Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 20:10:27 -0600
Reply-To: Joel Walker <jwalker@URONRAMP.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Joel Walker <jwalker@URONRAMP.NET>
Subject: Re: Interstates
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
From: Kevin and Heather <keather@EARTHLINK.NET>
> The interstate highway system was a boondogle, cooked up by the automotive
> and petrolium industry and cloaked in the guise of 'national security' to
> sell it to the public. Can anyone seriously believe their effectiveness as
> evacuation routes with a 25 min nuclear strike warning? Real estate
well, no .. if you check the history of the interstates and lived through
their conception and building (like some of us old farts), you'd find that
President Dwight Eisenhower was the one that got them started. which is why
it's now be named The Eisenhower Interstate System. anyway, if you check a
bit farther back in history, oh, say around the end of World War I, you'll
find a small footnote in history where CAPTAIN Dwight Eisenhower (the same
one) took a company of men (about 200) and trucks from New York to San
Francisco.
big deal, you say? yup, back then it was. cause there was NO "highway
system" for the whole United States. period. anyway, it took THREE MONTHS
for them to drive across the country, using dirt trails and such as might
laughingly be termed "roads" back then. Eisenhower lobbied hard for the War
Department (now called the Department of Defense) and the Army to get a
system set up and working, so that troops and materiel could be easily
transported from coast to coast in times of war (as they knew it back then),
as the new terror weapon, the airplane, had shown in europe that it could
easily destroy the railroad systems and put your transportation out of
business.
along comes World War II. guess who's in it? :) yup, good ol' Ike Eisenhower
(the same one). what he sees is this system of roads, built by the very guy
he's trying to defeat, that keeps Germany in the war much longer than they
should have been, even though Ike's bombers and fighters were tearing up the
railroads daily. point being: stuff did get delivered by road.
war ends. about ten years later, Ike gets elected President. and we get a
system of national highways that is called the Interstate Highway System.
yes, they came up with the US highway system years before, but it was really
fragmented and not a very "good" system of roads. it was, however, the
starting point of the numbering system: even-numbered federal highways run
east-west; odd-numbered federal highways run north-south. more or less ...
some of each can run at angles (southwest to northeast, southeast to
northwest; like that) due to mountains or rivers or phases of the moon or
politics or whatever. :) anyone who tried to drive cross-country on the old
US highway system was in for a real adventure ... and many days of traveling
through endless little towns with very low speed limits and eagerly-awaiting
cops and traffic court judges, not such great availability of gasoline
(especially after dark), poor highway markings and signs and directions, and
not very many hotels until after WWII when the "Motel" was invented.
so there was a bit more to it than just politics and greed. someone actually
thought it would be a good idea for the country. all in all, i guess it has
... although it has meant the fiscal death of many small towns. and the
construction never seems to end: Interstates I-85, I-75, I-20, and the loop,
I-285, that run through and circle around Atlanta, GA, were started back in
about 1958. 42 years ago. construction has NEVER stopped on those
interstates in all those years. not once has there been a year in Atlanta
when the interstates weren't being
expanded/redesigned/fixed/rerouted/something.
so if you want to make your fortune, get into highway construction, and go
to Atlanta! :) (or any other big city, i'd imagine).
joel
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