TR NEWSNUMBER 244 MAY–JUNE 2006

COVER: The sense of freedom,adventure, and advancementembodied in the Interstate system isconveyed in this photo from a mid-1960s public awareness campaign ofthe Portland Cement Association. The accompanying caption asked,“Transportation system or lifestyle?”

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3 INTRODUCTIONCelebrating the Interstate’s AnniversaryAlan E. PisarskiCelebrating the Interstate calls for a review of the conceptualization, the engineeringfeats, the funding, and the realization of a dream by many professionals working togetherfor their entire careers—and for an assessment of our own accomplishments andchallenges in extending the legacy of this great work.

4 How the Interstate System Came to Be:Tracing the Historical ProcessBruce E. SeelyThe 1956 legislation that launched the Interstate Highway System was the product ofchoices made by many individuals and organizations over a span of almost 20 years,involving engineers, politicians, economists, visionaries, presidential panels, and more. Atransportation historian traces out the formative theories, studies, models, initiatives, anddebates.

10 The Exceptional Interstate Highway System:Will a Compelling New Vision Emerge?Jonathan GiffordThe Interstate system is exceptional in American history because of the federalgovernment’s extensive role in the system’s planning, financing, organizational structure,and research and development. But the consensus vision of the Interstate is eroding, thisauthor notes—and the nation’s transportation future will be an ongoing contest amongstrongly held views and values.

12 China’s Central Planners and the History of the Interstate

16 The Social Impacts of the Interstate Highway System:What Are the Repercussions?Elizabeth A. Deakin

18 Industries on the Interstates:What Is the Best Location?Glen Weisbrod

20 Edge City, Just off the Interstate: Boon or Bane?Robert T. Dunphy

22 The Engineering of the Interstate Highway System:A 50-Year Retrospective of Advances and ContributionsLester A. Hoel and Andrew J. ShortThe 42,500-mile Interstate Highway System was a complex engineering effort withoutprecedent in the history of transportation. Many advances and techniques developed asthe project progressed, particularly in asphalt and concrete pavements, drainage, bridgedesign, soil mechanics, and traffic forecasting, as well as design standards to assure safetyand efficient operations.

27 Paving the Way with Research and Innovation:The Kansas Interstate ExampleRichard L. McReynolds

THE INTERSTATE AT 50: RETROSPECTS AND PROSPECTS

TR NEWSTR NEWSfeatures articles on innovative and timelyresearch and development activities in allmodes of transportation. Brief news items ofinterest to the transportation community arealso included, along with profiles of transpor-tation professionals, meeting announcements,summaries of new publications, and news ofTransportation Research Board activities.

TR News is produced by theTransportation Research BoardPublications OfficeJavy Awan, Editor and Publications DirectorChristopher R. D’Amore, Assistant EditorJennifer J. Weeks, Photo ResearcherJuanita Green, Production ManagerMichelle Wandres, Graphic Designer

TR News Editorial BoardNeil F. Hawks, ChairmanWalter J. DiewaldChristopher J. HedgesFrederick D. HejlMark R. NormanStephan A. ParkerBarbara L. PostA. Robert Raab

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DirectorMark R. Norman, Director,

Technical ActivitiesStephen R. Godwin, Director,

Studies and Special ProgramsAnthony N. Mavrogiannis, Director,

Administration and FinanceRobert J. Reilly, Director,

Cooperative Research ProgramsNeil F. Hawks, Director, SHRP II

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Copyright © 2006 Transportation Research Board.All rights reserved.

30 RETROREFLECTIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONSDistinguished leaders, scholars, and participants offer insights into the history,legacy, lessons, and prospects of the Interstate Highway System.

30 Reaching into CitiesAlan M. Voorhees

30 Moving Toward SustainabilityJoseph M. Sussman

30 Freedom and TransformationE. Dean Carlson

31 Building Block for InnovationWilliam L. Garrison

31 Strategic Advantage in the Global MarketplaceT. R. Lakshmanan

32 Renewing the Commitment to Road SafetyLillian C. Borrone

32 Boundless Benefits—But Some Negative ImpactsThomas B. Deen

33 Assembling a Bold New VisionDaniel L. Dornan

34 Vision, Inspiration, and Perseverance:Concluding ThoughtsAlan E. PisarskiThe Interstate did not have to be, this author observes—it required a genius forinspiring people to do great things, for organizing and setting challenges and thenachieving them. Its advocates had to work continuously to make their vision part of thenational vision, to come back from setbacks and defeats and try again and succeed.

36 Research Pays OffAssessing the Condition and Estimating theLongevity of Rock Reinforcement SystemsRichard Lane

38 ProfilesGeotechnical engineer and association executive L. David Suits andpavement technology engineer Gale C. Page

40 TRB HighlightsCooperative Research Programs News, 42

44 News Briefs

45 Calendar

46 Bookshelf

A L S O I N T H I S I S S U E :

The July–August TR News continues to commemoratetransportation history with a feature article on theearly years of state highway departments, many ofwhich are marking centennials. Other articles offerinsights into the culture-sensitive design and construc-tion of Four Bears Bridge in North Dakota (photo,right), Pennsylvania’s high-tech approach to conservinghistoric transportation resources, and the viability ofthe fuel tax and alternatives for transportation funding.

