President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act on June 29, 1956. The bill created a 41,000 mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways that would according to the President, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of speedy, safe transcontinental travel”. At the same time highway advocates argued that in case of an atomic bomb attack on our key cities, the Interstate would permit quick evacuation of the targeted areas. For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was essential for national interest. The idea came when Eisenhower was a general during World Wal 11 and he saw how efficient the German’s moved their equipment and troops over their highways and knew that for America to remain the world power it had become, America too, had to be able to move its military around efficiently, so this was another reason driving this Highway act in 1956.
Today there are over 250 million cars and trucks in the United States, almost 1 for every citizen. By contrast in the early 1900’s there was one vehicle per 18,000 Americans. This changed beginning in 1908 when Ford introduced the Model T car and by 1927, the company had sold 15 million. As America became a nation of drivers, we needed good roads, but building good roads was expensive. The car companies, tire manufacturers, gas station owners and suburban developers were able to convince state and local governments that roads were a public concern and elected officials agreed to use taxpayer’s money to fund the construction of roads. In most cases before 1956, the Federal Government split the cost of roadbuilding with the states. However, this arrangement did not get roads built fast enough to keep up with the demand.
Under the terms of the 1956 law, $26 Billion was allocated to pay for the new Interstate Highway. The Federal Government would pay for 90% of the cost of the expressway construction and the state would pay 10%. The money came from an increase in gasoline tax from 2 cents a gallon to 3 cents a gallon which went into the non-divertible Highway Trust Fund, and then again in 1959 the tax was raised to 4 cents. The highway system ended up costing tax payers $128.9 Billion of which the Federal Government ended up paying $114.3 Billion. The Interstate Highway is now more than 46,000 miles long.
Recent Comments