Happy 50th Birthday to Interstate Highways!

Take a drive down memory lane with the history of America's national highway system, first envisioned by Dwight D. Eisenhower

by Marty Bernstein

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While a few years shy of being a senior citizen, the interstate highway system has changed what we drive and how we drive by making road trips not just pleasant, scenic and convenient. The ability to go any-where in the U.S. at anytime has become a way of life for millions and millions of Americans and added to our nation's growth, economy and independence.

Sure, some of our Interstates have gotten a little long in tooth and in need of constant repair and maintenance, but one can put up with minor inconveniences – detours, traffic jams, pot holes, construction delays, back-ups, drive-time-angst and orange cone dividers – to remain on a multi-lane, limited access, paved, well signed, no billboard pollution, lots of rest stops and usually divided roads. And most of them are free.

Before this road system, as your grandparents or parents may have told you, road travels, including the famous Route 66 were two-lane, sometimes paved roads that connected our cities and states. Travel by car was tough.

How the Interstate Highway System Began

In 1919, a young army captain was one of almost 300 army troops who departed from Washing-ton, D.C. in the first military auto caravan ever undertaken by the military to drive across America. Talk about bad roads: the group averaged just five miles per hour and it took over two months, 62 days to be exact, for them to reach the destination of San Francisco, C.A. After years of service, including WWII, where he saw the German autobahn system, the professional soldier retired from the military.

And now as Paul Harvey might say, "Here's the rest of the story!" That man was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it is to him that we owe a debt of thanks, for he is acknowledged to be the father of our vast Interstate Highway System.

Even before he became president, Eisenhower said, "A modern network of roads for America as necessary to defense as it is to our national economy and personal safety." He never wavered from these views, and as he began his second term in office, Eisenhower made known his intentions, his demands, for a national highway system.

In a Congressional address half a century ago today (January 26, 1956) then President Eisenhower proposed his vision of a national highway system. Six months later, June 29, 1956, Congress had passed the Federal Aid Highway Act (FAHA) of 1956. It was signed and our Interstates, as they would be known, began to spread across the landscape. For that time, the estimated cost of $50 billion worth of highway construction – the biggest public works project ever undertaken at the time – was gigantic.

In recognition of President Eisenhower's origination, involvement and contributions, the Interstate Highway system he proposed, over some strenuous objections by both the House and Senate, was recently renamed, the Eisenhower Interstate System. Signs like the one shown are in the process of being erected along the system.

While Eisenhower's vision has added value to America, all has not been good or rewarding about our national interstate highways. Access to these roads has increased the number of large trucks, accidents are up, congestion gets worse daily, smog and air pollution often result, our cities have become suburban sprawls, we've lost mass transit including railroads.

Ah, but we've developed the need for a two car family. And that's been good for the automobile business. Which means it's good for most reading this happy birthday Interstate System birthday card.

Provided by American International Automobile Dealers Association—The Ultimate Online Resource for the Automotive Retail Industry