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Interstate Highway System: 50th Anniversary
Steve Melito writes "This week, CR4: The Engineer's Place for Discussion and News, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, "a giant nationwide engineering project" that transformed a nation. In 1994, the American Society of Civil Engineers described the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System as "one of the Seven Wonders of the United States". In 2006, this network of roads includes 46,000 miles of highway; 55,000 bridges; 82 tunnels, and 14,000 interchanges. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), excavation for the interstate system has moved enough material to bury the State of Connecticut knee-deep in dirt. The amount of Portland cement could build more than 80 Hoover dams, or lay six sidewalks to the moon. The lumber used would consume all of the trees in 500 square miles of forest. The structural steel could build 170 skyscrapers the size of the Empire State Building, and meet nearly half of the annual requirements of the American auto industry.
Check back with CR4 all week as we cover the 'Roots of the Road,' 'the Politics of Passage,' 'Adventures in Civil Engineering,' and 'The Road Ahead.'" One of the things that's interesting about why Eisenhower pushed for the highway system was that he saw the Autobahn system in Germany during the occupation post-WWII and knew that that was one of the things that the United States needed to develop.
>"The amount of Portland cement could build more than 80 Hoover dams, or lay six sidewalks to the moon"
Wait a minute, nobody told me six sidewalks to the moon was one of the options! I would have totally voted for the sidewalk thing...
I hope they didnt count the roads in Pennsylvania, most of them (at least in NW PA) are in such bad shape, they shouldn't count as being part of a 'paved highway' system.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
That's what they should have done instead. I'd walk to the moon.
about enough potholes to covers the surface of Jupiter six times and enough roadwork delays to equal 13 years of your life waitng in congested traffic to get to work :/
...of businesses being charge for their customers using the roads. Yes, roads are a good argument for network neutrality.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Wait a minute, that would be more than one bridge per mile, on average. Is that actually correct? I don't remember there being that many bridges on any of the interstates I've driven on.
And has encouraged americans to use enough gas to fill a swimming pool, each year.
Ike also saw the wonderful mass transit capable of the european trains, but that wasn't good enough...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Call your local state representative. You may have to go around collecting signatures too.
God spoke to me.
And to celebrate, every inch is getting a facelift! Now, everyone please merge over into the right lane and slow to half speed. Be careful of the bright orange barrels; they have to last until the work starts in 6-8 months.
"There are more important things than stopping terrorism. Upholding the Constitution is one of them." - Ars Forumer.
Although some historians claim that Eisenhower's motivations were military in nature, the nation's civilian population reaped the rewards
... all the roadkill, destruction of wildlife habitis, splitting / dividing of land ... we shoulda stuck to gravel roads, flying, and our bicycles. Or maybe we shoulda worked harder on tele-transporting.
and mother nature was wounded
55,000 bridges on 46,000 miles of highway? More than 1 bridge per mile? Sounds like we should've done a better job of surveying the route before starting to build freeways.
And the worms ate into his brain.
People are always so harsh on the government's ability to do things, and are quick to promote private industry as the better alternative, but this is one of the major public sector success stories.
I think in cases like this, private industry just would not have the resources and coordination to pull it off. Nor the motivation.
But in any case, NOBODY, public or private, wants to do mega-projects anymore. Complacency is the word of the day.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
All this "achievment".... and traffic is as bad as ever and getting worse every single day. What a grand dream our highway system has turned into.
"See Russia, we can out-fight, and out-produce you, and we both have nukes, so even if its close to a draw, we'll win."
Thanks Ike, for giving the US the upper hand in the Cold War. He's also the one whose parting words were something like "Beware the military-industrial complex." A wise man, why can't we get Presidents like this anymore?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Americans, we like our freedom.
We also like our wide, expansive country. We also like our small towns. We like living in the country and commuting to the city. Trains work great in some places and not so well in other places; there is no "universal solution". So please take your trolling somewhere else and let us marvel and some fine engineering from the 1950's. Thanks.
I-70 is falling apart. It's hell on your car.
Until they correct the deplorable condition of the roads, the Interstate highways are nothing to be proud of...
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
then why is there a speed limit in the USA ? It would be much nicer and to the point to be able to go 150 MPH on the endless straight highways separating the two coasts rather than on the 20 km separating two sprawling cities of Germany...
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
For all the copycatting Eisenhower did to establish our highway system, they sure did get a lot of things wrong. Looking at today's Autobahn is a wonderous thing comparatively.
An interesting factor in difference between our highway and Germany's autobahn is the 'curviness' of the road. The Germans wanted their highway to curve with the natural landscape, and be created with a minimal of environmental destruction, which we thought was stupid. As a result, we built straighter roads, blasting through mountains and paving over forests where necessary. The result of course, was highway hypnosis, which contributes to the higher death toll and accident count on U.S. highways.
According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHA), excavation for the interstate system has moved enough material to bury the State of Connecticut knee-deep in dirt. The amount of Portland cement could build more than 80 Hoover dams, or lay six sidewalks to the moon.
But how much is that in Libraries of Congress per Nielsen market shares?
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Something I've wondered about is what will happen when, sometime in the not-too-distant future, we no longer need roads for transportation because we've invented some kind of autonomous flying vehicle. What are we going to do with all that real estate? At least where I live, the roadway is too narrow to be used for additional home construction, so does all this land simply become a vast system of pedestrian malls? Or can somebody think of a better use for it? Of course the realpolitik of the situation is that the various government landowners will try to maximize the revenue to be had from selling this freed-up land, so what kind of monstrosity are they going to foist upon us?
Je suis Marxiste, tendance Groucho.
Unlike Europeans we have had freedom of travel over a very large area for a long time. That more than anything is why the automobile is so much more popular over here. When distances traveled can be measured in days it does tend to make one think differently.
Its a far different mindset one has when you don't have to stop at the border. I still remember friends flying in and asking me to come pick them up, not realizing it would take me nearly 6 to 8 hours to DRIVE there.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I would think that even if you include over/underpasses (for surface streets to cross the highways) and the multiple-level interchanges that you have in big cities, the ratio seems way off.
The info here (http://interstate50th.org/trivia.shtml) and here (http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/highway.htm) seems to bear this out... but it still sounds funny
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
I think you are taking the car analogy to far. Going strictly with the highway metaphor throughout the article, you risk loosing readers who don't get the reference to the Internet backbone... oh... Waitaminute! You didn't really mean... did you?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
The interstate highway system makes up les sthat 1% of the roads of the USA, yet it carries 25% of the traffic. There would be no commercial trucking industry without it.
Here in Pennsylvania they built all these wonderful roads and bridges and never thought to do any maintenance in the past 50 years. Now you have bridges with chunks of concrete falling off and roads that look worse than an iraqi highway. Hell one of the overpasses on I-70 fell in last year. Don't even talk about the layout of the roads in western PA...
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
After the Normandy invasion Ike's troops were again slogging, this time through French hedgerows. Finally when he got to Germany and could use the Autobahn, well, you know the rest of the story...
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
- H. L. Mencken
The problem with highways is that there are entirely too many exits and entrances. Most of the traffic we experience is due to merging errors and crashes caused by merging.
If you look at a map of any place with urban sprawl, like Atlanta, highways are the first cancerous veins that spread the disease of McMansions and thirty mile commutes. If there were far less highway entrances and exits, and someone besides complete idiots in the zoning office, the inconvenience of driving five miles to the nearest highway exit would cause more people to buy homes closer to town. Cities would then be more efficent and better served by mass transit systems. With less cars, and fewer and shorter car commutes, we'd also lessen our dependence on foreign oil. People would be forced to do more with less, so instead of having entire floors that go unused (yet still air conditioned), more efficient townhomes and apartments would be used instead.
Proper city planning will determine which civilization survives the 21st century the best. It's too bad America is doing so poorly.
As a resident of Connecticut I would welcome plenty of this state being buried knee deep in excavations from the interstate system.
Actually, come to think of it I think we are well on our way already with the permanent road construction around here.
