Driving on an Interstate Highway Today? Thank President Eisenhower
Today is the Interstate Highway System's 65th Birthday. And a Great Success Story.
Every time I mention Dwight Eisenhower as the most consequential President of the past 70 years, I get quizzical looks.
What about Ronald Reagan, I'm asked? Fair enough. Reagan transformed not just a major political party or even our national economy but the world by helping the former Soviet Union drive itself six feet underground. All good. Much of it sadly has been or is being undone by subsequent Presidents, politicians, and Congresses, sadly enough.
But our Interstate Highways System persists and remains a crown jewel of our economy, even our way of life.
This holiday weekend, or the next time you hop on I-395, I-295, I-270, or I-66 leaving Washington, or perhaps I-76, I-476, or I-95 escaping from the "greater" Philadelphia region, think of President Eisenhower. My wife and I have driven more than 4,000 miles across 20 states since January; the interstate highways we traversed are almost too many to recite, from I-270 in Maryland to I-40 from west Texas to North Carolina. You Californians practically live on the parking lots you call freeways.
The system touches every state - even Hawaii.
As a young lieutenant colonel in 1919, just as automobile ownership and use were exploding across the US, Eisenhower was part of a military expedition (Military Transport Corps) to determine how difficult it would be to move troops from one end of the country (Washington, DC), much of it along the Lincoln Highway to the other (San Francisco). It took 62 painful, arduous days. He referenced that trip in a book he would later write.
And later, General Eisenhower would be impressed with Germany's autobahn highway system during WWII, which facilitated the movement of enemy troops and supplies.
Today, you can make Eisenhower's 1919 trip (not on the same roads) in as little as two, maybe three, very long days, depending on how much of a hurry you are in and how much help you have behind the wheel. Truckers do it frequently, even routinely (although they have federal regulations limiting how much time they can spend road on any given day). Given the massive growth in federal regulations over infrastructure projects, from laws protecting endangered species to many other things, I wonder if we could achieve today what Eisenhower started?
On this day in 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act that made today's 41,000-mile "national system of interstate and defense highways" possible. Today, the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) is considered the "grandfather" of the interstate system. The longest interstate highway, at 3,200 miles, is I-90 connecting Boston with Seattle. It amazes me that we have 5 major east-west interstate highways, including I-80, I-70, I-40, and I-10.
But Eisenhower didn’t stop there. Remember, he was President during the “Cold War,” and worried about continuity of government in case of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Many of us remember, well into the 1980s, how odd it was that Interstate 64 from Richmond ended not far from White Sulphur Springs, WV (it has since been completed); or that an Amtrak train from Washington, DC also weirdly ended near the same location.
The reason was exposed in 1992 when the Washington Post uncovered the fact that the Greenbrier Resort, under a secret agreement with Congress in 1955, was established as a secret “bunker” for Congress to be preserved. A visit to the Greenbrier resort is not complete without a “bunker tour.” Interstate 64 and the Amtrak train were designed to expeditiously ferry government officials to an undisclosed location under the imminent threat of a nuclear attack. Congress has since made other contingency plans.
Now, of course, we have miscreant politicians trying to interpose cultural issues (racism, of course) on the construction of the interstate system. Of course, mistakes were made that divided cities from waterfronts and divided or paved over neighborhoods. A house in which I grew up in north Tulsa, Oklahoma, is now paved over by an interstate. Those in Philadelphia are painfully reminded of how the failure to make I-95 a tunnel underneath Philadelphia divided the city from its Delaware River waterfront. It's a travesty. Constructions contracts have been enmired too frequently in often corrupt practices and failed management.
But that was not Eisenhower's fault. The impact of his vision, born out of painful experience nearly 40 years earlier, was no less impactful on our economy (and national defense) than today's digital revolution. He deserves honor and praise.
Yes, these highways and bridges need some maintenance and updating. Trucks should be equipped with an extra axle to better distribute weight, improve safety, and allow them to carry more goods. And electric vehicles, which often weigh more than conventional autos, should not be subsidized, but instead, pay their fair share to maintain roads and bridges.
That's why a highly focused infrastructure bill - focused on roads, bridges, ports, some mass transit, and broadband - is a good thing. Let's hope Congress gets its act together and produces something sooner than later that doesn’t micromanage what the more inventive and better-managed states can fully implement or infect with the CRT (Critical Race Theory) virus. I can’t say that I’m optimistic.
Disclosure: I served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the US Department of Transportation in 1991-92 - the last time that the federal gas tax was increased under the Intermodal Surface Transportation and Efficiency Act (ISTEA), during the George H. W. Bush Administration.