Highway system a reminder we still can do big things
I turn to my keyboard this morning in praise of the interstate highway system.
In the last couple of weeks, I have had occasion to drive back and forth to Florida, and you are reminded about a good many things about America as you speed along this engineering marvel.
As I was moving between Nashville and Louisville just after dawn on Labor Day, the highway was almost empty, the mist still hung over the low-lying areas, and the green hills sparkled around me. I found myself softly humming the chorus to City of New Orleans ...
"Good morning America, how are ya? ..."
It's not just the beauty of the land. One sees the bounty, from the citrus groves of Florida to the vast fields of soybeans and corn in the Midwest.
Even on Labor Day, one sees a muscular economy. Trucks are ferrying all manner of goods (can there really be THAT many Amazon trucks?), and there are massive factories and small businesses.
One sees the diversity of the country. Passing through Louisville, I saw a sign that pointed to Muhammad Ali Boulevard and beyond that sign, the words "Jewish Hospital" emblazoned on an imposing building.
History abounds. Signs direct you to presidential birthplaces and presidential libraries, to Civil War battlefields and to towns steeped in the stories that altered the course of our nation.
Billboards also tell interesting stories about America's diverse and vibrant culture, but that is not a column - that's a doctoral dissertation.
There are recent additions. Acres of solar panels glint in the rising sun and majestic windmills turn gently and relentlessly, powering a new, carbon-free economy demanded by the younger generations. This is not a country that stands still, even for an instant.
Congress began funding highways in 1916. Various plans for a national system were mooted, but the Great Depression and the Second World War put those on hold. It was President Dwight Eisenhower who eventually signed the bill that created the system in 1956.
It was formally called The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. President Eisenhower believed the nation required the system for reasons of safety, for national defense and for economic growth. The system is an important part of the Department of Defense's Strategic Highway Network.
A quarter of all vehicle miles driven each year in America are on the interstate system, which covers 48,786 miles. Consider that a single mile of four-lane highway requires 50 tons of concrete and crushed stone and 20 tons of reinforcing steel.
The original budget was $25 billion and the network was to be completed in 12 years. It cost four and a half times that much and took 35 years to build. In constant dollars, that's well over half a trillion dollars.
As I sped along I-65, I thought: "America knows how to do big things." In the past, embracing big challenges have unified our nation, whether it was defeating fascism or putting a man on the moon.
The creation of the interstate system was not without its controversies or, in retrospect, ugly decisions. Protests stopped some highways from uprooting established neighborhoods and, in Chicago, the routings isolated poor, minority neighborhoods from white neighborhoods.
Let's also remember the immigrants who built these highways. An anonymous Italian wrote that when he came to America he believed the streets were paved with gold. He soon learned that (1) they were not; (2) they were not paved at all; and (3) he was expected to pave them.
We still can do big things, though challenges lay before us: Threats to the international order, climate change, immigration, to name three. Can our leaders find the right vision to unify the American people as we embrace such challenges?
• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.