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Many overpasses consist of two bridges; perhaps those are counted twice?
One major thing that Ike failed to bring over from the German system: driver's education.
The U.S. education, licensing and renewal of drivers is a joke. Personally, I don't want anyone who didn't make 95% on their test on the road, but here we have most of the drivers who made 70% and it shows, every day. To further agitate the issue, law enforcement and insurance companies have too much forgiveness: four tickets/year allowed (in TX), defensive driving courses (what a joke).
I wouldn't drive to work every day if I had an alternative. Personally, I'd rather go back to horses.
So Bush just visited Iraq. Should we be worried?
"why can't we get Presidents like this anymore?"
Because anyone with huevos enough to buck the status quo or speak unpopular truths gets the Rove treatment.
So we'll be getting agreeable dunces from now on.
Dunces with strings to make them dance.
One of the things that's interesting about why Eisenhower pushed for the highway system was that he saw the Autobahn system in Germany during the occupation post-WWII and knew that that was one of the things that United States needed to develop. Just too bad it is STILL one of the things that the United States needs to develop. The Autobahn is a meticulessly well maintained super-highway with engineered drive surfaces, well gradiated turns, and minimal obstructions of view to drivers. The surface itself is designed to remove water from contact with tires, which greatly enhanses performance in wet weather. With almost no "small hills" to obstruct/obscure the view in front of the driver, situations do not exist for a slowdown that is over a blind hill to cause an accident since drivers always have more then enough warning of traffic slowdowns, accidents, or broken-down vehicles in their lane to either change lanes, slow down, or otherwise avoid the problem. This is also the reason why parts of the Autobahn system have no speed limits, only strict rules for which lane to be in and rules to let vehicles traveling faster then you to pass you... We STILL don't have ANYTHING NEAR LIKE THAT.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
This enginneering marvel made bumper to bumper rush hour possible.
""one of the Seven Wonders of the United States"
Tell that to John Lasseter.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
In todays dollars how much have we spent on the interstate system?
How much does it cost us to make 1 mile of interstate today?
What kind of mass transit systems could have been built with that money?
Of course, it also doesn't help that many americans prefer to shop at familiar generic places... but still, even though there were many benefits, I want my roadside attractions and small, shitty diners back.
Interesting Triva. Why is there an interstate highway in Hawaii when it goes to no other state?
Because all military bases, when the project was created, had to be linked to the interstate system. It was one of the selling points to the public... we can move troops and equipment in case of need to other parts of the US. So the intertate highway system in Hawaii connects the militray bases.
It also has. just barely, but has the 2 mile straight length that was demanded in each highway every so often for landing endangered aircraft.
Also from the discovery or history channel learned that lots of it was designed from the German Autobahn system and how the intersections don't stop traffic.
The first round maybe. Just wait for Russia's comeback when those oil and gas revenues start stacking up...
Everytime theres a discussion about highways we always have to bring Connecticut into it... Thats why we changed our state motto to "The Construction State"
fftffip in the house boyyyyyy
Larry Niven pondered this question in a short story. "Cloak of Anarchy," I think.
But SF speculation aside, I don't think we're going to need to worry about surface roads becoming obsolete any time soon.
Even if a significant fraction of passenger traffic switches to flying cars (which is utterly rediculous itself, but anyway...) I really, really doubt you could economically shift frieght traffic to flying mode. If it isn't perishible, or absolutely, positively has to be there overnight, it is far cheaper to let it roll to its destination.
Too bad he didn't notice their train system while he was over there too. Our lack of a national public transportation system is wasteful and embarassing.
I've been working in the industry for 10 years, and in every document and every reference, it's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). No one refers to them as the FHA.
Even their website is http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/
If you can't even get basic things like this right...
Amtrak isn't doing too hot. They handled 0.1% of all intercity traffic passenger miles in 2003 (most recent data point I could dig up).
Also remember the gas savings is proportional to the number of people actually using the trains. If your trains are a flop and you have routes only servicing a few people at a time, you are actually polluting more than a car would have.
I think based on present data in the US, the 1950's commission made the right decision.
At first glance, the highway system sounds good. But look where it is going.
Everyone needs a car to survive in many places now, so the roads must be bigger.
No one wants to live by a large road, so people move a little further away.
So the roads need to get event bigger.
Without real planning, the trend has no end.
The only hope is a much higher car transportation cost.
One or more of the following could help:
-higher fuel costs
-higher fuel taxes
-taxes per mile driven
-remove car/road subsidies (all toll roads, government or private, with some electronic toll system)
-provide mass-transit/rail subsidies equal subsidies that match car/road subsidies.
1. In the USA, everyone can drive, and does. Every kid 16 and over drives on the freeway. In Germany, I understand that a drivers license is not a gimme like it is here. I hear there are higher costs and stuff like that. So that filters out a lot of people as dumb as you and I were when we first drove on I-70.
2. Cost. They showed the way the Autobahn is constructed, and it can handle higher speeds than the freeway.
3. Terrain. From the little I saw, there are no Rocky Mountains for the Autobahn to cross. This makes a difference in what is a safe speed, and what kind of money you spend on making expensively-safe surfaces.
4. Tradition. I guess the Autobahn was always a speeding zone, and land speed records were even set there.
5. Congestion. Does the Autobahn have anything like the amount of traffic that the Interstates have on them?
Now, not all of these factors apply in all cases (no Rocky Mountains in Nebraska (That John Denver's full of crap!), no congestion on I-70 in Utah, etc.), but I think that when taken together they make a good case.
I guess there are other reasons, too, like different traffic laws that might have a greater impace or something, but I don't know.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Nobody fuckin cares. Got it? Nobody in the world cares that you're going camping this weekend...probably not even your wife and kid.
I think there are parts of the PA Turnpike in its original form (engineering wise anyways) that predates the Interstate system by 20 years! I have pics from my father showing construction in the 1930's of parts of US19 outside of Pittsburgh and that road, engineering-wise, is the same road.
55,000 bridges and 46,000 miles of roadway, would be 1.2 bridges for every mile of highway. Can those numbers be right?
I say this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as I don't expect the Congress could ever again pass such a massive project.
Remember, the Interstate Highway System was a response to the problems of moving military assets across the US during WWII. It's great for visiting grandma, but it's really a national security asset.
So our current national security risk is our dependence on foreign sources of energy. I'd love to see a project on this scale to rebuild the national grid, make it easy to get wind power from the Dakotas or Solar power from New Mexico to Boston or LA. Our current grid can't do this and it's a big deal to make one that can. Tie in end-user-generated solar and build out broadband to everybody at the same time and you'd do a real benefit to the country.
When that's done we can get started with upgrading the Interstates for Personal Rapid Transit.
I look forward to reading the part of the series on the politics of passage.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I love Sinatra's cover of that tune.
When driving through look for the bypass (generally prefixed by a number, making it a three-digit highway number, for example, 894 for I-94). The bypass will take you around or through a city with a minimal number of offramps.
... but up north we do think these things through :P
Alternatively cities like Chicago have express lanes that switch direction depending on time of day (in to town in the morning, out of town in the afternoon) that are basically the innermost lane(s) but barricaded off, and have no exits.