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T he Interstate Highway System has always beenthere for many Americans—to them, celebratingits 50th anniversary is like celebrating the birthdayof television. Believe it or not, there was a time

before television, and those who can remember the timebefore the Interstate probably also can remember the timebefore television. The Interstate and television both devel-oped and became indelible components of American life inthe 1950s and 1960s.

But the Interstate, as a product of governmental actions,is more important than television, which is a commercialproduct. Television’s role in society was the result of millionsof individual decisions tapping into the massive capacitiesof the American communications system and the consum-ing public. The development of television followed the clas-sic logistics curve—starting slowly, then reaching take-offwith a period of rapid growth; as saturation of ownershipapproaches, the demand levels out. The computer, theInternet, the Walkman, and the cell phone, among recentphenomena, have followed the same pattern, which hasrepeated over and over in the past 50 years. Such con-sumer phenomena are inexorable.

There is nothing inexorable about public works. To makea massive program like the Interstate come to completion

is a much more laborious task, requiring time, money, skilledpeople, and—above all—perseverance by many public offi-cials over long periods of time.

We can celebrate the anniversary of television’s inven-tion, which was followed by a hundred million decisions byconsumers that made it a social phenomenon. Celebratingthe Interstate, however, requires that we recognize the con-ceptualization, the engineering feats, the funding, and therealization of the dream by many people in our professionworking together for their entire careers.

This issue of TR News takes the opportunity to acknowl-edge that tremendous body of work and to examine allaspects of its legacy. The articles in turn ask us to considerour own accomplishments and challenges in the light of thisgreat work of our predecessors.

—Alan E. PisarskiChair, Transportation History Committee

EDITOR’S NOTE: Appreciation is expressed to Jonathan Gifford,Professor, School of Public Policy, George Mason University, andSecretary of the Transportation History Committee, and to Fred-erick Hejl, Senior Program Officer, TRB, for their efforts in devel-oping this issue of TR News.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

CELEBRATING THE

INTERSTATE’SANNIVERSARY

SOURCE: PORTLAND CEMENT ASSOCIATION

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The author is Professorof History and chairs theDepartment of SocialSciences at MichiganTechnological University,Houghton. He is a mem-ber of the TransportationHistory Committee andof the NationalCooperative HighwayResearch ProgramProject Panel on FutureOptions for the NationalSystem of Interstate andDefense Highways.

On June 29, 1956, President Dwight D.Eisenhower signed a bill authorizingthe funding of the National System ofInterstate and Defense Highways. This

bill, however, was not the beginning of the Inter-state Highway system. Eisenhower’s signature cul-minated a process that began in the 1930s and thatprovoked contentious debates from the late 1940sonward over how to pay for highway construction inthe United States.

The 1956 legislation was the product of choicesmade by many individuals and organizations over aspan of almost 20 years. Those who were involved inselecting among the alternatives did not know howthings would turn out. Tracing the historical processbehind the Interstate Highway System is complicatedbut instructive.

Grounded in FederalismCongress first provided funds for a national high-way network in 1916, creating an administrative sys-tem grounded in federalism. This federal-aidhighway program shared authority and funding withthe states, resulting in the federal-state partnershipthat endures today.

The federal agency that has overseen this program—first as the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) and now as theFederal Highway Administration—has enjoyed a repu-tation as the unrivaled source of technical expertise onevery aspect of highway construction. Thomas H. Mac-Donald, BPR chief from 1919 to 1953, shared in andcontributed to the agency’s esteemed reputation.

MacDonald and BPR fostered the development oftechnical and administrative capacity at the statelevel. After 1921, these joint state and federal effortsfocused on the nation’s “seven percent system,” thelimited mileage of primary and secondary roads thateach state selected for its share of federal aid. Primaryroads comprised 3 percent of the nation’s highwaysthat linked cities and larger towns and formed theU.S.-numbered system.

Planning MethodologyEven as BPR and state highway departments workedto improve this basic rural road network, federalengineers began developing approaches to plan roadconstruction. Their outlook, however, was narrowand limited—their primary concern was determiningthe economic value of better roads; gaining a senseof where the demand for road improvements wasmost acute was secondary.

Beginning in 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio, and CookCounty, Illinois, engineers and economists slowlydeveloped a planning methodology. Initially theplanners emphasized the value of time saved and thebenefits of undamaged freight shipments, but soonthey were counting vehicles and urging the states touse origin–destination surveys to understandmotorists’ desires and travel behavior. By 1930, 11western states had organized surveys at BPR’s urging.

