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Today, a half-century after workers began laying
asphalt, concrete, and steel, the Interstates have become such an
integral part of our daily lives that it is nearly impossible to imagine
our nation without this network of connected highways. From commuters
driving to work, families and friends gathering for visits, high school
teams rushing to games, and fresh produce being delivered to grocery
stores, the Interstates have literally become our country’s
key arteries, pulsing with the nation’s energy and vitality.
 This national network of superhighways, designed
to safely and efficiently accommodate ever-increasing vehicle travel
after World War II, acted as a catalyst for the incredible demographic,
geographic, and economic growth in the United States during the second
half of the 20th Century. Unlike the antiquated, inadequate roads that
preceded them, the Interstate Highway System was able to safely and
efficiently handle the larger volume of cars and trucks. The Dwight D.
Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways has also
lived up to its name in another respect: serving the national defense
during the Cold War and beyond. As a recent Federal Highway
Administration publication puts it, the Interstates were built in the
national interest in more ways than one.
Originally planned to encompass approximately
41,000 miles, and now spanning more than 46,000 miles, the Interstates
relieve congestion, save lives on the roadway, and are the backbone of
the nation’s economy, providing Americans with unprecedented access and
mobility.
Today’s challenge
As the Interstates reach middle age, they are
deteriorating physically and becoming more congested. The combination of
rapidly rising levels of vehicle travel and very little construction of
new highway, capacity is quickly eroding the efficiency and
effectiveness of these superhighways, especially in our largest urban
regions.
The Interstate Highway System in the 21st
Century is aging and overburdened, accommodating billions of miles of vehicle travel each year,
serving commuters, recreational travelers, and commercial truckers
alike. While these multi-lane highways were designed to handle
significant traffic volumes, today’s demand for mobility has outstripped
supply on many sections of the Interstates, causing congestion that
slows travel in most urban areas of the nation and increasingly on some
rural sections. It will be necessary to continue to modernize our
Interstate system if future Americans are going to retain the level of
mobility that we benefit from today.
Americans continue to desire safe, efficient,
and well-maintained roads, highways, and bridges. But ensuring that the
nation continues to maintain the greatest level of mobility will require that national, state, and local
political leaders make the same commitment to providing a modern highway
system that our nation’s leaders made 50 years ago in inaugurating the
Interstate era. Congress, in particular, needs to craft a new national
transportation vision to ensure that we will maintain and improve the
safety, convenience, and economic benefits of the Interstate system.
Congress will create the nation’s next long-term
federal surface transportation program in three years. Like the Congress
of the 1950s, it has the opportunity to transform American
transportation. It is critical that the nation’s next federal highway
program protect the benefits of the Interstate system but also establish
a vision of a modern national highway system that will provide future
Americans with the level of mobility that will be vital to sustain a
growing nation.
The Interstates initially reduced travel times
throughout the nation, as motorists were given an alternative to the
often inadequate, limited, and poorly-designed roads of the
pre-Interstate period. The Interstates were specifically designed to
allow higher speeds and to improve safety. A quarter century after the
completion of most of the system, however, its mobility benefits have
declined, particularly in the more densely populated and traveled urban
regions of the United States. In fact, the proportion of urban
Interstate miles considered congested increased from 31% to 40% between
2000 and 2004, according to the FHWA. This is due to Interstate vehicle
travel increasing at a rate approximately eight times greater than new
lane capacity is added. Travel on the Interstate system increased by 51%
from 1990 to 2004, but lane capacity only increased by 6% during the
same period.
 While
overburdened with traffic in many regions and handling millions of
vehicles each year, the Interstate Highway System still has the best
safety record in the U.S. Interstate travel is twice as safe as travel
on all other routes, and the Interstates have saved thousands of lives.
The fatality rate on the Interstate system in 2004 was 0.80 traffic
deaths per 100 million vehicle miles of travel compared to a 1.65
traffic deaths per 100 million vehicle miles of travel on all other
roads in the U.S.
Interstate highways have a number of safety
features that many other roads in the U.S. lack; these safety features
are the keys to saving lives on the roadway. They include separation
from other roads and rail lines, limited access via on and off ramps, a
minimum of four lanes, gentler curves, paved shoulders, median barriers,
and rumble strips. Since roadway design has been shown to be an
important factor in one-third of fatal vehicle crashes, such safety
features help reduce the consequences of driver error.