I can't speak for atlanta
This is also when America's country/western musicians mourn the death of music focused entirely on horses, women, and beer, and celebrate the birth of an art form focused entirely on highways, women, and beer.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Why is it people can't stick to standard units of measure that everyone knows about, knee-deep in the
State of Connecticut may only be ankle been in the state is Texas and six side walks on the moon may be 50 side walks in Texas.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
While all of the glory is nice and neat, let's look at the drawbacks: 1. For all the money spent on the interstate system, we could've built up our public transportation infrastructure, which needed a makeover, and have enough money to invest in cities, which also needed a makeover. 2. Sprawl and Suburbia: Now we are faced with sprawl and suburbia. While some may find this a good thing, I personally prefer the European lifestyle in large built-up cities. Suburbia is not self-sustaining. A public transportation system is not feasible in surubria. Do you know of a suburb that is not next to a city? If so, it's not called a suburb, but a rural area. 3. Strip Malls: they existed in very limited quantities before the interstate system. 4. Bad Maintenance: While we built the highways we don't know how to maintain them... pieces are going to crumble bit by bit until we have a makeover or until everything's gone 5. America is a gas-guzzling addict: Even Bush said so. The first step to fighting this adiction is admitting it. Before the interstate, we relied less on cars and more on public transit. Of course, it was harder to get around too. 6. Ever try breathing in L.A.? Yeah... you know what I'm talking about. 7. Trucking Industry - transporting things by train and using trucks for the last n miles is far more efficient, and using electric trains is even more efficient. 8. American teens are now forced into cars at the age of 16, which not only promotes bad lifestyle habits, but also continues the sprawl and suburbia. 9. Declining health/obesity: I admit, I'm not thin as a string. I tried both walking and driving to work for 6 months at a time... after 6 months of walking/public transit (which increased my commute by about 20 mins) I found amazing results - not only had I lost weight but also started feeling better, less stressed ("Ah another train will be along in 7 minutes, no big deal, no need to rush") and I also got some work done on the train/subway. Talk about benefits Of course some may find these things as benefits, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or however the saying goes). Now for the benefits: 1. Easier to get around the country. 2. Drivers are independent from public transit's schedules (of course this is a chicken and egg question: if there were more passengers, the service would be more frequent). 3. Americans can enjoy their suburban dream (although I don't think suburbia is a dream.... even considering the fact that crime rate in suburbia per 100K people is higher than it is in the city; also, in the city you know where most of the crime's happening and you can avoid those areas if you so desire). 4. Cars are not a luxury anymore, but rather a necessity. 5. American teens can break out of their shell when they turn 16. 6. ......
In the end, it's all about what kind of lifestyle you want to lead and whether or not you're a typical suburbanite or the new urban type.
-Palal
Although some historians claim that Eisenhower's motivations were military in nature, the nation's civilian population reaped the rewards
True, but the military aspect played a huge part in the funding for the interstate highway system. The interstates provide a tried-and-true platform for moving tanks and other heavy war material a very long distance, with minimal fuel and minimum time. A column of tanks can move across the whole of our nation in about three days time. That's significant when you consider an enemy force not wanting 2,000 M1s staring at them.
Informatus Technologicus
Why Hawaii has interstates.
Wow, who'd've guessed, a /. story about traffic and bridges and tunnels and not one word about the Internet.
We all owe a lot to the civil engineers who made this possible.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I live in Central New York State and do so in part because I've seen Providence, Boston, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and other cities who have started to or completely given themselves over to a world of pavement and multilane roads. There's a moment in Bill Bryson's _A Walk in the Woods_ when he tries to walk back to his motel room from having gone shopping. It's the most dangerous time in the whole book because our cities have given themselves over to traffic.
A few months ago, there was a great piece in _Wired_ about a traffic designer who makes it necessary for traffic to slow down to understand what's going on. I like that idea. Five blocks from my house the state is widening a road to four lanes (two each way) and I wish they would narrow it instead. Oh well.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I've driven the Autobahn, and I've done tens of thousands of km driving on the US Interstate highway system (running a SCCA race team means a lot of long-haul driving going from event to event)
The only thing the Autobahn has going for it are the occasional unlimited speed sections, most of which seemed absent on my drives from Stuttgart->Nurburg and Stuttgart->Munich - there were speed limits on most of the distance (either 120 km/h or 140 km/h)
Incidentally, posted speed limits notwithstanding,average car traffic speed on Interstates in the Midwest is between 120-140 km/h.
So what has the US system got on the Autobahn?
1) Interstates are numbered odd numbers North/South and even numbers East/West. Main routes have 2 digits, and connectors and bypasses have 3 digits, where the last two digits are the ID of the MSR that it connects to. This makes it very easy to tell (in most cases) which Interstate you need to be on, even if you don't know local geography that well. If you are West of Detroit, and you want to go to Toledo (south of Detroit) and you are on I-96 approaching the the I-275 interchange, you can tell that:
a) you are travelling E/W
b) 275 runs N/S
c) 275 links up with 75, also N/S
d) So taking 275 to 75 is moving you in the right direction.
2) There is only one allowed intersection between any two Interstates. The intersection of I-69 and I-94 is unique. That is NOT the case with Autobahns, which can loop back on each other and cross in multiple places. This very nearly got me lost on the way to Stuttgart from the Nurburgring, and the only reason I caught it was that the sun was in the wrong place after the interchange....
3) On/off ramps onto Interstates are labelled with the name of the nearest major city AND the direction of travel - so you might see "I-70 West - Topeka" and "I-70 East - Kansas City". Autobahns are labelled with the name of SOME city in that direction, but I never discovered the pattern; and with the city density in Germany, trying to find the city on the map (in one of two directions) while rapidly approching the exit, without the aid of a dedicated navigatrix, can be daunting.
4) Exits are numbered with the current mile marker value, and the mile marker value itself is the distance along the Interstate within that state. Working out time, distance, and fuel problems in your head become VERY simple. If I am at mile marker 20, and I need to take exit 140, and I am travelling at 60 MPH, then I have 2 hours of travel before my exit. Note that this wasn't always true - Florida and Georgia held out on sequential exit numbering for a long time - but as far as I know, everything is mile marked now.
5) I refute the claim to "highway hypnosis" being a problem; having done multiple all-night driving stints trying to make it to events on time, the general straightness of the Interstate makes the road network safer (especially in bad weather) gives you much better sightlines, and saves fuel, especially with big rigs. The few exceptions to this rule can really stand your hair on end imagine coming around a corner at 70 MPH with 14,000 lbs of car hauler to find that traffic has stopped dead... yikes!
Seriously, the US Interstate system is a wonder of design and is transportation networking done nearly perfectly. It takes almost all the best features of the Autobahn and then improves on them.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
Just to make the math "easy", let's assume each of those 55,000 miles of interstate highway is "only" two-lanes (yes, that's a gross underestimate given that there's no one-lane interstate space to "average-it-out", so refer to the phrase "at least that's coming...) and that each lane is "only" ten feet wide (which, again, only partially accounts for shoulders, turning lanes, passing lanes, etc. -- again see "at least"...): that works out to 2.9 Billion square feet. Digging through the NYT link at this article, we see that their newest data center squats on a "30-acre plot" -- 30 acres = 43,560 square feet (according to Google; yes, irony's home is still Slashdot...) which means they could build (here it is) AT LEAST 67,000 data centers on that much land.
And they'll need it, too, to process all those Google Maps searches once the thing has to go 3-D for the "flying autonomous cars".
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
Peter Mulvey "Eisenhower Waltz"
God bless you, Dwight D. Eisenhower
As I stand next to the truck stop shower
Watching our bright destiny unfold
Now your highway rolls from here to gone
This land we've laid our hands upon
And sir, it's a sight to behold
So God bless you, Dwight D. Eisenhower
Though this is not our finest hour
Highway men have made off with your creed
And the band is marching no matter what
The eyes of history are shut
This is the hour of our deepest need
Oh and the wind howls
Oh and the wind howls
Oh the wind howls
Through the fields of Abilene
So God bless you, Dwight D. Eisenhower
As now the youth in all their flower
Hang on the iron cross you warned us of
And they say you wept to hang them so
You among us all might know
These things we sometimes do for love
Oh God, these things we do for love
Oh and the wind howls
mmm, and the wind howls
Oh the wind howls
Through the fields of Abilene.
mmm, and the wind howls
Oh the wind howls
The wind howls
Through the fields of Abilene.
The Car/Road system is not efficient.
If consumers had to pay the real cost of driving, much less people would drive.
Go look at a busy interstate sometime.
Imagine the cost of all the vehicles on the road.
Note that most people are driving five passenger vehicles, with only a single person.
Note the risks of driving in such a system.
Imagine the cost of maintaining the road.
Compare this to the cost of a modern rail/train system.
Imagine the cost per person of such a system.
