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Show appreciation - for a change Governor Calvin L. Rampton has declared the week of September 19-25 as National Highway Week in Utah. In his declaration, Gov. Rampton said, "The constant need for better highways of adequate capacity to satisfy the ever increasing traffic demands requires the understanding under-standing and support of all our citiz.ens. The motorists of the State of Utah support this program through our federal highway-user taxes and should take advantage of the progress and planning for high development. The Governor invited all citizens to consider, during dur-ing National Highway Week, the fundamental role of highways in their daily lives. According to the Utah State Department of Highways High-ways there are 40,441 miles of public highways, roads and streets in the State of Utah, serving everything from high-speed interstate commuter traffic to rural agricultural roads. Henry C. Hclland, Director of Highways, commented, com-mented, "We would like to take the opportunity of National Na-tional Highway Week to remind all citizens of the State of Utah that the goal of highway engineers and road builders is to serve them with an adequately planned, well integrated transportation network. This task would be impossible without the understanding and cooperation coopera-tion of Utah's citizens. I, therefore, urge all citizens to become more involved in the highway planning process pro-cess which will dictate the future adequacy of their motor vehicle transportation." In this day of increasing controversy over who should decide which highways are built in what locations, loca-tions, it is easy to cast the Highway Department in the role of the agency -to blame'Tor'-all the problems in today's to-day's complex transportation network. National Highway High-way Week is a good opportunity to pause for a moment mom-ent of appreciation to the agency for the job they have done in planning and implementing a system of highways high-ways in the most difficult terrain in the world. |