Soccer Dad

The interstate system at 50

It was June 29, 1956, 50 years ago, that President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 allocating the money that would be used to create the Interstate Highway system.

Going through the many documents at the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) a great many of them are written by Richard Weingroff. Mr Weingroff is the "... information liaison specialist in FHWA's Office of Infrastructure" and is an excellent writer who knows a lot about the interstates. Perhaps the best article of his I've seen is The Year of the Interstate which features not only a history of the interstate system but is illustrated with some incredible pictures of some of the more exotic sections of the Interstate system.

The longest interstate that I regularly travel on (though for only a short time) is Interstate 70 (I-70) that originates in Fort Cove, Utah and ends in Baltimore. (Why does it originate in Utah? Because the convention for interstates is that the westernmost or southernmost points are where they start. I-95 starts in Florida not Massachusetts.)

I'd been wondering about Fort Cove and where it was for about two years now. That's because a new sign's gone up on Route 70 just outside of Baltimore that reads

Columbus 420 miles
St. Louis 845 miles
Denver 1700 miles
Cove Fort 2200 miles

Now I know why. Highway engineers were testing a new display technology that is more easily visible; especially at night. But since the technology was new they choose to put up an informative sign rather than a critical one.

UPDATE: Here are a few of the more impressive feats of engineering involved in creating the Interstate system.

One thing that I've noticed is missing lately from highways, whether or not they are interstates, are cloverleaf interchanges. Cloverleafs have apparently fallen out of favor for single point urban interchanges (SPUIs or Spooeys) It's npt entirely clear why cloverleafs have fallen into disfavor, but the strongest argument against it is that "weaving" - having cars getting off the highway and coming on switching lanes - is a difficult maneuver and can often lead to bottlenecks.

Of course there are many other kinds of interchanges. Dror Bar-Natan of the University of Toronto has a fascination with "knotted" objects (in the sense of mathematical topology). And wouldn't you know it? There's a knotted interchange right around Baltimore at the northeast corner of the Baltimore Beltway where it merges with I-95. The letter writer he quotes is correct, that left handed merge is quite scary.

Interchanges are there. But here's something that isn't there.

I seem to remember a Jeopardy answer that sections of the interstate system were straight so that a plane could land there in an emergency. It is called a myth here.

One in five miles of the Interstate System is straight so airplanes can land in emergencies.

This myth is widespread on the Internet and in reference sources, but has no basis in law, regulation, design manual—or fact. Airplanes occasionally land on Interstates when no alternative is available in an emergency, not because the Interstates are designed for that purpose.

Could Alex Trebek have been wrong?

I guess I'm fascinated by interstates because so much of my life has revolved around them. They're not just how I get to work, I also used them to get married as I had to travel north quite a bit for dates.

Interstates are 50 years old, and that's pretty great.

Technorati tags: Interstates, Cloverleaf Interchanges, Cove Fort.