Highways To, or Around, a City
Roads and Routes
| Good mass transit systems would reduce highway traffic. Meanwhile, what about those highways -- are they placed logically? Everett W. Gross recounts his experiences. |
by Everett W. Gross
I recently wrote about our automobile trip to Maryland and played up the problem of the giant trucks on the major roads. This time my comments will refer to the roads themselves. I can fairly remember the era when President Eisenhower dreamed up the Interstate system. He had a few major concepts in mind.
Probably the leading idea was that it was to serve massive military uses in the event of a major war. Probably second was that it would facilitate massive evacuations of people in the event of some major catastrophe (earthquake perhaps?) Third, as I remember, was to speed the work-a-day traffic and make travel safer and eliminate the expenses of fuel and wear and tear caused by stop-and-go requirements.
Whenever I travel on the Interstate, I am conscious of those considerations. Whenever I come to some juncture, I usually wonder whether the road designers had those ideas in mind, and in the order as I have stated them. All too frequently, I conclude that they did not. If they had, the main course of the road would not go through the very gizzard of any city. Travelers wanting to enter a city would have available one branch or exit or more, so they could do so. But they could stay out if they wish.
Imagine a large military convoy of many vehicles including some loaded high and wide and heavy. Most city routes include underpasses. Imagine some of them carrying hazardous material, maybe explosive or radioactive, going through a densely populated district. You may argue that the city can have a by-pass for that, and indeed most of them do. But some of those involve a rather tight pig-tail turn to get onto or off that by-pass. In a military emergency, do you think the convoy, wanting to stay out of the populated area, should be the one required to negotiate that type of turn? Work-a-day traffic can and does do that all the time and is not bothered. In nearly every such case which I saw, I believe that I could have selected the routing and type of junction to favor the massive military convoy.
I am not saying that many cities fail my test. Some that I went through, or around, years ago, I do not remember judging. Nebraska does quite well except for Omaha. I seem to remember that there was a rather (many months) long discussion of routing there and all suggestions of routes outside the city were rejected. As I vaguely remember, Omaha was the first city to get all routes through the already populated areas. I believe Baltimore was next, or nearly so. But Baltimore's beltway does just what I-95 would have needed to do anyway.
You may argue that in a lot of places there are lots of people near both sides of the highway. Yes, roadside services have grown up on both sides. They have done that even in outstate Nebraska, but you don't need to leave the main line in order to avoid the town.
A few awkward examples I might mention are Peoria, Illinois, and Columbus, Ohio. Maybe Indianapolis can be forgiven, but I still don't think all of those major roads had to meet in the heart of the city. Its beltway is very heavily traveled. We have found a State road north of Indianapolis that saves miles and skirts the whole mess. Behold! the big trucks have found it too. Cambridge, Ohio and Wheeling, West Virginia are not awkward to negotiate but do have the road through some pretty thick populations. For these two, I suspect that some mountains were deciding factors.
----------------------
Also see -- Fred Foldvary on The Importance of Being Mobile
http://www.progress.org/archive/fold225.htmLindy Davies on The Northeast Corridor, Then and Now
http://www.progress.org/2004/davies22.htmStanley Sapiro on Highway Robbery
http://www.progress.org/archive/sapiro2.htm
| Email this article | Sign up for free Progress Report updates via email |
What's your opinion? Share your views:
| Page One | Page Two | Archive |
| Discussion Room | Letters | What's Geoism? |
