The John Hanson Highway also completes a transportation triangle
joining Washington, Annapolis and Baltimore. It has been predicted
that by the year 2, 000, a total of 10, 000, 000 people will live within this
Triangle or regions surrounding it. By proper land use, by wise location
of industry and commerce, by sensible development of water and sewer-
age systems, by intelligent reservation of land for park areas and recrea-
tion facilities, by sound and adequate school construction and by well-
planned establishment of a transportation network—functions which
this Administration has actively supported and will continue to support
with vigor—this area will realize its full potential as a Golden Triangle.
It will become an even better place to work, to live and to raise future
generations of Marylanders. It will possess a magnetism that will en-
courage orderly growth in all fields of human endeavor.
This morning, we are concerned with the transportation phase of this
picture. The corridor between Annapolis and Washington always has
been of great importance. It has been important since the days when
colonial travelers, contemporaries of John Hanson for whom this high-
way is named, made the trip between the two capitals on horseback or
in carriages. Today, it is still a bustling corridor. The design of the
roadway and the types of vehicles have changed. Basically, this road will
perform the same function it did in colonial days, that of transporting
people and goods between the two cities. There is, however, more in-
volved in the job today's road will accomplish.
When notices were sent out advising the people that this stretch of
highway was to be opened today, the State Roads Commission received
a letter from a lady commuter who works in Washington and lives in
this part of Maryland. She said she has been counting the days until
this final section would be open to traffic. She is not alone. Many Mary-
landers who commute regularly into Washington have looked forward
to the time when their trip back and forth to work would be safer and
less time-consuming.
Other Marylanders living in this great suburban region and their
neighbors across the District line have been counting the days for a
different reason. Completion of this highway offers them a direct ex-
pressway link to some of the beach and recreation areas of Anne Arundel
County, other parts of Southern Maryland and across the Bay Bridge to
the Eastern Shore. While these travelers think of it as a holiday high-
way, its importance as an artery through which the bloodstream of
industry and commerce can flow freely and vigorously cannot be over-
emphasized.
So, Marylanders have been counting the days until this section of
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