America’s highways have long captured our imagination, with the freedom of the open road a recurring theme in post-World War II American culture. Featured in books, movies, poems and songs, highways have symbolized the American yearning for movement and for change. We love the idea we can get in our cars and just go.
And when we are talking about highways, we most often mean the Interstate Highway System, the collection of superhighways zooming straight through the heart of the continent. The interstates—those multilane roadways linking New York City with Los Angeles and everywhere in between—have revolutionized travel and commerce in the U.S. over the past half-century.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, as the interstates are officially known, has its golden anniversary in 2006, and several national organizations, including TRIP, are commemorating “The Year of the Interstate” through national and local media events, re-enactments, transportation conferences and other events. For our part, TRIP is producing a series of interstate reports for individual states for release beginning early next year. These reports will focus on the benefits and future needs of the Interstate Highway System.
The construction of the Interstate Highway System has been called one of the great public works projects in history. Totaling 46,508 miles by 2003, these superhighways were built primarily in the 1960s and 1970s. The interstates had an immediate effect on the nation’s economy, reducing the cost of moving goods and commodities from port to warehouse and farm to railhead, giving the U.S. a major advantage over its competitors. American consumers also have benefited from lower product costs, spurring consumer spending that helped boost economic growth nationwide. The post-war prosperity also allowed American families to see their country on vacation trips, and the interstate highways were their fastest routes to where they wanted to go.
As the TRIP state interstate reports will show, the Interstate Highway System remains critical to our commerce and to our mobility, even as congestion slows traffic in many urban regions. In this era of globalization, when trucks have become rolling warehouses, turning the click of a mouse into a new bicycle for a child’s birthday or keeping a factory’s production on schedule by getting a needed component there on time, the interstate highway remains the backbone of the nation’s transportation network.
The TRIP state interstate reports are already in production. We will be working closely with state industry groups and individual state departments of transportation on these projects. The state interstate reports will focus on the history, trends (1956-2006), current conditions, benefits and future needs of the interstate system in each state. The reports will be released at news conferences in each state and provide local advocates a forum to discuss pressing transportation issues.
The Interstate Highway System is one of the great engineering and social accomplishments of the last century. As we move further into the new century, let us remember the importance of these superhighways to our society, our economy and our future. They offered us an open road, and we took it.
