The National Interstate and Defense
Highways Act of 1956
John Kurpierz, Aaron Lykken, Daniel Wilkinson
April 3, 2012
Presentation Roadmap
•  History prior to the Interstate Highway Act
•  Summary of the legislation
•  Aftermath of Interstate Highway Act
•  Critical Analysis
A Tired History
•  Development and funding considered but never strongly supported
•  Road building was largely left to county or state government
•  The U.S. had over 2 million miles of dirt roads, poorly maintained,
prone to flooding and frequently impassable, crooked and full of
ruts
•  Road network was unconnected
Dirt roads near Johnston, Iowa
Paving the Way
•  Late 1890s/early 1900s – Public and private demand for roads
began to rise
•  1907 - Supreme court ruled that Congress could build highways
•  1916 and 1921 Federal Aid Highway Acts allowed for federal
funding and technical assistance
•  Executive support by
President Eisenhower
Interstate Highway Act of 1956
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Provided $26 billion in federal dollars for interstate highways
Established a 90% federal, 10% state funding model
Highway Trust Fund created
Total system covered 42,500 miles, 54,663 bridges and 104 tunnels
Planned completion was 1969, finished in early 1990s
Renamed the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways
The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and
Defense Highways
Bureaucratic Results
•  The Highway Revenue Act of 1956 initiated a 1-cent tax on gasoline
(18.4 cents per gallon in 2012) that was to help fund the roads.
–  While we pay more, inflation has been far stronger. We currently pay
only half our purchasing power in gas tax compared to when the 1-cent
tax was initiated.
•  The Bureau of Public Roads was transformed into the Federal
Highway Administration.
•  The Federal government paid 90% of the cost of roadbuilding, as
opposed to its previous 50/50 or 60/40 shares. This payment
system continues to today.
Economic Results
•  Highway construction from 1954 onwards was key in ensuring
returning soldiers had jobs available.
•  Broad, easily-usable highways were key in Germany’s and the US’s
economic boom, due to the ease of transporting workers and
materials.
•  This created a feedback loop in which cars, suburban homes, and
interstate construction reinforced the utility of each other, causing a
large capital boom.
Germany’s highway system predates
the United States’, and was the
inspiration for it.
Cheaper, Easier Transportation
•  Since the Interstate Highway System was created, per capita miles
of driving have tripled without any increase in the share of personal
incomes spent on driving.
•  American shipping costs declined 90 percent over the course of the
20th century; the majority of this decrease came after 1950.
•  While making up only 1.2% of the mileage of US roads, Interstates
carry roughly half of freight and a quarter of passenger traffic each
year.
Setting Highways Through Cities
•  The original design of the Interstate system had the routes pass
near, but not through, cities.
–  This was changed on a local scale as mayors and governors pressed
for highways to pass through city centers.
•  This cross-cutting allowed local elites an excuse to completely tear
down “blighted neighborhoods” to make way for roads.
•  It also made suburban living cheaper as one could efficiently work
in downtown, and commute home to the edge of the city
Rise of the Suburbs
•  In 1970, the suburbs of metropolitan areas surpassed the central
cities and nonurban areas in population size.
•  By 1980, suburb-to-suburb commutes became the most common
form of travel.
•  By 1990, 48% of Americans lived in suburban places, according to
the US Census.
•  This led to a new wave of segregation, one in which white families
moved out of the city into their own individuated communities,
rather than engage in keeping minority families out.
•  This also sapped economic energy from the central cities, creating
“edge cities” of service-based strip malls, and removing
manufacturing from the inner cities.
Problems and Solutions
Freeway Segregation
•  Cities like Dallas, Sacramento and Los Angeles turned their core
into parking lots.
•  As you can see from the previous picture the pink and red areas of
downtown Dallas are parking lots.
•  The core of this city was mostly demolished and the residents were
forced to move outside the downtown “ring” into other
neighborhoods splintered by thoroughfares into ethnically and
economically divided neighborhoods.
Thoroughfare Wasteland
Our Viaduct
Solutions
•  In cities around the country and the world, there is a progressive
movement to reduce the footprint of freeways.
•  In Seattle the waterfront, which used to be the economic and
commercial center of the city will be reclaimed when the viaduct is
replaced with a tunnel.
•  In San Francisco the Central and Embarcadero Freeways are being
removed in favor of surface streets.
–  This will help restore the neighborhoods that were destroyed by the
1956 Highway Act.
•  Many cities are limiting or even reducing the availability of
downtown parking space in an effort to revitalize downtown.
Changes in Preferences
•  The cookie cutter American dream of suburban living is changing.
•  As fuel costs increase and cultural norms transform what is more
desirable to younger generations a substantial push towards
urbanization is underway.
•  Once again metropolitan migration is changing the dynamics of
urban America.
Thank you
Think differently.
Make a difference.
It’s the Washington Way.