Book Review: Divided Highways Essay

America had desired good roads all the way back in the 1800s. The federal government’s support of interstate roads can be traced back to the endorsement of the National Road by President Thomas Jefferson in 1808. This highway was to cross the Alleghany Mountains between Cumberland, Maryland and the Ohio River at Wheeling, Virginia. This road was to be a crushed stone surface that wagon wheels could travel on without their wheels creating ruts which they would get stuck in. Eventually the road extended from Baltimore, Maryland to Vandalia, Illinois. Americans lost interest in highways temporarily when railroads enabled people to travel quickly and cheaply across the country. The Good Roads Movement, a call for better roads, picked up after

The new phenomena, though well supported at first, slowly destroyed America's breath-taking natural-surroundings. An example is Interstate 69 (I-69). I-69 destroyed thousands of acres of farm and forest land. Chris Lawrence from I-69info.com said, “Building Interstate 69… lead to adverse impacts on the environment, including air pollution, noise pollution, and the conversion of agricultural and forest land to highway use.” In Travels with Charley, Steinbeck says, “When we get these… (interstates), across the whole country... it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.” As people drive on the interstates, not only do they miss out on the nature, but when continuing to drive, they destroy the nature as well. Some may even say that people can enjoy the beauty at our final destination, but the common phrase, “Focus on the journey, not the destination” could never be more true. If a person sped by the surroundings, and when they did look up they saw, “... a river of trucks…(with) air saturated by diesel fumes…” as also mentioned in Travels, would they enjoy the trip as

The regulation that will be discussed in this week’s assignment is the Federal-Aid to Highways Act of 1956 found in the e-book: American Transportation Policy. The reason that I have chosen to cover this topic is because this was the start of the development of the highway systems that we are familiar with today. The Federal Highway Act of 1956, in fact, was a bill that was very important with introducing a framework for highways and was done during the Eisenhower presidency.

The Interstate Highway System has it’s pros and cons. People use the highway system for many things such as going to school, work, and or vacation. Some pros are that it makes it easier to get places, it’s used for transportation for our goods, etc. Some of the cons is that it can be traffic because of things like the population.

Although Congress doubted whether it was worth the cost, “The Governor's reported, “An adequate highway system is vital to the continued expansion of the economy.” to support the expected population growth.” (Weingroff) The Highway System also provided much needed jobs to millions of men. “More than 9.5 million persons - one of every seven workers in the United States - has a job directly connected with highways or their use.

America made a multibillion dollar investment when the Federal Highway Act of 1956 was signed into law by Dwight Eisenhower. This was a milestone for America, connecting the nation like it had never been before. Since this time, however, the United States has done very little in terms of infrastructure investment. Currently, the American Society of Civil Engineers ranks America’s infrastructure as a D + (2013). American no longer leads the world in the best roads, airports, rail, or bridges. This is a serious problem that will lead to security, environmental, economic, and political issues if not addressed fully and swiftly. America needs to act promptly to revive the nation’s infrastructure system before additional nations surpass the US while the cost becomes too big to bear.

One can get extremely frustrated driving from Fayetteville to Rogers these days. There is construction everywhere, causing delays, lane closures, and much havoc on our commutes to and from home, school, and work. If you take out the frustration, one can see the positives to the improvements. The road worker who has been out of work for months is now able to provide for his family, the drivers are getting an improvement to the neglected roads traveled daily, the state is making an investment in their infrastructure that will last for many years to come, and our economy is showing a sign of improvement! Investing time and money into our infrastructure benefits all of us and is a sign to our economic growth.

If the construction process of the highway were to occur today, these factors would be put in consideration. Notably, the route experienced heavy traffic jams since it was very narrow and passed through towns, which had heightened economic opportunities. The new construction process would project the possible traffic flow along the road and construct it wide enough. For instance, having four to eight lanes would ease the traffic flow, unlike the two-lane system. Although the road was meant to connect the small town to major road networks, it was not necessary that the main highway goes directly through the towns. A new construction of the route would probably have it pass outside the towns and have feeder roads connecting the main route and the commercial

Historian Clay McShane explained, “American urbanites made a decision to destroy the living environments of nineteenth-century neighborhoods by converting their gathering places into traffic jams, their playgrounds into motorways, and their shopping places into elongated parking lots”. This

Like any economy, the county wanted to grow and expand. They had hoped that using the land intended for farm purposes and rural use; for housing and business development would help them succeed this. By selling this land and incouraging growth they could increase their profits. Even though this seemed good in the present time, the county did not account for the spill-over of traffic on roadways. The county is now in demand for more roadways not for more buildings. In turn the scarce resources which were land and money for the county are diminishing. The land resource was not intended for development, so that resources is dwindling. That land could have been used to build more traffic routes but the resource is now gone. Along with the resource of the counties money to develop more roads. Pierce has said they did not want to slow down economic growth by developing roadways at the same time. This brings us to the next example of what an economy relies on.

With the development of the extensive Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in the 1950s, both long-distance trips and daily the commute were mostly by private automobile. This network was designed to exacting federal standards in order to receive federal funding. The system, as of 2010, has a total length of 47,182 miles (75,932 km),[13] making it the world's second longest after China's, and the largest public works project

Before 1916, the onus of maintaining America’s roads was placed primarily upon the surrounding landowners. If a pothole formed in the dirt path in front of their property, the landowners would only be morally obligated to fix it; there was little to no bureaucratic regulation at the time. The burden of trying to make the government accountable fell upon the bicyclists, mainly the League of American Wheelmen. (Weingroff, FHA at 100)

The US Interstate System owes its existence to Eisenhower’s first-hand experience of Germany’s Reichsautobahn during World War 2 and his involvement in a simulation of a 3 mile long army convoy traversing the US. It averaged a dismal 6 mph coast to coast. This experience lead to his championing the cause of the Interstate Road System.

Most residential and commercial expansion occurred in close proximity to the downtown commercial district; churches, schools, hospitals, and residents were all built within walking distant. It was in these tight-knit community settings that the local business owners prospered for many years. However, in the late 1950s and 60s business owners began to realize major changes that the automobile was having in the shopping habits of the American people. American families were quickly becoming a two car family, with bigger more powerful cars capable of traveling longer distances. State and Federal governments soon found the older two lane roads were inadequate and couldn’t accommodate the huge influx of millions of cars now on the roads. In 1956, the Federal Highway Act was passed to replace the obsolete highway system in the United States with a multi-lane Interstate system designed for more efficient safer travel at higher speeds. The Federal Act was the first of many interstate highway programs that lead to the construction of a national grid of super expressways that would change the physical and the cultural landscapes of

Vehicular transportation has changed the way the world works. When walking and riding horses was the primary mode of transportation, with rare travel between cities, communities could be small and few. Once buggies and other animal-drawn vehicles came around, cities were able to expand. Suburbia emerged surrounding cities in order for citizens to chase the American Dream, with long driveways, sprawling yards, and picket fences, only made possible with the invention of motorized vehicles. This was no problem when no one knew the harmful effects of carbon emissions or acknowledged the long-term disadvantages to minimal walking and biking. Because of this infatuation with the wide-open suburbs, downtown cities deteriorated. Although cities are