The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways , commonly called the Interstate Highway System (or simply the Interstate System ), is a network of limited-access highways (also called freeways or expressways) in the United States that is named for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who championed its formation. The entire system, as of 2006, has a total length of 46,876 miles (75,440 km), making it both the largest highway system in the world and the largest public works project in history. The Interstate Highway System is a subsystem of the National Highway System.
While Interstate Highways usually receive substantial federal funding (90% federal and 10% state) and comply with federal standards, they are owned, built, and operated by the states or toll authorities. For example, the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge (part of Interstate 95/495), was maintained by the federal government; its new span is now jointly owned and maintained by the states of Maryland and Virginia. There are also other Interstate Highways within the District of Columbia, which is federal territory.
This freeway system serves nearly all major U.S. cities, with many Interstates passing through downtown areas. The distribution of virtually all goods and services involves Interstate Highways at some point. Residents of American cities commonly use urban Interstates to travel to their places of work. The vast majority of long-distance travel, whether for vacation or business, uses the national road network. Of these trips, about one-third (by the total number of miles driven in the country in 2003) use the Interstate system.
History
The Interstate Highway System was authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 – popularly known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 – on June 29. It had been lobbied for by major U.S. automobile manufacturers and championed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was influenced by his experiences as a young Army officer crossing the country in the 1919 Army Convoy on the Lincoln Highway, the first road across America. Eisenhower also had gained an appreciation of the German Autobahn network as a necessary component of a national defense system while he was serving as Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. In addition to facilitating private and commercial transportation, it would provide key ground transport routes for military supplies and troop deployments in case of an emergency or foreign invasion.
Initial federal planning for a nationwide highway system began in 1921, when the Bureau of Public Roads asked the Army to provide a list of roads it considered necessary for national defense. This resulted in the Pershing Map. Later that decade, highways such as the New York parkway system were built as part of local or state highway systems. As automobile traffic increased, planners saw a need for such an interconnected national system to supplement the existing, largely non-freeway, United States Numbered Highway system. By the late 1930s, planning had expanded to a system of new superhighways. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave BPR chief Thomas MacDonald a hand-drawn map of the U.S. marked with eight superhighway corridors for study. In 1939, BPR Division of Information chief Herbert S. Fairbank wrote a report entitled Toll Roads and Free Roads , "the first formal description of what became the interstate highway system," and in 1944 the similarly-themed Interregional Highways . The publication in 1955 of the General Location of National System of Interstate Highways , informally known as the Yellow Book , mapped out what became the Interstate System.
Although construction on the Interstate Highway System continues, I-70 through Glenwood Canyon (completed in 1992) is often cited as the completion of the originally planned system. The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars) and taking 35 years to complete. Additional spurs and loops/bypasses remain under construction, such as Interstate 485 in North Carolina. A few main routes not part of the original plan remain under construction, such as Interstate 22 in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, and the extension of Interstate 69 from Indiana to Texas. Officials have also identified some non-interstate corridors for future inclusion into the system by either constructing new interstate routes or upgrading existing roads to interstate highways.
Due to the cancellation of the Somerset Freeway, Interstate 95 is discontinuous in New Jersey. Authorized by the federal government in 2004, the Pennsylvania Turnpike/Interstate 95 Interchange Project is scheduled to connect the separate sections of I-95 to form a continuous route, completing the final section of the original plan.
Three states have claimed the title of first Interstate Highway. Missouri claims that the first three contracts under the new program were signed in Missouri on August 2, 1956. The first contract signed was for U.S. 66. On August 13, 1956, Missouri awarded the first contract based on new Interstate Highway funding.
Kansas claims that it was the first to start paving after the act was signed. Preliminary construction had taken place before the act was signed, and paving started September 26, 1956. The state marked its portion of I-70 as the "first project in the United States completed under the provisions of the new Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956."
According to information liaison specialist, Richard Weingroff, the Pennsylvania Turnpike could also be considered one of the first Interstate Highways. On October 1, 1940, 162 miles (261 km) of the highway now designated I-70 and I-76 opened between Irwin and Carlisle. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refers to the turnpike as "The Granddaddy of the Pikes".
Nebraska was the first state to complete its mainline Interstate Highway. The portion of Interstate 80 in Nebraska was completed on October 19, 1974.
Standards
Main article: Interstate Highway standardsThe American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) has defined a set of standards that all new Interstates must meet unless a waiver from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is obtained. One almost absolute standard is the controlled access nature of the roads. With few exceptions, traffic lights (and cross traffic in general) are limited to toll booths and ramp meters (metered flow control for lane merging during rush hour).
Speed limits
Further information: Speed limits in the United States and National Maximum Speed LawBeing freeways, Interstate Highways usually have the highest speed limits in a given area. Speed limits are determined by individual states. From 1974 to 1987, the maximum speed limit on any highway in the United States was 55 miles per hour (90 km/h), in accordance with federal law. Currently, rural speed limits generally range from 65 to 75 miles per hour (105 to 121 km/h), although several portions of I-10 and I-20 in rural western Texas, along with a portion of I-15 in rural central Utah, have speed limits of 80 mph (130 km/h). Typically, lower limits are established in the more densely populated Northeastern states, while higher speed limits are established in the less densely populated Southern and Western states. For example, some stretches of I-76 through Philadelphia have a speed limit of 45 mph (72 km/h).
Other uses
As one of the components of the National Highway System, Interstate Highways improve the mobility of military troops to and from airports, seaports, rail terminals, and other military bases. Interstate Highways also connect to other roads that are a part of the Strategic Highway Network, a system of roads identified as critical to the U.S. Department of Defense.
The system has also been used to facilitate evacuations in the face of hurricanes and other natural disasters. An option for maximizing traffic throughput on a highway is to reverse the flow of traffic on one side of a divider so that all lanes become outbound lanes. This procedure, known as contraflow lane reversal, has been employed several times for hurricane evacuations. After public outcry regarding the inefficiency of evacuating from southern Louisiana prior to Hurricane Georges' landfall in September 1998, government officials looked towards contraflow to improve evacuation times. In Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, in 1999, lanes of Interstates 16 and 26 were used in a contraflow configuration in anticipation of Hurricane Floyd with mixed results.
In 2004, contraflow was employed ahead of Hurricane Charley in the Tampa, Florida area and on the Gulf Coast before the landfall of Hurricane Ivan; however, evacuation times there were no better than previous evacuation operations. Engineers began to apply lessons lea
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