Proclamation 3866—National Highway Week, 1968

In 1968, for the first time in our history, Americans will drive their cars and trucks more than one trillion miles in a single year.

Our highways give the American people a personal mobility unequaled in history. They permit more of our youth to get an education; they give workers greater opportunity for jobs; they are essential in providing goods and services; and they broaden opportunities for recreation.

While highways serve our economic and private needs, their planning and construction involve major social responsibilities. If highways are to benefit all the people, they must serve and enhance our total environment. This presents a challenge and an opportunity to officials at every level of government to see that highway development makes a positive contribution toward meeting both the transportation and the environmental needs of our people. In particular, we must assure fair treatment of those necessarily displaced by highway construction.

The Federal Government is concerned both with improving the quality of highway transportation and with achieving the social good that is implicit in the highway program.

We are striving to reduce the awful toll in death and injury an our highways by applying scientifically sound countermeasures.

We are working to improve the efficiency of the urban roads and streets we already have, as an alternative to expensive new construction.

We are focusing more attention on the overall interaction between highways and their environment, including the beauty of the roadsides.

In all these endeavors, we are working in partnership with State and local governments in the finest tradition of democratic government. The achievements of this partnership should be recognized by every American who benefits from them.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the week beginning September 22, 1968, as National Highway Week, and I urge Federal, State, and local officials, as well as highway industry and other organizations, to hold appropriate ceremonies during that week in recognition of what highway transportation means to our Nation.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-third.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON