Today, Thursday 29 June 2006 marks the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. The largest public works project ever undertaken, the system comprises over 42,000 miles of grade-separated, divided highways, found throughout 49 states and the District of Columbia. Three-quarters of the system is funded by a fuel tax, the final 27% being paid for through general appropriations (2004). Currently, externalities are unaccounted for through the current funding mechanism, or are reflected through other areas in the economy, distorting the free market for transportation considerably. Such a system has shifted the market for transportation towards personal mobility and truck-based freight; the combination of this and federally-backed housing programs that have put over 70% of Americans in their own home, have contributed to massive amounts of auto-based sprawl, population dispersal and the decline of competing, private forms of transportation.
The last 50 years of the Interstate system have brought tumultuous change to the country, redirecting and focusing its economic growth and resource usage around one of the most inefficient conduits ever conceived. Overworked and overstressed, the free good that is the Interstate system is literally collapsing under the weight of trucks that are 2 times the design limits of the system and the overuse of interstates as commuter corridors, with stretches carrying multiples of their intended design capacities. The solution for many is to add lanes, which could only be equated with bringing more "free pizza" (Duany) to a neverending crude oil party - it will be eaten up, and faster than anyone thought possible.
The successes of the Interstate are numerous, well-heralded in articles released by many dailies and magazines marking its 50th birthday. Just as important, but less self-aggrandizing are the stories you won't hear, the plowing of urban freeways into historically successful, minority neighborhoods like
Overtown, near Miami, decimating local economies and forcing residents out of their homes through liberal use of eminent domain. You also won't hear of the economic growth that will never be on the old, decommissioned stretches of U.S. highways that parallel Interstates in many states, roads lined with the abandoned accoutrements of yesteryear, roadside motels and diners, service stations and the occasional quirky tourist attraction. You won't hear of the promises made and broken by central planners in a government office somewhere, making one town an economic powerhouse and breaking its neighbor, all through the selective routing of Interstate highways. No, the things you won't see that might have happened otherwise - Econ 101.
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with the Interstate system. I grew up a huge fan of it, and would draw gantry (guide) signs for fun (still do). I know huge amounts of inane trivia about the interstate system, and absolutely bore my wife to death with my useless erudition on the subject. I appreciate the uniformity that it brought to highway travel, but not accompanying uniformity brought to the rural and urban landscape. The interstate, as Eisenhower envisioned, was never to enter cities, but rather loop around them. This vision was not shared by big-city mayors that would rather have seen their share of fuel taxes spent on inner-city freeways, ostensibly bringing high-speed travel straight into downtown cores. The mayors won out, and the freeways that were built in urban areas were no less than atrocious concrete viaducts that permanently compartmentalized neighborhoods and allowed for quick hemorrhaging of residents and tax base out into the far-flung suburbs. Ike's vision of exits far and few between became greatly compromised too, as every landowner affected by the system's construction fought for an exit ramp and usually received one. Tolling the facilities wasn't deemed acceptable to the masses either, as if asking people if they would like to pay for something or get it for "free" would merit a surprising answer.
And there you have it, 50 years later. A ramp for everyone and the golden-arches within sight of most every exit. It's distinctly American, there's no doubt. Half of me is enamored with the spectacle of it all; the other half appalled of what "might have been" and what's lost forever.
Well, this rant is going nowhere. Your thoughts?