Highway planning efforts became more sophisti-cated during the 1930s and allowed BPR engineersto respond to alternative conceptions of the nation’shighway system. The American fascination with carscontinued despite the Depression, as attested by a

HOW THE INTERSTATE SYSTEMCAME TO BETracing the Historical Process

B R U C E E . S E E L Y

Thomas H. MacDonald (left), Bureau of Public Roads(BPR) Chief from 1919 to 1953, has been called “thetowering figure of road transportation in the 20thcentury.” His deputy, H. S. Fairbank (right), headed upthe BPR Division of Information and created theframework for statewide highway planning surveys.

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steady increase in gasoline tax receipts, the onlystate-level revenue source that did not decline dur-ing the decade.

Envisioning a National SystemRoad projects dominated work-relief efforts. But somefavored spending money on a different kind of road.The vision drew on the German autobahns, launchedby Hitler in 1933 to employ workers and promote anautomobile culture. The German roads capturedattention in the United States, especially amonghighway engineers and road builders.

Several congressmen were attracted by the con-cept of a national system of advanced highways as awork-relief measure. Most of the plans—such as oneadvanced by Representative J. Buell Snyder of Penn-sylvania in 1938—called for three east–west high-ways and five or six north–south roads to be paid forby bonds that would be retired by user tolls.

The goal was to put people to work, not to meetspecific traffic needs. Several plans envisioned anational road authority that would undertake theconstruction.

Not surprisingly, most federal and state highwayofficials disliked these plans and their premises. Tothem, roads that failed to meet real traffic demandswere wasteful. The next generation of BPR planningactivities provided an enormous volume of data tosupport this argument.

Counting TrafficMacDonald’s deputy, H. S. Fairbank, proposed sys-tematic ways of collecting traffic data and designedstandard reporting forms. IBM produced the firstautomatic vehicle counters.

Fairbank tested the approach in Michigan, wherethe Highway Department had established 598 trafficcounting stations by 1929. Beginning in 1936, BPR

required every state to implement a statewide highwayplanning survey using Fairbank’s manuals to recordcomparable data. Congress authorized use of federal-aid funds for the surveys, and by 1938, the surveyswere generating detailed views of highway use.

From these data, BPR concluded that toll-basedsuperhighways not only would fail to address press-ing traffic needs but would generate insufficient tollrevenue to pay off the bonds.

Intellectual FoundationIn 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a roadenthusiast, asked BPR to study the congressionalproposals. The report became a landmark documentin American highway history. Toll Roads and FreeRoads refuted the toll financing plan and the routesproposed in the various bills but was more charita-ble to the concept of a system of high-standard high-ways. Those roads, however, had to fit the nation’shighway needs—resources were too scarce to waste.

Fairbank’s staff prepared a map for a 26,000-milesystem that could be constructed under federal-aidmechanisms, earning the designation of free roads.The highway planning survey data indicated that themost pressing highway needs were in and near cities.

This finding led BPR to urge that more funds beallocated to urban roads. The idea did not appeal to

Road building—here,with a World War Isurplus, chain-drivendistributor—was afrequent work-reliefproject during the GreatDepression.

PAST PRELUDE—The first Transcontinental MotorConvoy of 1919 consisted of 81 motorized Armyvehicles that crossed the United States from east towest. The convoy set a world record pace, traveling3,251 miles from Washington, D.C., to SanFrancisco in 62 days, only 5 days behind schedule.The average speed was 6 miles per hour,progressing an average of 58 miles per day. Theconvoy followed the Lincoln Highway, now U.S. 30,which included 1,800 miles of dirt roads, wheelpaths, desert sands, and mountain trails. Lt. Col.Dwight D. Eisenhower participated in the convoyas a Tank Corps observer. “The old convoy…startedme thinking about good, two-lane highways, butGermany…made me see the wisdom of broaderribbons across the land,” Eisenhower wrote in his1967 memoir, At Ease.

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Roosevelt, however, who feared the enormous costsof urban highways. The President directed BPR toalter that section of the report; the introduction waschanged, but not the data analysis. Toll Roads andFree Roads, released in 1939, provided the intellec-tual foundation for the Interstate system.

Alternative ModelsIndividual members of Congress were not alone incirculating alternative models for highway projectsduring the late 1930s. Backed by loans from thePublic Works Administration, officials in Pennsyl-vania in 1939 began constructing a modern turn-pike from Carlisle, near Harrisburg, west to Irwin,near Pittsburgh.

Echoing their usual analysis of toll highways, BPRexperts predicted the project would prove a financialfailure, but the toll receipts exceeded expectations.Motorists and truckers almost immediately urgedextension of the road, demonstrating a willingness topay a premium for speed and convenience.

Futurama EffectThis response helps explain the popular fascinationwith another road vision of the time, Norman BelGeddes’ fanciful projection of 1960s roads for Gen-eral Motors’s pavilion at the 1939–1940 World’s Fairin New York. Perhaps the fair’s most popular exhibit,Futurama showed 12-lane superhighways and 120-miles-per-hour speeds.

