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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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
"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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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
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).
Amtrak isn't a real train system. It's dirty, the equipment is old, it's horribly unreliable, it's slower than driving (which no passenger train has a right to be), trains don't run on any kind of reasonable schedule, and customer service is inconsistent. When I'm in Europe, I'm a train fanboy, but I don't consider riding Amtrak.
I think a better indicator of the demand for *real* trains is in the ridership on short-range airline shuttles. Those planes are packed, causing enormous airport congestion and worsening the already significant hassles inherent in modern air travel.
That's why I want to build a new system, not modeled on Amtrak but on the best of the Japanese and European high-speed systems. I think, unlike Amtrak, it would provide a comfortable, environmentally superior and relatively fast alternative to the short-range air travel we're increasingly putting up with.
I'll elaborate a bit... imagine going Boston to Washington in 3.5 hours, with no security checkpoint, room to stretch your legs, no seat belt sign, quiet (and the ability to change cars to get away from screaming babies), enjoyable scenery out the window, the train station a short cab ride from where you want to go on both ends, no mad scramble for seat assignments, and no need to pay outrageous change/cancel fees. I expect there would be demand to run a train once an hour from 5 am to 9 pm, which you could just catch, buying a ticket at the station, as necessary. Similar service would work throughout the Northeast and the Rust Belt, between Atlanta and Miami, and between San Diego and Vancouver. With the right equipment it might even work somewhere like Texas where the cities are far apart but there would be little to stop the trains from reaching near-airplane speeds.
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
As another point of reference, although Europe (and the E.U.) as a whole are quite densely populated, Sweden has about 1/20 of the land area of the U.S., but a 1/30 of the population. Even if you would be able to go the most direct route, you could drive for almost 1000 miles (1600 km, equal to New York - Minneapolis) without leaving the borders. Yes, there are actual roads to drive on, as well, although the quality deteriorates if you leave the main ones in sparsely populated areas. And, as I noted, the border is nothing more than a sign along the road.
You can also easily find two sites with the parameters "significant city" and "major airport" with more than a 6 hour drive, in one direction, between them, within for example Germany and France.
>> 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
It's a combination of a bunch of things.
In Germany the roads were designed with much higher speeds in mind, and are kept in much better repair than US interstates, which were designed (outside of an urban area) for maximum speeds of 65-75 mph. In the early 70s, when there was an energy crisis, there were studies done that the cars of the time were much more fuel efficient when only traveling at 55 mph. So, fedral legislation was enacted requiring states to lower their speed limits to 55 mph (if they wanted to receive fedral highway funds). After raising the limit a couple of times, in 1995, Congress gave full authority to the states to determine their own speed limits, and some states keep it lower for fuel/environmental reasons.
Germany also does a much better job at making sure the roads are well maintained. If you're going 120+ mph, and you hit a stretch where the road isn't completely smooth and there may be some pot holes.
Another reason is that Germany has laws regarding driving habits. You're not allowed to pass on the right, nor are you allowed to drive for extended periods in the left lane, and you can actually get fined if you're caught doing so. Until they actually put in some driving laws like this in the US, not having a speed limit is not something that's going to happen any time soon.
If there's anything more important than my ego around, i want it caught and shot now.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
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
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.........
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."
Screw the space elevator, I'm walking.
I will forever be a student.
In that market, Amtrak already IS a big player. They move roughly half of the non-driving intercity passengers between NY and Washington, as much as the shuttles. In the NY to Boston segment, they move 1 for every 2 airline customers.
I'll elaborate a bit... imagine going Boston to Washington in 3.5 hours, with no security checkpoint, room to stretch your legs, no seat belt sign, quiet (and the ability to change cars to get away from screaming babies), enjoyable scenery out the window, the train station a short cab ride from where you want to go on both ends, no mad scramble for seat assignments, and no need to pay outrageous change/cancel fees.
You don't have to imagine it ... I did it last week. It's called the Acela Express. Eight weekday roundtrips Boston to NY, and 14 weekday roundtrips NY to Washington. The US already HAS a reasonable _short-haul_ intercity passenger rail system. The Northeast Corridor, California Coast, and the Northwest function well, with continually increasing ridership numbers. And many of hte markets you mentioned are under consideration for the development of highspeed rail. Beyond those limited corridors, however, the time penalty in crossing between populated areas of the country by rail is prohibitive given the cheap domestic airline market.
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....
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
> 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.
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.
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall... :-)
Not true, according to Snopes:
Claim: The American interstate highway system was designed to be used for emergency airstrips in case of war. Status: False. http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp
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
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
> 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.