I don't have the answers now and neither do the experts. And a deci-
sion will have to be made by 1965 because that is the year current bulk
financing of our highway program runs out. The highway construction
bond issue, under which Maryland has been operating since 1953, will
have run its course. Revenues now being collected will barely pay for
bond servicing, the matching of federal aid apportionments, plus State
highway maintenance. That will be after 1965 and, as with most things,
it is closer than we think.

The time, then, to find out what we will need is now. Next month,
the General Assembly will have before it a proposal for a comprehensive
highway needs study. This proposed study would include needs for
State, county and municipal highway systems. Besides basic highway
needs, the study will include determination of mass transit needs in
urban areas, requirements for corridor movements of people and goods
and the distribution of highway revenues. Determination of urban
transport needs will include the results of studies already in progress by
the Miles Commission, the Baltimore Metropolitan Transit Authority, the
Wilbur Smith Study of the projected 1980 traffic in the 800-square-mile
Baltimore metropolitan region and the updating of the Washington
traffic survey, as well as many other county and city or town master plan
studies.

Every local street and boulevard has a definite function and this study
will help determine it. And we must remember the size of the county
and municipal road networks total 15, 000 miles as compared to 5, 000
miles on the State system.

A study of the magnitude we are suggesting would follow an orderly
pattern. It will place in a definite category every mile of highway
presently existing in the State, including State, county and municipal
systems. Each public road in the State has a definite purpose, a definite
role to play, as I pointed out earlier, in the plan to improve mobility
and accessibility. The experts call it functional classification and that is
what this study would purport to do, to give each mile of public road a
functional classification. The reason for this is because of the passage
of time and the changing patterns of growth, certain highways, orig-
inally placed in certain systems, have changed in character and impor-
tance. Also, there are many gaps in the various areas of jurisdiction on
certain roads, which, among other things, makes for more expensive
maintenance.

In another field, the study would appraise the condition of all roads in
the State and determine the work needed to correct any deficiencies as

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