Key decisions and politics long ago, changed the now present to our road/car system, from the possible high speed cross country train system that we would have had otherwise.
They dont work anymore. They've been great for the past 50 years, but enough is enough.
....... a mag-lev rail with packet switching.
I want interstates 2.0
screw Sheik Fuk Uin d'Ass Mohamad Abdul bin al Brasheir and his oil reserves. Lets ride the atom train to nukesville.
Instead, it was Eisenhower's participation in a convoy in 1919 from Washington DC to San Fransisco:
http://www.interstate50th.org/convoy.shtml
>> The lumber used would consume all of the trees in 500 square miles of forest.
What do they mean "would"? If that's the amount of wood used, then 500 square miles of forest was most definitely consumed, no?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
... in 1950. Think in context.
Roads are great, but so is clean air & water. imho
e ctric_car/
Mankind should celebrate this Highway system anniversary by designing highly-efficient, nearly emissions-free vehicles as a next step in transportation technology.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/who_killed_the_el
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Huzzah for 50 years, but, people, don't get me wrong, but... ya know... from time to time, you should maybe consider giving 'em a makeover, ya know?
While we're at it and comparing it with the moon, when I was in SoCal, I found craters in the highway that should be visible from the moon. Might also explain why you must only drive 55ish mph on those roads. Anything beyond that and your car, unless it's some Jeep, is a wreck.
Might explain why US people are so in love with SUVs...
Seriously now. It used to be the trademark of the Soviet countries to build something, then use it 'til it falls apart and never even consider repairing things, because getting those spareparts was a futile task. It seems the US are following this trail. Not because parts would be hard to get, but because nobody wants to spend money on them.
And that's not only true for road maintainance, it is just as valid for underground pipes, power lines, anything that ages. I've seen hemp isolations in houses. I wouldn't be too surprised to find lead pipes...
Building isn't enough to impress, you gotta keep it in good repair!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... I would of thought they would have figured out how to build a bridge over the Potomac
We get the Presidents we do because the average American would do well on Leno's Jaywalking All-stars. Because they vote based on charisma and whatever the media feeds them.
...why can't we get Presidents like this anymore?
Because nobody will VOTE for one! Jeeze, man, you can have any president you want. It seems that the majority has a thing against wisdom and intelligence. The answer to your question is right there in the mirror. If you want a wise president, then you simply have to nominate and elect one. But since the majority of you are more interested in American Idol, it doesn't look like it will happen anytime soon. So you will probably leave yourselves with Hillary and Jeb as your choice in '08. In other words, more of the same. And the interstates will continue to rot faster than an Oscar Meyer hotdog.
What?
Please stop comparing our size to the size of other things; please stop covering us to a certain thickness in material; please stop laying our women end to end (and remarking that no one would be surprised); please stop filling in other places or events with multiples of our population. Enough is enough!
-- Connecticut Residents Against Nonconsensual Comparisons
The title says it all
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Anyway, giving a speech after you've quit the job doesn't strike me as the bravest action one can imagine. If Ike really had huevos, he should have done something when he still had the power to do so, rather than escalate the cold war. If Bush gives a speech in 2009 about the importance of a strict separation between executive and judicial powers, it would strike me more as an apologia than an example of a president with huevos.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Eisenhower saw how German tanks overran Europe, as he was in charge of America's work helping roll them back in defeat. The Interstate Highway system was designed to pave roads for American tanks to reach every part of the country. It served as a vast government subsidy for car makers to compete with the railroads that settled the continent.
My favorite Interstate website is Interstate-Guide, with pictures, history, plans and lots of other transit geek info. As long as the people have paid for this vast system, we should get the most out of it.
--
make install -not war
You think that's bad....try the streets in and around New Orleans pre-K!! It has often been commented that they don't need to post speed signs...the whole city is one big speedbump!!
Digressing a little...but, the original article mentioned Eisenhower being moved to create hwy's here by the Autobahn.
Too bad they didn't set out to BUILD our interstate system with the same engineering and materials, to allow us to go at speeds (unlimited in places) safely on all our hwys like they can in Germany.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
excavation for the interstate system has moved enough material to bury the State of Connecticut knee-deep in dirt.
That one would not have been a bad move, either.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
What is funnier is to see that the french, hardly parangons of free market and private entreprise (they have zillions of State-owned businesses) don't think twice at having private roads and bridges, including the highest highway bridge in the world (higher than the Eiffel tower!)...
I know I'll probably get flamed out of existence for saying this but here goes. It'd be nice if the entire Interstate was signed in nice rational metric units instead of tenths of a mile. Yes yes I know "this is America and we use miles" and all that other crap but honestly people. Time to move on. And yes I know that a lot of highway departments were dumb and switched back to designing in inches and feet once the mandate to design in SI was lifted but that shows incredible shortsightedness and poor planning. The change "will" happen, and the more people drag their heels the less time we have to do it quickly and efficiently. It's time to put that mandate back into place and drag America into the 21st century. Yes it will cost money and yes people will bitch about speed limit signs changing for all of a month until they get used to it. Almost every other country in the world has switched and been perfectly fine. I'm sure we will to.
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
In the end, though, what's repsonsible for dominance of the roadways over mass transit is the automobile industry.
I agree with you, but I also wanted to add in that it's a big handout to the trucking industry; the way we currently tax commercial use of the highway system is totally inadequate.
Truckers "pay" for the use of the highway network (theoretically) through the federal tax on diesel fuel. This is stupid: it's insufficent to pay for the network, and also discourages passenger-car use of diesel (because it makes the fuel artificially expensive).
A tax that was actually based on pound-miles travelled (pounds of cargo times distance travelled on the network) would be more fair, and it would create more competition for the transport of cargo over other means. I think you'd see even more containerized freight being moved by rail, with only the "last mile" occuring by truck, and at the same time you wouldn't be penalizing owners of diesel passenger vehicles for their fuel choice, and the result would be higher efficiency in all vehicles. (There's a reason why diesel vehicles are more popular than gas in other countries; it's only because of our tax structure and lingering public opinion that they aren't here.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Your small city thinking is fine for going camping with your wife in your SUV.
It's OK if you and everyone like you needs a Hummer to go Walmart.
But with population growth, small cities become bigger cities.
And your "thinking like a man" will only lead to chain store parking lot utopia at best.
The car/road system is quite expensive per driver if think about the cost of every vehicle on it, and considerable government tax subsidies put in to it. Trains/roads have stopped receiving real subsidies many years before the 50's, so it's not quite fair to compare it to it to the propped up road system.
Screw the space elevator, I'm walking.
I will forever be a student.
The article fails to mention that there must be a straight strip of road every five miles on the highway system, so airplanes utilize these strips as landing strips in emergency.
Of course, for the Chinese, the credit of the first freeway goes to the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Freeway (China (Republic of China) National Highway One), from Taipei to Kaohsiung, finished in 1978.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
According to Bill Bryson's "Made In America: An Informal History ot the English Language in the United States", Ike was not inspired by the Autobahn. Actually, Hitler decided to build the Autobahn after learning about the United States' transcontinental highways being built during the 20s and 30s. Eisenhower's most likely basis for the Interstate system was his experience leading a military convoy across the country during World War I.
I assume by this you are comparing Eisenhower with Gore or Kerry, and they compare favorably.
Wow. Just...wow.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
2) There is only one allowed intersection between any two Interstates. The intersection of I-69 and I-94 is unique.
That's not true, or at least not true anymore. In Indianapolis alone, I can think of multiple examples to the contrary-- I-465 intersects I-65 and I-70 twice each, and I-65 and I-70 have two intersections with eachother.
I have a few German friends, who have on occaision complained about how US drivers drive.
The gist of it is, we drive to slow, to defensive, unable to follow the simplest of the driving laws (excluding the ridiculously low speed limits), and unable to take the initiative.
Personally I think that the way we are taught in the driving classes and schools in the US is horrifingly wrong. Basically, we are not taught the responsibility of using a tool most of us use every day. We are also not taught how to use this tool properly.
Talking on the cellphone, even hands free.
Eating while Driving.
Reading While driving (I kid you not, strange experience in a cab in NYC)
Performing actions best done at home, makeup, shaving, et al.
Drinking and Driving, its a sport in MN
Cars are useful, don't get me wrong, but it takes less than a second for disaster to strike, even without the drinking.
Basically, as americans, we are not taught how to be aggressive and assertive while driving. These are key components in helping to prevent accidents. We are taught to panic, and let someone else take the initiative. You can see this at almost every 4 way stop sign in US when one car wishes to turn.
On the other hand, maybe we can convince a few race car drivers to open up a clinic on aggressive driving, we need it.
Woo hoo! I for one plan to celebrate this anniversity and American car culture alone in my suburban home!! First I'll eat an entire box of Crispy Cremes, 4 pocket pizzas, and a salad of iceberg lettuce with cocktail shrimp and a cup of ranch dressing while watching 10 hours straight of anime made for age 10 children. For variety I play video games and take naps. At no point will I be further from my sofa or computer desk than the bathroom, kitchen or bedroom.
Later I'll roll my diabetic and wheezing 250lb physique into the new GM model "Baron Harkonnen" which gets 10 MPG on the way to my local fast food drive-through while listening to anime soundtracks on the in-car DVD with premium sound system. Round trip: 2 gallons of gasoline for 20 miles driven, 20 meters walked, sedentary only calories burned, 3000 calories consumed, and brain flat-lined in a semi-dreamlike state the whole time.
Oh yea. Living the good life in America! (At least till my organs start failing by about age 40)
One of the things that's interesting about why Eisenhower pushed for the highway system was that he saw the Autobahn system in Germany during the occupation post-WWII and knew that that was one of the things that the United States needed to develop.
Shame the yanks slipped up and implemented a speed limit, though, isn't it? The Autobahn has local limits when it gets near to a city or so (which is reasonable) but seriously.. the entire state of Oregon limited to 55mph? Ridiculous when you're driving through potato farms and desert. What makes it funnier is you skip the state line from Portland, OR on the way to Seattle and suddenly you can go 70mph....
I'm sure the autobahn has a speed limit - highest prudent speed or something like that. (Same thing in Montana until they bowed to pressure and set explicit limits.) Actually I think ALL speed limits are written that way, but the cops are too busy to go after the morons doing 60 in a blizzard.
In the real world, that prudent speed will never be much higher than the posted speed limits on the interstate system, at least outside of the congested urban cores on weekends.
In the intermountain west -- you have to deal with rough roads, mass-market vehicles, other traffic, even the possibility of wildlife or livestock on the road. (Ever seen the results of hitting a cow or moose at highway speeds?) I'm not comfortable putting my wrangler over 70 mph, and even with my old MR-2 I would rarely go over 80. It's hard to imagine safely going much faster regardless of what you drive.
P.S., I've found I-90 through Montana one of the worst places to go fast. The problem is RV traffic -- those drivers think they can pass semis since they're going 30 mph and the semis are only going 15 mph. The only problem is that I'm over the horizon when they make their move, but on their tail before they made it halfway past the truck.
Heck - the RV traffic probably wasn't even that heavy. But it clumped at the hills and forced you to crawl for a few miles.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
There would actually be several advantages. Number one, it would remove barriers to trade that some companies currently are facing. Switching to metric will ensure that every country is using the exact same measures to ship goods . You may not want to believe it but by keeping those old measures around we spend billions annually with no real justification for it other than tradition. Billions in package labeling and everything else just so that Americans can stay wrapped up in their little non metric world bubble. Secondly, not being metric puts the US at a huge disadvantage because so many fields are using the metric system. I've run into countless medical, engineering, and other professionals in dozens of fields who have told me it was really annoying not having a good grounding in SI taught in schools, because it made them have to spend extra time relearning it all once they got into their chosen careers. Another advantage would be the rational speed limits and distances. 5280feet to the mile may sound perfectly rational to you, but for me I'd like nice rounded base ten numbers. And as far as everything in the world being "boredomized" as you put it. This is one thing, this doesn't mean the US is any less American. Seriously, less American because we adopted a measureing system that makes sense? And if you're looking to stop it you may be to late. around 90 percent of everything bought and sold in the US is already done in metric originally. they may slap a inch label on it but deep down it's there :)
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
While the Interstate is great, I've spent literally DAYS on I90, it definately erodes State's Rights.
The desire to capture Federal dollars for road projects, especially in large (area), rural States, forces them to fall in line with Federal mandates and guidelines.
Don't get me wrong, I suspect that most Federal mandates are for 'the good of the people', seat belts, speed limits, etc; and actually do cut down on deaths and accidents.
I'm young enough to only have vague memories of Michigan getting-in-line with a minumum drinking age of 21 (from 18, I think it was the last of the 50), and more recently Montana doing away with the 'reasonable and prudent' speed limit.
In general the pot-of-gold that is the Federal Transporation budget, has made our country nice homogenous, in it's road system and everything that it touches. For better or worse.
Oops. Forgot to put some spaces in :) . Sorry long day.
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
The structural steel could ... meet nearly half of the annual requirements of the American auto industry.
The sad part is when you look at it the other way: The American auto industry would only survive six months on all the steel in all the Interstate highways in the entire United States. Do we really need that many cars?
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Camping gear, Amtrak (US rail system)... very compatible.
Summers of 2001, 2003, and 2005 I took my family camping via the Southwest Chief from Iowa to Raton, MN.
Only things we did not carry on the train were a tent and cooking gear, and we could have packed those along without too much trouble.
The ~100 backpackers going to the same destination as we were had it even easier on the train.
My son, wife, and I were going to the Philmont training center, the 100+ backpackers were off to hike the back country.
If any Russian ever figures out how to get the oil out of the ground and avoid prison in the process, the Chicoms will just take it.
During Eisenhower's term of office, he took the initiative in creating the Interstate highway system.
That doesn't mean he invented it, nor does it mean he poured cement or drove a steamroller.
So lay off the Al Gore on the Internet comment.
-
This might be offopic though. Oh well, I've seen it used as an example, it seems fitting to post it here.
If I remember right by 2010 all Imperial units within the UK will lose their legal status except for the mile and a couple of others for public safety reasons so you never know. Maybe they'll switch to SI before the 2012 Olympics. Also there's an EU directive that says by 2010 any imports into the EU must be weighed and the package contents must be displayed in metric only, so that means that current US companies will have to have two product lines unless the US passes the law permitting voluntary metric labelling. 2010 might see another step forward in the progress of this.
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
> There's absolutely no way I could carry 20 or 30 bags of groceries on a train without a team of sherpas.
Actually the way it works in places like Tokyo (or wherever they have good public transit) is that groceries are co-located at the train station or right beside it. Often the train stations are split level deals with food stalls and daily shopping downstairs. This has some benefits. For one thing people tend to eat much more nutrition dense fresh food and much less high bulk, high calorie, preserved food.
Another benefit is that people get accustomed to a mile or two walking exercise every day inbetween the home, office, and stations. Try getting many Americans to exercise daily. That has huge health benefits and takes the same time as many people spend driving in America, as well as social benefits. Then there is the additional time to read or such on the train.
I agree it's very difficult to do without cars in the US, but in many places like Japan is entirely possible and even preferable. The Japanese system much better as it has many side benefits Americans probably can't imagine not having tried it.
The "freedom" of a car culture is actually a big myth mostly due to car advertising and not knowing nay better. A good transit system that goes everywhere and is supplemented by taxis is actually much more liberating to get anywhere fast, avoid traffic, not have to park, lends itself to more community and less drive through sprawl, and much healthier for the bits of brief exercise one gets inbetween.
I should say voluntary metric only labelling instead of the current dual units labels. It's already legal in all 50 states to have metric only labels but not yet at the federal level.
"The boy is dangerous, they all sense it, why can't you?"
Indiana has leased one of its most used segments of the system to a Spanish-Austrailian company for 75 years. Go Mitch Daniels!!!!
The enduring Interstate system showcases the last great example of a Republican who believed in the government taking public monies and using them to create great, massive public works projects that would provide for the common good and the growth of the nation despite the temporary inconveniences of its construction, in a rarely-seen exhibition of a long-view vision as opposed to a short-term ROI mentality.
So what the fuck happened?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
When I was in 5th grade in North Branch, Minnesota our entire elementary school walked over a mile to the grand opening of I-35 going through the town. It was a great occasion for all of us. It saved us oodles of time over the years. I think the system is great.
I lived near Winnipeg in Canada for 6.5 years and they have nothing that compares. Their Highway 1 that crosses the country from east to west is a joke. They have stop lights and 2 lane roads and no fast access around cities. On top of this, twice in the short time I lived there the entire road was washed out in western Ontario by beaver dams breaking!! All east/west traffic had to be diverted to the U.S. for almost a week each time.
Housing prices in the city rival those of San Francisco. It's the single biggest issue facing the Boston. One of the ways to get out of it would be to extend the existing T (subway) lines out past their current terminus(s?). The plan now is to get the Green Line to extend into Somerville, via Ball Sqare, and into Medford, if it doesn't get bolloxed by neighborhood opposition.
A huge mistake made by the towns of Arlington and Lexington was to squelch Red Line construction, making Mass Ave (which runs through the center of both) into a traffic nightmare some mornings.
If the subways ran farther then they currently do, cheaper housing would become accessable- not that Lexington is cheap...
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall... :-)
Montana always had a speed limit, although their attempts at setting the daytime speed limit for cars to "reasonable and prudent" with no numerical speed limit essentially was an invitation for speed tourists. Eventually they relented and set a 75mph daytime speed limit, since the old "reasonable and prudent" speed limit was constitutionally vague. This was accompanied with advertisements taking potshots at Mario Andretti in all the car magazines.
I'd love to hear to conversation that ensued when the Montana Highway Patrol pulled over 15 Mercedes-Benz test drivers for speeding.
The Tom Moreland Interchange, Atlanta, GA.
What they didn't mention was the necessary costs involved in building the twelve guard rails required for the six sidewalks. Without the guardrails, any Joe could just shove you off the side. Then you'd be chewed to bits by the space alligators at the bottom of the interterralunar moat.
Like that guy in that one movie? D'jou see that flick?
That was awesome.
One man's constant is another man's variable.
A better question may be, do we need that many bottle caps? More steel is used in the US to make bottle caps than auto bodies. http://www.skygaze.com/content/facts/manufacturing .shtml s ting_facts.htm s ode/780563/summary.html
http://www.berro.com/entertainment/general_intere
http://www.tv.com/modern-marvels/heavy-metals/epi
And has encouraged americans to use enough gas to fill a swimming pool, each year.
I don't think that sounds very accurate, I myself use perhaps 10 gallons a week on average (and part of that is account for very long road trips) - which is about 520 gallons a year. I'll bet I drink more lemonaide than that every year, it does not seem terribly excessive to me for the amount of freedom and travel I gain from using that gas.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... It retains its rural charm ...
After reading your anecdotes (fraught with danger) and noticing that link to an image named "MerritPkwy_Fall.jpg", I thought I detected sarcasm in the words "rural charm" - reenforced by all the criticisms found in your post.
Foolishly, I thought: maybe the picture is a road that abruptly ends off a cliff (ala the classic Far Side cartoon's "Lookout ahead") or some enormous hole in the road or, really, anything that one could "fall" from!!!
So I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise that I'm somewhat disappointed right now. I was really hoping for a real life version of that Far Side thing too. Maybe next time...
This is not my sig.
most of the interstate highways that I've traveled were concrete and asphalt only where temporary patches were made
Where do you live? I live in Columbus, OH and have driven regularly to southeast Minnesota (via IN, IL, WI on I-71, I-70, I-465, I-74, I-51, and I-90) and to Rochester, NY (via PA on I-71, I-271, I-90, and I-390) and the only concrete bits I see are bridges.
"why can't we get Presidents like this anymore?"
Because anyone with huevos enough to buck the status quo or speak unpopular truths gets the Rove treatment.
Uhh...Bush bucked the status quo. Pre-emptive wars for example? Bush really doesn't give a hoot about status quo.
Admittedly, it's not easy to get huevos the size of Ike's since you would have to lead one of the most brilliant coalition wars in history, not to mention the largest amphibious invasion in history, and let's not forget having to corral the personalities of *both* Patton and Montgomery (probably the hardest of the three tasks).
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Wait a minute, nobody told me six sidewalks to the moon was one of the options! I would have totally voted for the sidewalk thing...
You're nuts. There is absoultely no conceivable reason we would need more than three.
I agree, but let's get even more basic, why does public transport need to make a profit? Step back and look at the bigger picture... maybe decent public transport should be part of a civilised society *and* the spin off effects may win you lots of economic benefits as well in the long term. there are lots of core national services we accept that cost money and don't run at a profit (= we all pay a little bit to keep them going = taxes) because philosophically a majority of us have agreed that well, they are nice to have and people should get decent services. Whether that means doctors or schools or road lighting or free eye tests for pensioners...
;-) Could you really trust a prime minister to care about public services when she came out with statements like "there is no such thing as society" (talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987).
Some countries think less stuff should run at a loss (e.g. USA) and some countries think more stuff should be supported by us all (e.g. Scandinavian social democracies). My shout is decent cheap (even free in some cases) public transport benefits us all. If you're from the UK you know that while the train system might be relatively good compared to the USA, it's an absolute overpriced mess compared to much of the rest of Western Europe for starters...
Oh, and Thatcher was evil, full stop.
You drink, on average, a gallon and a half of lemonade per day? Holy puckered lips! That's a lot lemons, man....
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Sign, burning two mod points on this (both +funny, whatever), but it's an issue that comes up whenever I talk with Europeans about mass transit, and how they can't understand why we don't have a rail system.
The fundamental problem is that Europeans cannot fully grasp the difference in scale invoved in America, especially in the American West. (It's big. It is really really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it is long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to Texas.) I travel rather often from San Diego, through Los Angeles, and to the Bay Area / San Francisco (these are the three major cities in California, incidentally). The trip takes 8-10 hours to complete, depending on traffic passing through Los Angeles. There is a single rail line that runs down the coast. Once per day it travels between SF and SD, and you have to get up at 5AM to catch it. It takes 11 hours.
San Francisco and San Diego are 500 miles apart.
By comparison, Amsterdam to Paris is 500 *km* apart. The distance from San Diego to San Francisco would span the breadth of England (London to Inverness was 8 hours by train, and is about 550 miles, as is Paris to Nice). When I was in Europe, I was constantly surprised about how little time it took to travel from one city to the next while I was on a train. When you live in the American West, you get used to 6 hour drives at 75-80 miles per hour where you literally see no living human beings outside of the gas stations and rest stops. And maybe some farms.
Europe is very heavily built up. It's dense. Rail networks make a lot more sense in dense networks than in sparse ones. That same rail line that runs to Oxford (60 miles from London) can be used to connect to Warwick, or Stratford-upon-Avon (if my memory serves). The rail network in California is essentially a 3-node graph with a line between SF, LA, and SD. With two mountain ranges in between, to boot. The train company loses money on the line pretty consistently. There's literally nothing in between to make the run profitable. San Luis Obispo and Santa Cruz are nice places, don't get me wrong, but they simply aren't volume destinations. And because it's not profitable, there won't be any more private infrastructure development. The State of California has been toying with the notion of building a high speed line from SF to SD for a while now, but, hell, I ran the numbers myself. Japan wouldn't have built a high speed rail line if their cities were all 500 miles apart. It's too costly. The main island of Japan is about 600 miles long, total.
It's not a better-than or worse-than comparison, I'm simply stating the facts. You have to have a certain critical mass of density to make rail networks worth your while. An analogy that works well with Europeans I've met: Imagine France. Now imagine there is nothing in the country but Paris, Lyon, and Marseille. None of the little villages, towns, and cities. Nothing but desert. Now consider the practicality of a rail network in the country. This is Texas.
