Driver Lifestyles

Connecting America

By Jeff Jensen, Editor
Posted Jan 5th 2007 6:01AM

It's difficult for many citizens alive today to picture the American landscape of the early 1950's.

There were no Wal-Marts then, no Ramada Inns, Best Westerns or a McDonalds on every corner. A trip to another city or state often involved travel on a 2-lane road through cities, towns and villages and no one got anywhere very quickly.

That was a time when a driver making a late night trip worried about finding fuel and food. Only places that had turnpikes could be counted on for late night refueling. The Interstates have changed that. While a commercialized exit might be something of an eye sore, it also can be a sight for sore eyes. A driver can find food, fuel, and human contact at these lighted outposts of urban society. They have become small towns themselves.

The establishment of the Interstate system effectively doubled the miles that a trucker could run in a day. And it has spawned such basic elements of American life as the suburb, the motel, the chain store, the recreational vehicle, the seat belt, the spring-break trek to Florida, the 30-mile commute and the two-mile traffic jam.

Specifically designed to accommodate high speeds, the nation's fastest highways are also the safest. The Federal Highway Administration reports about one fatality for every 100 million vehicle miles on the interstates, about half the death rate of other U.S. roads.

Today, the trucking industry hauls nearly 70 percent of all freight moved across the U.S. Over 80 percent of our communities depend solely on trucking for delivery of their goods and products, communities now reachable because of the Interstate Highway system. The Interstate system has had an enormous impact on the transportation industry and the United States has profited greatly from the vision of President Eisenhower and others many years ago.

The roots
In the beginning of the 20th century, a national, uninterrupted system of highways was merely a dream. To encourage immigration to the central United States, in 1815 a National Road was built that ran between Maryland and St. Louis which ultimately, fell into disrepair. It wasn't until the late 1930s that Dwight D. Eisenhower advocated for the transcontinental system of highways that eventually took his name.

The inspiration
In July 1919, the first Transcontinental Motor Train departed Washington,DC for San Francisco via the Lincoln Highway. The trip was part of a program to encourage the national government to invest in a national interstate defense system. Accompanying the caravan was a young Army lieutenant colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The convoy was made up of 81 vehicles carrying 37 officers and 258 enlisted men. There were 46 trucks ranging from three-quarter-ton Dodge vans to huge Mack trucks along with 11 passenger cars for the officers and motorcycles for the scouts.
Industrialist Harvey Firestone sent two of his own trucks equipped with his inflatable, pneumatic tires, while most of the other vehicles rode on solid rubber tires.

The Lincoln Highway was a mix of paved roadways, long stretches of gravel road and long stretches of dirt roads. Obstacles included hundreds of dilapidated wood bridges with few of them able to carry the weight of the convoy's vehicles.
Vehicles were routinely pulled out of the mud by soldiers or out of deep ditches by rudimentary "wreckers". Mechanical problems were commonplace and there were more than 200 accidents.

Also contributing to the snail's pace of the Motor Train were blasting winds, rain, hail, snow and slush. All along the route, people would gather at every stop on the Lincoln Highway to get a close-up look at these mud-caked trucks and weary soldiers. In all, some 3 million Americans witnessed the convoy blaze past at an average speed of 6 mph.

The Transcontinental Motor Train rolled into the San Francisco terminus 62 days after leaving Washington, rolling up a total of 3,251 miles.

Eisenhower summarized the trip in a six-page report that strongly suggested the need for better roads. A quarter-century later, as supreme allied commander in Europe, Eisenhower saw the impact of a modern highway system when his soldiers used the German autobahns -- four-lane divided highways with on- and off-ramps and no traffic signals -- to pursue Hitler's army toward Berlin.

The beginnings
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 was the first serious attempt to develop a national roadway system. Under the auspices of the Bureau of Public Roads, the goal of this act was to study the feasibility of a toll-financed system of three east-west and three north-south superhighways. From this study, officials found out this system could not be self-supporting. They advocated for a 26,700-mile network instead.

Congress passed further legislation in the form of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. The act chartered a "National System of Interstate Highways" and expanded the network to 40,000 miles. Soon state highway agencies and the Department of Defense planned nationwide routes. However, because no specific funds were authorized for construction, progress was slow.

Soon after becoming president in 1953, President Eisenhower authorized the first funding of the interstate system. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954 set aside $175 million for the project. However, even more money was needed for the system that Eisenhower envisioned, and he continued to press for funds. Two years later, the expanded Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized a budget of $25 billion, of which the federal share would be 90%.

Under the Federal-Aid Highway Act signed by Eisenhower in 1956, the federal government agreed to finance 90 percent of the construction costs of the interstate system â€“ largely paid for by gas taxes. States were responsible for the remaining 10 percent of the cost, as well as upkeep.

Construction of the Interstate Highway System was officially regarded as complete in 1991, although work on some new roads continues. The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over a dozen years. But it ended up costing $114 billion and took 35 years to complete.

When the first bucket of concrete was poured, there were only 120,000 tractor-trailers operating on U.S. highways, compared with the nearly 3 million rigs that ply the interstates today.

The legislation of 1956 also provided for an extended network of 41,012 mi and nationwide design standards, including:
- a minimum of two lanes in each direction
- lanes of 12 ft width
- a ten-foot right paved shoulder
- design speeds of 50â€“70 mph

By mid-70s the system was largely in place - 47,000 miles of road, 5,600 bridges and 15,000 interchanges. This year alone, Americans will use that system to drive an estimated three trillion miles.

In 1990, in recognition of President Eisenhower's pivitol role in building the national system of interstate highways, President George H.W. Bush signed legislation officially renaming it the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

The procedure for naming the highways is systematic. Major routes are designated by single- or two-digit numbers. If a route runs north-south, it is given an odd number, and if route a runs east-west, an even number. For north-south routes, numbering conventions begin in the south. Thus I-5 runs north and south along the West Coast, while I-95 runs north and south along the East Coast. For east-west routes, numbers begin in the west.

Major routes usually traverse cities and are the shortest and most direct line of travel. Connecting interstate routes that travel around a city carry three-digit numbers.

Celebrating its 50th birthday this past summer, the U.S. Interstate system represents the greatest public works project in history and is a testament to the forward-thinking of our leaders and the American spirit.

Facts About The Interstate Highway System

Total miles: 46,837 (2004)

Longest Interstate Routes:

I-90, Seattle, Wash., to Boston, Mass., 3,020.54 miles

(I-80, San Francisco, Calif., to Teaneck, N.J., 2,899.54 miles

I-40, Barstow, Calif., to Wilmington, N.C., 2,555.40 miles

I-10, Los Angeles, Calif., to Jacksonville, Fla., 2,460.34 miles

Shortest two-digit interstate routes:

I-73, Emery to Greensboro, N.C., 12.27 miles

I-97, Annapolis to Baltimore, Md., 17.62 miles

I-99, Bedford to Bald Eagle, Pa., 53 miles

I-19, Nogales to Tucson, Ariz., 63.35 miles

Shortest three-digit interstate routes: