Proclamation 3735—National Highway Week, 1966

Americans have just cause to celebrate the progress that has been made in highway transportation in this Nation.

We have doubled the miles of paved streets and roads in the past 20 years, and our unequalled highway network, constantly being expanded and improved, makes us the most mobile country in the history of man.

Automotive vehicles traveling over those roads account for more than 90 percent of this country's personal travel. Virtually everything that moves from field and factory to the home utilizes this system in one way or another.

Planning, building, and maintaining the system requires constant and detailed cooperation between Federal, State and local governments, and private enterprise. The daily working partnership they have achieved is a remarkable example of creative Federalism.

American ingenuity and determination are constantly being applied to improve and expand this system. We are in the midst of a major effort to beautify our highways and roadsides, to provide rest and recreation facilities for highway travelers, and to make our roads and vehicles safer for those who travel them.

The continued growth of highway travel reflects the continued population growth in our country and the desire of our citizens for greater mobility. This greater mobility has increased opportunities for employment and recreation for everyone throughout the Nation.

Yet increased highway travel has also magnified many problems. Without careful planning, more and better highways between our cities only serve to increase traffic congestion within the cities themselves. We must continue to plan our highway system so that it will contribute to the rational use of urban space as well as to pleasant and convenient transportation through the countryside.

We must also strive for advances in automotive safety that will keep pace with advances in the design of our highways. Modern vehicles travel at greater speeds over longer distances than ever before; we must make certain that they are equal to the rigorous demands placed upon them by modern high-speed travel. Despite continuing improvement in highway safety design, the toll of highway accidents is steadily rising; that toll must be reversed.

It is essential that Americans understand and appreciate the importance of highway transportation to their social and economic progress, and to the defense of our Nation; that they recognize the individuals and industries that have made our highway transportation system possible; and that they support and participate in programs to improve the safety and beauty of our highways.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning September 18, 1966, as National Highway Week. I urge Federal, State, and local government officials, as well as highway industry organizations, and other organizations having a public-spirited interest in our national highways, to hold appropriate ceremonies during that week in recognition of what highway transportation means to our country.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the. City, of Washington this seventeenth day of August in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-first.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

George W. Ball

Acting Secretary of State