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This isn't an America-is-bigger-is-better argument. In fact, I can pretty firmly say that I would greatly prefer being able to travel to another city in an hour or two. I lose an entire day whenever I make the trip. A drive to Phoenix, first major city east of San Diego (Yuma doesn't count) is 6 hours (@75 MPH) through almost nothing but desert. To the average San Diegan or San Franciscan, the other city is akin to a vacation destination. Road Trips are boring as hell unless you find a way to entertain yourself -- I personally go through audiobooks like water.
Rail Networks simply don't work when the graphs are so sparse. Out in the middle of the desert, a car moves faster than a train, and costs less, so why bother going to the hassle of parking your car in long term parking (unless you have a garage of your own), and paying more money to travel slower? I'd do it just for the scenic-ness of it, except you have to board at 5AM to get in
The Autobahn was built to showcase the third Recih's ability to accomplish huge civil works projects and also make the "beauty of the countryside" apparent to all who traveled through Germany. However it's use for military movement was largely overstated by the Hitler's propaganda machine. In reality very little military movement happened on the Autobahn and most of the big troop/equipment movements happened by the existing railway system which extended far beyond Germany's prewar borders... The only thing that was made more efficient by the autobahn was the eventual sweep across Germany by Allied forces which even then was slowed by the number of bridges which were destroyed by the retreating German forces in a effort to slow the Allied invasion. If indeed Eisenhower's reasoning was that as sited in the headline then he must've been a very stupid man... Building something which proved to be quite detrimental to the Axis in the end of the war in Europe..
Then again it is my theory that much of what the US does is simply the laying the groundwork for building our own demise... see arms race...
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
Structural steel, I think, refers to bridges and overpasses.
There are plenty of bridges and overpasses made of stone, wood or concrete (with or without rebar/prestressed cables)
And I don't think their math includes stuff like guard rails (which can also be made out of wood or aluminum) or lightpoles, which are generally made of aluminum.
Not all of the metal you see in/on/around the highway is steel. If it was, the highway system would have a lot more steel associated with it.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
In the mid Sixties, when use of the Interstate System became the primary way to navigate state to state, Barry Goldwater quiped that "the Interstate Highway System is amazing in that it is now possible to travel coast to coast without seeing anything".
Hey now, west of Winnipeg there's TWO national highways! And it's mostly a four-lane divided highway, although there are some grade crossings, and crappy 80 km/h sections in Edmonton.
But seriously, there's only really pockets of freeways in Canada, in southern Ontario and Quebec, and around major cities elsewhere. Alberta will probably end up being the first province to have freeways province-wide.
Hands in my pocket
The lumber used DID consume....
---Excuse the bad English, I'm American---
You drink, on average, a gallon and a half of lemonade per day? Holy puckered lips! That's a lot lemons, man....
Although I am indeed fond of lemonaide I do admit that quantity of lemony liquid alone is as excessive an estimate as the original... however I would say I drink about that much every day, if you include all of the water I drink daily.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Having driven in both Pennsylvania and France, I'll take France, thank you.
Yeah, so you have to throw some money at the autoroute companies, like the nice folks who run the roads in the north (I've driven a number of times between Paris and Brussels and know SANEF well). They're good roads, and somebody has to pay for them. France's funding model seems to work.
Better drivers, too. People get out of your way if you come up behind them. The cops do it right: the speed limit is 130, but if the traffic and weather are favourable they tolerate 160. And the Porsches still blow by you at 220. They also have absolutely no sense of humour about speed if conditions aren't good. This is exactly how it should be.
Vive la France!
A propos the U.S.: several states have tried no open-highway speed limits. Many moons ago it was Nevada. Then it was Montana.
...laura
Social Security paying single women who have too many kids and can't get a job, have you? You must either be on the very upper crust of society or live in a really small town. Otherwise, I believe I just shot down the argument in one fell stroke, and proved that sometimes those __ahem__ people should be SHOT themselves. EOM
2^3 * 31 * 647
i live in LA. i sold my car after realizing i really don't like driving. the thrill of driving wore off in my early 20s when i realized how much of my life was going to be lost in a car. after i left my job and it's 45 minute commute, i found a job 5 miles away and rode my bike. metal baskets over the back wheels allow me to carry my laptop and 2 bags of groceries. markets small and large line my route home.
every major supermarket out here has a shuttle bus which will drive you home with all your groceries for free. so you can walk, ride or bus to the store then take the shuttle home.
for trips less than 5 miles, my bike and i are equal or faster than a car. this is covers most of my trips. trips over 5 miles take me a few minutes longer than a car but i don't have to find parking. anyway, once you get comfortable riding in the street, bikes are so much more fun than driving. oh, and you don't get tickets. i paid hundred of dollars to the city for parking in the wrong place at the wrong time.
but what i think this thread is about is how much the automobile has shaped american life. most new construction expects people to have an automobile. we don't build on human scale, we build on automobile scale. most people i know couldn't live their life without the automobile. for most americans, work and home and school and groceries are so far apart. we live so low-density that normal public transit becomes infefficient. i more local/regional commuter lines (express bus/light rail, stops every 10 miles) with taxis for the final mile would help in the suburbs.
i think that has implications for people's inclination to accept high CO2 levels is bad news for the planet.
btw, i keep extra dry foods (rice, beans, etc.) and fuel for emergencies and freeze my own prepared meals for when i'm too lazy to make fresh food.
fear is the mind killer
If Ike really had huevos, he should have done something when he still had the power to do so, rather than escalate the cold war
Like what? He said to beware the military-industrial complex, but he also said it was a necessary evil.
I was refering to an episode of "South Park" called "Christmas in Canada" which parodies "The Wozard of Oz."
Where they sing about following the yellow brick road became something like "follow the only road, follow the only road, to get anywhere Canada just follow the only road."
Its a little off topic, but the ending of the episode was interesting considering the picture they used for a certain character had been taken and his location had only been found like 3 days before the episode aired.
Face it, the american dream of suburban home ownership is long dead. You gain nothing by purchasing outside the city that you couldn't otherwise get within the city limits. In my experience, neighborhood and community spirit are a good deal stronger in the city too.
Yeah he knew at some point we'd need to move tanks around the country.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Then they really better not count California's roads. Somehow California managed to dodge all requirements for having exit numbers and mile marker posts (as opposed to post-mile markers) since the 1971, as well as any type of reflective sign technology available to the rest of the country for at least the last 30 years. (A few are just now starting to appear.)
Oh, and Californians hate Interstates so much the locals don't even call them Interstates. Ever been on "the 5 freeway?" Or "the 15?" Say "I-15" to someone from LA and watch the confusion unfold.
The Eisenhower Interstate System has long been absent here.
See the CalNexus "modernization" program currently in progress here or here.
In fact, Caltrans (the California DOT) itself barely knows what an Interstate is. Just google "Caltrans bloopers" and the like.
We're already knee-deep in [organic matter] by having Dodd, LIEberman, Shays, and Rell in office, to name a few.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
Concrete is mimserable to drive on. It doesn't degrade like asphalt, but it's very, very noisy and it's slicker in the rain. Id hate to have to drive on nothing but concrete.
-- Connecticut Residents Against Nonconsensual Comparisons
C.R.A.N.C.?
So, you're all a bunch of cranks?
God bless America.
I went to Hawaii for my honeymoon and I swear that they have interstates there. In fact, the same blue shield symbol with the I-xx in it. I don't remember the actual number, but the "I" is definitely there.
I'm sorry about nitpicking, but main routes of the Interstate Highway system have 1 or 2 digits. All Californians know this because Interstate 5 ("Highway 5") is the fastest way to drive between Northern California and Southern California. An additional interesting (to me) fact: the odd numbers assignied to north-south Interstates grow larger from west to east (note Interstate 95 on the East Coast). The even numbers assigned to east-west Interstates grow larger from south to north (e.g. Interstate 10 from Santa Monica to Jacksonville, Interstate 90 from Seattle to Boston).