BPR and MacDonald disparaged Bel Geddes asan interloper and dismissively contrasted his designswith BPR’s more careful engineering approach. Nev-ertheless, state highway engineers acknowledgedthat the Futurama inspired public support for a newlevel of highways.

President Roosevelt shared the public’s enthusi-asm for Bel Geddes’ conception and acted on theexcitement generated by the fair and by the releaseof Toll Roads and Free Roads. In 1941, he appointeda National Interregional Highway Committee toexplore details more thoroughly.

Interregional CommitteeChaired by MacDonald with Fairbank as committeesecretary—and eventually primary author of thereport—the committee included Frederic Delano,who had just finished chairing the NationalResources Planning Board; city planner HarlandBartholomew; G. Donald Kennedy, highway com-missioner of Michigan and president of the AmericanAssociation of State Highway Officials; Californiahighway engineer C. H. Purcell; former governor ofAlabama Bibb Graves; and Rexford Tugwell, a NewDeal planner.

The war initially slowed their work, but by 1943the committee was motivated by fears that the end ofthe war might bring a return to the Depression. Thecommittee assembled an enormous amount of infor-mation from the planning surveys and laid out threeroad system scenarios varying in length from 34,000to about 48,400 miles.

Postwar worries also prompted the suggestion toalter the federal-aid matching ratio from 50:50 to75:25. The committee’s 1944 report shaped the Fed-eral-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which added an Inter-state Highway System of 40,000 miles to the existingprimary, secondary, and rural federal-aid systems.Although the legislation failed to provide fundsspecifically designated for the new roads, by 1947BPR engineers and state highway department leadershad released a map of the basic location of ruralroutes, postponing the designation of 5,200 miles ofInterstate roads in and around cities.

Postwar Traffic BoomWith the end of the war, traffic and travel increased,but postwar road construction started slowly, to thechagrin of politicians, motorists, and truckers. Recordnumbers of vehicle-miles were posted each year from1946 through 1952, and vehicle registrations jumpedfrom 31 million to 44.7 million between 1945 and1949. As MacDonald had predicted in 1944, “Every-one in the United States is waiting for the close of thewar to get a car to go someplace.”

Yet only in isolated spots on the East or WestCoasts could states afford to launch an Interstateproject. The problem went much deeper than thelack of designated funds for Interstate construction.Congress had increased the size of federal-aid appro-priations in 1944 to $500 million per year, but moremoney was not the answer for many states.

Many states struggled to provide the required 50:50match for their additional federal-aid dollars, and thevolume of unspent federal-aid allocations reached$500 million in late 1947—enough to justify sus-pending the 1949 appropriation. More money forInterstates would not have helped, and in 1949 and1950, Congress decided that $450 million per yearwas all the states could match. The postwar inflationand shortages of some road-building materials duringthe Korean conflict slowed construction programs.

Under pressure to address the problem, Congressinstead debated about road funding. Contentioushearings in 1948, 1950, and 1952 produced no agree-ment on how to proceed. Proponents of rural andsecondary, urban, and interstate networks all arguedfor more funds. Congress added a pittance—$25 mil-lion—for the Interstate network in 1952, but thegeneral problem of limited state finances persisted.

Although Norman BelGeddes’ Futuramaexhibit at the 1939World’s Fair featureddramatic andcomplicated high-speedhighway interchanges, italso projected high-risedevelopments with urbantraffic on multilevelroadways.

Cars line up at the BlueMountain Interchange atthe opening of thePennsylvania Turnpike,October 1, 1940. Billed asthe “road of the future,”the turnpike has beenincorporated intoInterstates 70 and 76.

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Congress was stymied by the magnitude of the prob-lem and by the costs of the answers.

States Take ActionDuring this stalemate, a handful of states with stronghighway departments attempted to attack the prob-lem on their own. California worked on Los Ange-les freeways; Robert Moses expanded the Long Islandparkways; officials in Chicago and Detroit launchedurban expressways.

North Carolina was typical of many states thatattempted to improve interstate routes using primaryroad funds. Several Eastern and Midwestern statesemulated Pennsylvania and created toll-financedrural toll roads. Maine acted first, followed in rapidsuccession by New Hampshire, Maryland, West Vir-ginia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Jersey, NewYork, Indiana, and Illinois.

By October 1953, 762 route miles of toll highwayswere open, with another 1,100 miles under con-struction in 11 states. These roads improved servicefor long-distance travelers but did not addressmunicipal problems. State planners deliberatelyrouted the high-speed highways around, not into,urban areas.

As BPR had predicted, some roads did not pay forthemselves—for example, in West Virginia and Okla-homa. In short, toll roads were not a universal solu-tion for building better highways for the increasingnumbers of drivers.

The Administration RespondsThe answers had to come from the political arena,and President Eisenhower deserves the credit forstarting that process. In his memoirs, Eisenhowerreported a sense of urgency for several reasons,including the wave of traffic. The 10 million newvehicles registered between 1952 and 1955 morethan equaled the total number of vehicles in Britainand France. At the same time, governors were press-ing for changes, such as removing the federal gas taxso that states could gain revenue.