Economic engine
The Interstates also played a critical role in
the economic development of the U.S. in the post-World War II era,
providing motorists and truckers with safe and relatively
congestion-free travel. The new highways boosted business productivity.
Trucks could now move more efficiently, thereby reducing shipping costs
and increasing delivery speed. Interstate highway construction also
created new jobs throughout local and regional economies, from the
workers building the roads, to jobs supporting the highway construction
industry, to other new jobs in the local economy. Additionally, towns
and cities near the Interstates used the additional tax revenue
generated from their expanding economies to provide new social services
such as additional police officers and teachers.
In addition to creating jobs, the Interstates
integrated the economies of the states by creating the transportation
infrastructure necessary to facilitate regional commerce. State
economies depend on good roads and highways, as most goods movement is
conducted via truck freight driving over roads and highways.
While the Interstates provided nationwide
economic benefits almost immediately, the logistics revolution of the
past quarter-century has given American companies a valuable competitive
advantage over their rivals in winning business and selling products
worldwide. In the late 1970s, the U.S. deregulated its trucking
industry, increasing competition in the trucking business. At the same
time, the bulk of the Interstate Highway System was completed. Companies
could now utilize the advantages provided by the Interstates to the
fullest extent. Consequently, the cost of moving freight as measured by
U.S. business logistics costs dropped from 16% of U.S. Gross Domestic
Product in 1980 to 9% in 2002.
Businesses exploited the relative speed and
reliability of the Interstates (compared to the highway systems of other
nations) by developing new shipping and manufacturing practices like
just-in-time delivery and just-in-time manufacturing. These new methods
turned commercial trucks into rolling warehouses, delivering smaller,
more time-sensitive, and more expensive units to factories, ships, and
stores rather than to warehouses, saving companies time and money and
increasing their profit margins. Today, 74% of the $8.4 trillion worth
of commodities shipped annually from sites in the U.S. are carried by
trucks and another 12% are delivered by parcel, U.S. Postal service, or
courier, which use multiple modes, including trucks.
American companies have also taken advantage of
the significant communications advances created by the Internet. The
Internet has made safe and efficient highway transportation an even
greater necessity, by instantly connecting producers, wholesalers,
retailers, and consumers. Consumers can now click on a Web site and
order a product directly from a company, and businesses can do the same
to replace their inventories. The trend towards demand-side inventory
management, just-in-time delivery, and small package delivery has
accelerated because of the Internet. And the Interstate Highway System
continues to be the most efficient and cost-effective shipment route for
most goods movement in the country.
Congestion solutions
Mounting congestion on the urban Interstate
Highway System is a significant obstacle to continued economic growth in
the U.S., as logistics and communications innovations increasingly
depend on reliable and predictable travel, which becomes more difficult
to provide if Interstates continue to become more congested, both in
vibrant urban areas and along key rural corridors. Growing traffic
congestion has the potential to significantly cool economic growth
nationally unless it is systematically addressed with a balanced set of
solutions, which includes increasing capacity and using the existing
system more efficiently.
Traffic engineers and policymakers across the
country are tackling the congestion challenge. At the state and local
levels, transportation agencies are using new smart road and smart
vehicle technology and better traffic management methods to improve
traffic flow. Yet, the construction of additional highway capacity
continues to be an important approach to reducing gridlock and should be
an important part of any long-term Interstate improvement strategy.
Congress recognizes the need for additional
revenue to fund our pressing transportation infrastructure needs. In the
current federal highway bill, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient
Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, Congress asked for
numerous studies and commissions to look at future highway funding
issues. One study will focus on a mileage-based revenue system that
charges motorists based on actual mileage driven and a commission has
been established to evaluate current Highway Trust Fund revenues and to
look at alternative approaches to generating revenue for surface
transportation improvements.
SAFETEA-LU also contains provisions to encourage
the increased use of private investment in highway projects. State and
local officials are already employing public-private partnerships
to push forward needed highway projects. To raise the additional money
required for needed highway improvements, some states are increasing
their state gasoline user fees, while others are issuing more bonds and
selling the operating rights to both existing and new toll roads to
private companies.
