressway takes 25 just about half the time uh do you find your buses are pretty well uh pretty crowded in other words do you use the do the people in Atlanta use the mass transportation system that's the question they do more so than ever before now I tell you if we didn't have the expressway here we'd be lost uh of course you're still having to come through the downtown section aren't you uh the expressway here not completed as yet and uh we of course we use TRS downtown but other than that we have to run into town and traffic kind of blocks up the simple fact we don't have exits and a place to enter properly as yet of course that will be taken care of as the expressway is completed yes and that will uh you probably hear expressions of opinion from your passengers I'm sure you do just like uh a cab driver over here what uh do the people in Atlanta think of the expressways I think they're all very pleased with it but you naturally hear a few complaints with simple fact it's not finished if it were finished I think everybody would be completely happy we've heard the expression before we heard it in Dallas and in other cities that when the city once gets one expressway then they want more uh yes sir that's the truth uh I think a good example of that is especially if people have traveled at all is Los Angeles now they refer to them as freeways but you don't have traffic blocks out there and they handle more traffic there and I think anywhere in the world yeah that's true we've seen pictures of that we've never been there but we've seen pictures of it it's Deck Over deck like Bridges is really something to look at especially in the downtown area more or less in the edge of downtown well it's helped you then in in your work and uh uh traveling around the city well this uh I think that this uh will eventually take care of all this downtown work now I I told uh when of you sound man that at times it's been 40 minutes and eight blocks in town on a bus now you can go right on through it I noticed that the buses going by here they don't seem to waste any time at all of course all your parking I noticed is off the main streets too well that is in some places and some places not now we have tried to get u a 16 block square area I understand downtown here uh free and clear parking but so far we've been able to do it and I don't know when we will have that but if we can ever get that I think we'll avoid all this congestion here in main part of town you do have pretty well u u have off street parking here do you not uh a great deal of it now a Transit company has come up with a little IDE where we provide parking lots on the edge of town and they ride Mass buses to Town And this parking service I think the transit company either purchases or leases a lot and provides free parking saf thank you very much sir you're quite welcome thank you this is not the last chapter in The Tale of four cities each City had its problem each was different one thing was the same though in each City almost without exception the citizens liked their expressways the idea behind these four programs was to acquaint you the citizens of Memphis with what your sister cities are doing next week we shall take up a fifth City Memphis you will see what happens to Memphis traffic during the rush hour you will find out just how far along Memphis is toward an expressway system incidentally if you have questions about the Memphis Expressway system that you would like to have answered please send them to me Russ Hodge WCTV Hotel PE Memphis we will have as our guests Mr WB Pard Chief design engineer of Harland Bartholomew and Associates and the committee who made the inspection trip will also join us here on the program much of the dissension about expressways in this and other cities has come about because of ignorance of what is planned and the benefits to be gained there from someone once said knowledge begins when ignorance is acknowledged join us next week this is Russ h [Music]