Although the Korean conflict dominated theiragenda, Eisenhower’s domestic staff started studyingthe highway problem in late 1953 and early 1954.Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey, Undersec-retary of Commerce for Transportation Robert Mur-ray, and Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks wereinvolved, but Arthur Burns, chair of the Council ofEconomic Advisers, was most influential in shapingthese studies.

General John Bragdon was assigned to explorehighway plans based on premises different fromthose of the federal-aid system. The presidentialadvisers believed that Interstate roads should be con-

structed by the federal government, not under fed-eral-aid principles, because the Interstates hadnational importance and because efficiencies couldbe achieved.

The advisers wanted the roads to be self-liquidat-ing, collecting tolls to repay bonds. Toll receipts fromheavily used routes would offset losses elsewhere;such transfers were not possible under the federal-aidprinciple.

The economists hoped to use highway construc-tion as a counter-cyclical economic tool, subordi-nating the road program to the state of the economy.They wanted Interstate roads to bypass, not enter,cities. Like Roosevelt, Eisenhower and his aidesfeared the costs of urban road construction.

New RationaleIn 1954, Congress had increased road appropriationsto $875 million, with $175 million for Interstatehighways, but the structural financial problemsremained. In July, Eisenhower arranged to deliver aspeech to the governors but was unable to make itbecause of a death in the family; Vice PresidentRichard Nixon substituted. The speech did not coverall of the administration’s discussions but created astir by proposing to spend $5 billion a year for 10

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years on highways, mostly for Interstate routesbetween cities.

The speech also alluded to the civil defense impli-cations of these roads, raising an argument with pow-erful public relations appeal during the early years ofthe Cold War. This new rationale for urban Inter-states had no effect on the roads’ design or location,but it added political momentum.

After the well-received speech, Eisenhowerappointed an Advisory Committee on a National High-way Program, chaired by former general and wartimecolleague Lucius Clay. Other members included SanFrancisco engineer Stephen Bechtel, Teamsters UnionPresident Dave Beck, Bankers’ Trust President SloanColt, and Allis Chalmers CEO William Roberts. Fran-cis Turner, a BPR engineer, was named executive sec-retary, and BPR provided staff support.

Continuing ProblemsThe committee quickly reviewed options and gath-ered input from all concerned parties. Most highwayofficials and road supporters were unwilling toendorse some of the administration’s goals. Forexample, Pyke Johnson, former director of the Auto-mobile Chamber of Commerce and the AutomotiveSafety Foundation, as well as a close friend and long-time supporter of MacDonald, was part of an advi-sory group from the highway community thatpressed to retain the federal-aid approach. In otherwords, the committee faced the continuing problemof which roads to build and how to pay for them.

Clay’s group produced a report by January 1955that had as its centerpiece a federally constructedInterstate program that would cost $25 billion over

10 years, paid for by bonds and tolls. They urged cre-ation of a National Highway Authority to deal withfinances, with BPR serving as the technical author-ity. The federal-aid program was to continue for theso-called ABC system of primary, secondary, andurban roads.

Bragdon bitterly blamed BPR’s “horse and buggy”thinking for the committee’s failure to endorse all theadministration’s ideas. But when Eisenhower for-warded the report to Congress in late February, lead-ers in both parties proved even more resistant tochanging the federal-aid highway program as Eisen-hower and the Clay Committee proposed.

Several factors were at play, including traditionalpartisan politics. Democrats, who controlled theSenate, were not eager to give Eisenhower a majorvictory just before a presidential election year. ButRepublicans also had issues, including the chal-lenge of reconciling the staggering cost of the pro-gram with their philosophical abhorrence of biggovernment.

Legislative ProposalsAmid these concerns, Senator Albert Gore of Ten-nessee chose not to wait for the Clay bill to emergefrom the House, which by precedent first consideredhighway legislation. Because Senator Harry Byrd ofVirginia, powerful chair of the Finance Committee,refused to support a bond financing plan, Gore pro-posed adding $10 billion to the federal-aid program forInterstate construction, with an adjusted matchingrequirement of 75:25. The Senate rejected the Clayplan and then easily passed the Gore bill in May 1955.

On the House side, Representative George Fallonof Maryland also doubted Clay’s plan could win sup-port, so he introduced a bill to create the NationalSystem of Interstate and Defense Highways, withincreased user taxes—especially on gasoline—to bededicated informally to the project. Fallon also pro-posed shifting the matching ratio to 90:10. He drewon the assistance of BPR’s Turner in drafting the bill,relying on federal agency expertise as House Roadscommittee chairs had done since the 1910s.

Fallon’s bill failed to win a majority, although theClay bill suffered an even worse defeat. In additionto partisan challenges, the bills received adamantopposition from the oil industry, trucking associa-tions, tire producers, and others who were to pay forthe new roads. Although the year had started on apositive note, 1955 ended with the hopes of manyroad supporters dashed.