Also, any explanation of the numbering system of Interstate Highways would be incomplete without also explaining the U.S. Highways (or Routes). After all, the famous Route 66 is a U.S. Highway, not an Interstate Highway. U.S. Highways (or Routes) have black and white signs with 1 to 3 digits. Like Interstates, U.S. Highways (or Routes) have odd numbers for north-south, even numbers for east-west. However, the numbering scheme is inverted: the odd numbers for north-south U.S. Highways grow larger from east to west (e.g. Highway 1 on the East Coast, Highway 101 on the West Coast). The even numbers for east-west U.S. Highways grow larger from north to south.
For a better and more complete (but brief) explanation than mine, see my source: The High(way) Sign.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
Small towns in upstate New York like to drop the highway speed limit to about 20. The towns are actually supported by speeding ticket revenue.
Florida would rather you run a red light. That will cost you around $120, while speeding can cost around $600.
I'd settle for the entirety of Yale campus, but I dont know if that'd just give more acreage for the Skull and Bones group. Was that what you were aiming towards having in place?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
My only question is ... what would a sidewalk to the moon be beside?
Look out!
One of the best uses of taxpayer money in federal government history.
Bruce
> I, having used my car to get to work, can leave at any time, make any number of stops, run any number of errands, go anywhere I choose. The very nature of mass transit dictates that the mass-transit commuter does not have as much flexibility.
btw, that is wrong about a lack of flexibility. First of all you can leave any time with a train system, and not have to worry about traffic jams or drunk drivers. There are late night taxis where trains aren't 24hrs. Also many people enjoy having to leave work for "last train" rather than employers keeping workers into the wee hours of the morning and 80/hr weeks due to poor management and insufficient work forces, a common problem in our culture.
Maybe you've never been in a good transit system?
You can make as many stops with as much flexibility and go to as many places as you want, faster, and without parking, individually or in groups as large as you like, with efficiency and with less pollution. In fact, because there is less space wasted for huge parking lots and such, you generally have much denser destinations where more can be done. All the shopping, entertainment, dining, etc is more closely situated. The advantage is that people can walk around to go to much more locations and see more people than in a car culture. One can for example go with coworkers/family for dinner and then a movie or drink, or to the gym, or whatever, much more easily.
btw, Americans hang out at malls a lot, so it's pretty obvious they like such places. The difference is that in Europe and Japan the gathering places tend to be around train stations, and instead of sterile "malls" they tend to be neighborhoods of small business, whether it's the small cafe, butcher, boutique, etc.
The business surrounding train stations and malls tend to evolve differently. Malls tend to be built by large developers, run centrally and often somewhat sterilely, with little flexibility to expand or contract due to issues of parking and the expense of real estate development. That tends to limit consumers options to franchises, food courts, and anme brand stores. By comparison business around train stations is often integrated right into the community and therefore has more ability to expand and contract by converting between residential/business/vacant. As a result business around train stations tend to be less franchised, more entrepreneurial, and more interesting and diverse with a real sense of community.
So, in the US you hop in a car and go from work to A to B to home. Each A + B are probably in a distinct location requiring a drive inbetween, where traffic is an issue and commute times vary. If A was a restaurant and B a gym or other recreation they'd probably require a drive in-between or be at a mall limiting the quality of both. If you're traveling with others then each has to worry about their car and parking. The 'advantage' is one doesn't need to walk much if at all, which means a trip to the gym (with a commute there) or probably no exercise. In fact one has to make a deliberate effort to take time to exercise in addition to commute time.
In a place like Japan or Europe, you simply take the train which is reliable and on time, and have no traffic issues, so you'll on average arrive faster. You get off the train and can walk a short distance to your A + B destination which are probably close to each other near the station, by design, decades ago. That integrates healthy living right into the day, seamlessly. If you're with friends, no problem. You'll have a greater number of interesting choices of activities at your destination. If you drink, no need to worry about driving.
The "I" is definitely not there. It is an H. They have H1, H2, and H3. Not really an "inter"-state, but not much more of anomaly than other Interstates that don't cross state lines (of which there are several). Even Puerto Rico does. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_H1 for more info.
eh, the first one wasn't well written, shot was reference to end of post, about those leechs who live off of govt money should be shot, and if you live on good middle income, then you can't be too far removed from these freeloaders to have not heard anyone else griping about them.
my point is, for instance, when someone gets a FEMA card that is supposed to help them buy groceries and diapers while they are living in govt sponsored hotel rooms, then they should either a) not buy a big screen tv with said FEMA card, or b) they should be publicly executed.
Okay, so I probably won't get modded very generously for suggesting public executions of trivial rule breakers, but I live in Houston, and I didn't get a FEMA card, but I was very seriously displaced for a short period due to govt non-communication (I reference the roads situation here in Houston and the surrounding areas) and on top of that, my tax money is going to support those who are performing acts similar to the above mentioned two sets of examples. On top of that, why the hell are we paying $3.50 for gas when we don't have to*, and it's a friggin hurricane? *to support the largest recorded quarterly or annual income ever. EVER. but that's a rant for another day. I'm really talking about those freeloaders who go, oh, it's not MY money, it's GOVT money, so I can just buy whatever/not have to work for 3-16 mos/yrs.
2^3 * 31 * 647
The no such thing as society thing was taken out of context, but point taken. :)
Public transport is one of those things that should be run publicly. It doesn't work any other way. Basic public needs that don't make profit should be nationalised for the greater good. I know that's DANGEROUS SOCIALIST THINKING around here, but look at what happened to British Rail and I don't think you could see it any other way.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
>I have a car, I'm going to drive it whenever and whereever I feel ... I'll resist your attempt to take my freedom.
You seem to forget that your freedom only extends so far as not infringing on others' freedoms and rights!
Your car use does infringe on the natural right of micronesian people to live in the land of their ancestors, as the pacific islands are already starting to submerge under raising sea levels due to global climate change (which your fossil-powered car causes). The people of Iraq, Iran and Venezuela are denied their right to live under the rule of their own government, as USA invades these countries and others one-by-one to secure control over oil reserves needed to keep your very own car running. The whole damn world is getting fried as global temperature rises, weather becomes more and more savage, negro drown in New Orleans while you drive your god-given car. What about their freedoms and liberties?
Rhode Island won the lawsuit.
Best Slashdot Co
You make some good points, BUT...
:-) (south, bay, valley)
As someone who has spent most of his life in "the other California" in the Central Valley, I would have to imagine that a better route for a train line in the state would be NOT to go up highway 1 (as scenic as it is), or interstate 5 (all the way), but rather highway 99. There are 5 cities of between 200,000 and 1,000,000 million people along that route, each about a two hour car trip apart (Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton, Sacramento) or a bit closer in some cases. It is not as direct, but hey, why not use the state capitol as the hub between the E-W line to the bay area and the N-S line to Southern California?
Who knows, perhaps some good would come of joining the three cultures
Yow! I'm supposed to have a plan?
The second part of the series is available for anyone who would like to read it. This one focuses on previous roads and waterways that led to the development of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.
Hmm... I wonder what gets classified as a tunnel, because I'd guess that (on average) there were at least 2 tunnels per state on interstate roads.
coding is life
They only appear cheaper, because you pay for the roads through higher taxes.
Governments could make train/rail cheap or free, if they really wanted to address a transportation problem.
Three up, three down. No waiting!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Because all military bases, when the project was created, had to be linked to the interstate system.
Explain how the following bases are linked to the Interstate System:
China Lake Naval Weapons Center
Nevada Test Site
Dover Air Force Base
Hint: they aren't.
That's just 3 off the top of my head. Where do you come up with this stuff?
Today is the last day of CR4's weeklong celebration of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. Today's story, "The Road Ahead", considers the future of the interstate highway system. Did you know that construction of a Trans-Texan Corridor(TTC) for a NAFTA Super Highway could begin as early as next year?