The highway authorities of the state, counties, cities, towns, and villages, acting alone or in cooperation with each other or with any federal, state, or local agency or any other state having authority to participate in the construction and maintenance of highways, are hereby authorized to plan, designate, establish, regulate, vacate, alter, improve, maintain, and provide controlled-access facilities for public use wherever such authority or authorities are of the opinion that traffic conditions, present or future, will justify such special facilities; however, within cities and villages such authority shall be subject to such municipal consent as may be provided by law. Such highway authorities of the state, counties, cities, villages, and towns, in addition to the specific powers granted in this chapter, shall also have and may exercise, relative to controlled-access facilities, any and all additional authority now or hereafter vested in them relative to highways or streets within their respective jurisdictions. Said units may regulate, restrict, or prohibit the use of such controlled-access facilities by the various classes of vehicles or traffic in a manner consistent with Section 65-5-3.

No existing public street or highway shall be converted into a controlled-access facility except with the consent of the owners of lands abutting said freeway or with the purchase or condemnation of the access rights of said abutting land owners.

Nothing herein shall be construed as requiring the consent of the owners of the abutting lands where a street or highway is constructed, established, or located for the first time as a new way for the use of vehicular or pedestrian traffic.