Brighter ProspectsYet as the legislative season dawned for 1956, theprospects for a road bill looked brighter, mainly

Members of the ClayCommittee presentPresident Eisenhower withtheir report andrecommendations onfinancing a nationalinterstate highwaynetwork, January 11,1955: (left to right) LuciusD. Clay, Frank Turner,Steve Bechtel, Sloan Colt,William Roberts, and DaveBeck. Eisenhower pointsto a page with a map ofthe proposed system.

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because the truckers and the tire and oil industries hadreconsidered their stance on new taxes. In addition,BPR had issued its first information on the program-ming of the urban sections of the Interstate system,releasing the famous “Yellow Book” with its cruderoute outlines for more than 5,000 miles in metropol-itan areas. This added immediacy to the situation andmeant that many more Congressional districts couldnow see the immediate effect of the legislation.

BPR had been working on several technical stud-ies of financing needs, toll roads, and the costs ofutility relocation at the requests of Congress and theadministration since 1954. This willingness to turnthorny problems over to the highway engineers forresolution reflected the continuing confidence thatmany elected representatives—especially membersof the two road committees—felt toward the tech-nical and nonpartisan experts at BPR. The reportshelped remove many of the sticking points thatconfronted a larger highway program in Congress.

In 1956, the political discussions resumed in theHouse, because the Senate had approved Gore’sbill. In the House, Fallon reintroduced a revisedbill, calling for $24.8 billion over 13 years for con-struction of an Interstate system of about 40,000miles. The federal–state matching ratio for theseroads would be 90:10. The bill also included addi-tional funds for all other components of the federal-aid road network.

House Appropriations Committee chair HaleBoggs of Louisiana added a key provision to thefunding mechanism by requiring that all new taxrevenue go into a Highway Trust Fund. These taxrevenues would accumulate in the fund to meetconstruction expenses. With that assurance, theHouse passed the bill on April 27.

The Senate debated the new bill, concernedabout the cost, but passed its version after Byrdsuccessfully introduced amendments controllingexpenditures from the trust fund. A jointHouse–Senate conference worked until June 25 toreach an agreement. President Eisenhower signedthe bill without fanfare in a room at Walter ReedArmy Medical Center, where he was being treatedfor ileitis.

Shaping the ApproachWith the end of a decade of rancorous political dis-course about road priorities and fiscal policy, the mas-sive road construction program began. BPR engineershad played their traditional role, unobtrusively guid-ing the development of highway policy by providingthe pivotal technical expertise. They had worked withthe Congressional leaders of both parties, with theClay committee, and with the administration, helping

shape an approach to road construction that reflectedthe agency’s long-held ideals.

Bragdon was not completely wrong in blamingBPR for overturning the new vision crafted by Eisen-hower appointees. Through dogged persistence, theengineering-based visions that emerged during the1930s finally came to fruition.

The consequences of the engineers’ efforts wereboth positive and detrimental, planned and unin-tended. The funding and administrative structurethey helped put in place in 1956 advanced con-struction by removing much of the process from pol-itics—especially the contentious question offunding—in the interest of efficiency and speed.

Among the most unexpected results of this actionwas the emergence of popular resistance to buildingroads into and through cities, parks, and areas ofscenic beauty—in part because the process allowedlittle public input. This eventually caused engineersin the state and federal highway bureaucracy to losetheir position of primacy over highway constructionin the United States. After 1956, highway engineersnever again would dominate the highway policyscene as they had.

On August 2, 1956, Missouri became the first state to award a contract with the newInterstate construction funding. Of three contracts signed that day, the Missouri StateHighway Commission first authorized a contract for work on U.S. Route 66—nowInterstate 44—in Laclede County; the other contracts were for work on U.S. 40—nowI-70, the Mark Twain Expressway—in St. Louis and for another section of the highwayin St. Charles County. Work started August 13.

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THE EXCEPTIONAL INTERSTATEHIGHWAY SYSTEMWill a Compelling New Vision Emerge?

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The author is Professor,School of Public Policy,George MasonUniversity, Arlington,Virginia, and was avisiting fellow at theTransportation ResearchBoard for 2005–2006.He chairs the TRBTransportation and LandDevelopment Committee.

America’s Interstate Highway System isthe envy of the world. China, India, andthe European Union are working to pro-duce comparable systems. Yet the Inter-

state system is exceptional in American history—soexceptional that it is almost un-American.

What is exceptional is the degree to which thefederal government dominated the planning andfinancing of the Interstate. The federal governmenthas played a role in the development of most of thenation’s major infrastructure systems, but its role inthe development of the Interstate system was exten-sive, including planning, financing, organizationalstructure, and research and development.

Federal InvolvementThe development of the U.S. primary highway net-work began in 1921, when the Bureau of PublicRoads1 provided a 50 percent match of funds for

highways on the federal-aid system. Federal agentsstrictly controlled the designation of federal-aid high-ways, working in partnership with the states.