Even as states seek out new ways to fund highway
improvements, there is still a need for a strong federal role in highway
investment. In a recent report, the American Road & Transportation
Builders Association gave three economic reasons for a
federally-coordinated national highway program: The states have
benefited and continue to benefit from the national highway
transportation network created through federal leadership; the current
federal-aid highway program distributes funds through a formula that
ensures each state receives funding on an equitable basis; and local and
intrastate highway improvements do not ensure economic growth since
state economies depend so heavily on interstate trucking and interstate
commerce.
To retain a strong federal highway role, the
federal mission has to evolve because the original purpose — building
the Interstate Highway System — has been accomplished, according to
transportation analyst Ken Orski. Orski believes that a new mission for
the federal-aid highway program — guided by a national transportation
policy focused on the vision of free-flowing traffic on heavily-traveled
urban highways — is required to keep Congress from doing what it did in
SAFETEA-LU: add numerous earmarks for local projects.
Raising awareness
The challenge now is getting improved highway
transportation onto the nation’s list of national and regional
priorities. Highway advocates are taking advantage of the 50th
Anniversary of the Interstate Highway System this year as an opportunity
to focus attention on the benefits of highways and on the need for
further highway improvements. The American Association of State Highway
and Transportation Officials, state Departments of Transportation,
national transportation associations, and other organizations are
commemorating the golden anniversary with events, programs, and reports
designed to increase public awareness of the Interstates.
The Road Information Program is producing a
national Interstate report and a series of state Interstate reports. The
Interstate reports will focus on the history, trends, conditions, and
future needs of the Interstate system in each state and nationwide. TRIP
plans to release between 15 and 20 state Interstate reports. The reports
will highlight the benefits of the Interstates to each state and the
nation, and emphasize future challenges.
Americans have long expressed their support for
good roads and highways, especially the ones they drive every day. They
want safe and reliable travel. President Eisenhower’s vision of a
network of superhighways coalesced political and public support for the
Interstate system. What vision of America’s transportation future will
attract political commitment and funding today? Reliable,
well-maintained, and safe roads and highways may seem unrealistic to
many people today, but the vision of a nation connected by a network of
modern highways may have similarly seemed unrealistic to previous
generations.
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Cross Country Convoy Reenactment
In June of 2006, a convoy of 15 to 20 vehicles will
roll out of San Francisco and start making its way towards Washington, D.C.
This convoy, which includes antique and futuristic vehicles, is being
organized by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials to reenact the famous 1919 military convoy that motored across the
country (from Washington, D.C. to
Oakland, California), and to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and
Defense Highways.
After World War I, a U.S. Army convoy, led in part
by then Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, the future president of the
United States, drove along the Lincoln Highway (Route 30), taking 62 days to
reach the West Coast, losing several vehicles to accidents and mishaps as it
navigated muddy roads and crossed ravines on old wooden bridges. Eisenhower
later cited his experience during the convoy as one of the reasons he
supported the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Another reason
was his recollection of how efficiently troops in World War II could move on
the German autobahns.
The 2006 convoy organizers have planned a route
closely approximating the route taken by Eisenhower’s convoy. The modern
convoy will travel along Interstate 80 and hold special events in cities
along the route — including Reno, Elko, Nevada; Salt Lake City; Rawlins,
Cheyenne, Wyoming; North Platte, Omaha, Nebraska; Des Moines, Walcott, Iowa;
Chicago; South Bend, Indiana; Columbus; Pittsburgh; Gettysburg; and
Frederick, Maryland — before arriving at the Zero Milepost Marker at the
Ellipse behind the White House on June 29. Part of the convoy will also
travel through Colorado and make a stop in Abilene, Kansas, where Eisenhower
was raised, before rejoining the rest of the group in Des Moines.
The 2006 convoy participants plan to hold news
conferences and public events to attract attention to the Interstate system
and the future of highway transportation. State Departments of
Transportation in the states along the route are also scheduling Interstate
celebrations in conjunction with the convoy’s appearance.
While the convoy reenactment will not face the same
obstacles along the way that slowed Eisenhower and his men, it too can draw
attention to the need for good roads in this country, and like the 1919
convoy, be one of the catalysts for building a better highway system that
meets the needs of a growing nation.
For more information on this and other events
planned in celebration of the Interstate Highway System’s 50th Anniversary,
visit www.interstate50th.org.
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