A formula that included land area and populationwas used to allocate financing. States would receivefederal funds only as a reimbursement for completedwork that had been inspected and approved by a fed-eral official.

The development of the Interstate expanded therole of the federal government. The expansionstarted with the federal plans of the 1930s and thecreation of the Highway Trust Fund in 1956, whichprovided 90 percent financing for the construction ofInterstate highways.

The Interstate system was delineated through ahighly centralized process of negotiation with eachstate, subject to a fixed, legislated cap on totalmileage. Uniform design standards applied sys-temwide. Again, federal funds were available only ona reimbursement basis. Relatively uniform planning1 Now the Federal Highway Administration.

Construction of I-80 inUtah.

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procedures were adopted—the four-step model—and national legislation for environmental assess-ment was added when that concern came to the fore.

Contrasting ModelsFew of the nation’s major infrastructure systemshave had such a strong, centrally planned path ofdevelopment. Air navigational aids and the later airtraffic control system had a strong federal presencebeginning in the 1920s, although Pan Am andUnited Airlines played important roles early on.Intercity passenger rail has had a dominant federalpresence since the establishment of Amtrak in 1971,and a strong federal regulatory presence before that.Agricultural water reclamation in the westernUnited States had strong involvement by the U.S.Bureau of Reclamation and later by the U.S. ArmyCorps of Engineers.

The nation’s other major systems—railroads,electric power, telecommunications, water supply,and water treatment—were the product of muchmore bottom-up development trajectories, with amuch less central role for the federal government.

Historic RootsReliance on bottom-up system development wasnot accidental. The founding fathers engaged inintense debates over what they called “internalimprovements.” The early Federalists, led byAlexander Hamilton, argued that although the Con-

stitution gave the federal government no explicitauthority to make internal improvements, thatpower was implied.

Thomas Jefferson’s Republican party, concernedabout giving too much power to the federal govern-ment, took a dim view of that interpretation. Ini-tially, the Republicans opposed the use of federalpower to make internal improvements such as roadsand canals. Yet when they gained the presidency in1801, the Republicans became much more comfort-able with the idea of federal authority.

Jefferson’s Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gal-latin, developed the first systematic proposal for anational network of roads and canals, which he sub-mitted to Congress in 1808 (1). Gallatin’s plan maybe called the first plan for a national highway andcanal system (see map, this page).

Albert Gallatin (above), Secretary of the Treasuryunder President Thomas Jefferson, developed thefirst plan for a national network of roads and canals,shown in the map at left. (Map is from Goodrich, C.Government Promotion of American Canals andRailroads,1800–1890. Columbia University Press, NewYork, 1960.)

The National Road wasthe second U.S. road touse the McAdamprinciple of compactingbroken pieces of rockthat weighed less than 6ounces and were smallerthan a 2-inch ring; theprocess took 5 years topave 73 miles by 1830.(Detail from painting byCarl Rakeman, courtesyof FHWA.)

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Gallatin’s plan was never realized, and federalsupport for internal improvements never material-ized, with a few exceptions like the National Road—approximately today’s U.S. 40—the Chesapeake andDelaware Canal, and the breakwater in Lewes,Delaware. Centrally planned systems of internalimprovements did not reemerge until the early 20thcentury highway program.

American FederalismAlthough most U.S. infrastructure systems devel-oped from the bottom up, the national governmentstill played an important role. For example, the fed-eral government provided enormous subsidies forthe development of the railroad system in the 19thcentury, giving away 131 million acres of land as anincentive to build out the network (2). But this is notthe same as centrally planning a whole system.

Similarly, the federal government allowed AT&T’smonopoly over telephone service for much of the 20thcentury, yielding a system that was centrally plannedand developed. But again, this is not the same as thefederal government planning a whole system.

The highway program also developed in the con-text of American federalism, with significant defer-ence to states’ rights and responsibilities. Federal-aidhighways are owned and operated by states. Federalfinancial aid was for capital costs only, restricted orig-

inally to initial construction and later expanded toinclude reconstruction and rehabilitation. States thenand now have the option to forgo federal funds andescape many federal regulations governing highwayplanning, construction, and operation—althoughnone do.

The Interstate as an ExceptionMany have come to view the dominant federal role inthe Interstate system as normal, because it was thenorm for the past half century. Yet compared with itsrole in other major systems in the nation’s history, thefederal role in the Interstate system is exceptional.

The Interstate is exceptional in another way. Theprogram commanded widespread support from Con-gress and the states for almost four decades, from1956 to the early 1990s. The total cost of the systemin 2001 dollars is $418 billion. During that time, theInterstate program was subject to almost no ear-marking of projects. No other federal capital pro-gram survived as long without becoming the targetof legislative earmarking.

Eroding ConsensusThis exceptional period, however, appears to bedrawing to a close. The recent reauthorization bill,the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transpor-tation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, contained

In 1996, a delegation from the State Planning Commissionof the People’s Republic of China visited Stanford Uni-

versity in California for a course on the development ofmarket economies. The approximately 20 participants rep-resented a variety of areas within the commission, withexpertise in finance, economics, planning, and engineering.

The Chinese economy at the time was emerging fromdecades of a powerful central planning approach to gover-nance. The Stanford program included lectures on the devel-opment of two of America’s major infrastructure systems, theelectric power system and the Interstate Highway System.

Chauncey Starr, the founder of the Electric PowerResearch Institute, lectured first on the development of theU.S. electric power system. Asked afterwards about the lec-ture, he commented, “They just didn’t get it. All morningthey kept asking, ‘Where was the plan? Where was theplan?’ ‘There was no plan,’ I told them. ‘The system devel-oped from the bottom up. Only later did it grow into today’sintegrated national system.’ But they wouldn’t accept thatthere wasn’t a plan.”

The next lecture on the development of the Interstate sys-

tem met with a different response. The lecture describedthe development of the primary highway system beginningin the 1920s, when the Bureau of Public Roads provided a 50percent match of funds for highways on the federal-aid sys-tem. The delegates’ questions immediately turned to theconcerns of central planners: “How was the mileage allo-cated among the states?” “How was financing allocated?”“What controls were in place over design and construction?”

The lecture next described the development of the Inter-state, starting with the plans of the 1930s and the creationof the Highway Trust Fund in 1956, which provided 90 per-cent of the financing for the construction of Interstate high-ways. Again, their questions focused on the concerns ofcentral planners: “How were mileage and funds allocated?”“How were design and construction monitored and con-trolled?” “How were location decisions made?”

What was the difference between the electric power sys-tem and the Interstate system? One was centrally planned, andthe other was not. To the delegates of the world’s then-largestplanned economy, that distinction made all the difference.

—Jonathan Gifford

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more than 6,000 earmarked projects. Congress is nolonger deferring to the judgment and guidance of theengineers and experts who designed and built theInterstate system. The exceptional consensus visionthat brought the Interstate into being is eroding, andthis erosion places the transportation system at risk.

The needs of the system are huge. The populationserved by the surface transportation system is grow-ing rapidly. Traffic growth is likely to continue witheconomic and population growth. Traffic congestionplagues most American cities. The Interstate systemis reaching its design life in most places and requiresexpensive reconstruction and renewal.

The system’s capacity to meet those needs issharply limited. Public support for expanding thehighway system to accommodate new demand seemsto be tepid at best, if not hostile.

There is no apparent appetite to raise the federalgas tax, even though the gas tax as a source of fund-ing is being eroded by inflation. Alternative fuels notsubject to the gas tax are already in use. Earmarkedprojects are taking an increased share of funds, andlittle help can be expected from a federal budget thatis in danger of being absorbed by retirement andmedical entitlements.

In short, the state of normalcy to which the trans-portation community has become accustomed forthe past half century is ending. The challenge totoday’s generation of transportation leaders is how tofollow the Interstate’s extraordinary opening act.

New VisionsSeveral possible new visions for the highway systemare being discussed:

Connecting the United States to the worldeconomy. The American Association of State High-way and Transportation Officials and others havebegun to highlight the highway system’s role in con-necting the United States to the world economy. Thisvision has freight as one of its central themes, as wellas the increases in freight traffic that will arise fromexpansion in global trade.

Privatization. Another possible vision, sup-ported by the Reason Foundation, a public policyresearch group in Los Angeles, and others, is toexpand dramatically the role of the private sector infinancing system renewal, expansion, and operation.Approaches to such expansion range from traditionaltoll road financing to long-term concessions, such asChicago’s recent lease of the Chicago Skyway for$1.8 billion. These approaches might move Ameri-can highway system development closer to theapproaches traditionally pursued in France and else-where in Europe.

National investment corporation. Felix Rohatyn,a former Lazard Freres investment banker, and War-ren Rudman, a former U.S. senator, have advancedone variant of a privately financed system. Theypropose a national investment corporation thatwould issue 50-year government-guaranteed bondsto fund improvements in highways, transit, high-speed rail, and airports, as well as schools and otherinfrastructure (3).

The idea is not completely novel—the Clay Com-mission appointed by President Dwight D. Eisen-hower to help resolve disputes about paying for theoriginal Interstate program also had proposed bondfinancing through a national corporation. Similarideas had been advanced during the Depression. Bothtimes the proposal proved politically unpalatable.

Yet some have criticized the national investmentcorporation proposal as “central planning writ large.”The critics warn that toll road revenues could beapplied to wasteful but politically correct projects (4).

Vehicle infrastructure integration. The intel-ligent transportation systems community is advanc-ing vehicle infrastructure integration (VII) as anothervision. VII would enable vehicles to communicatedirectly with a detector-rich infrastructure networkto allow automatic crash avoidance, road departurewarnings, and delivery of other safety and consumerservices.

The VII concept entails a network of 200,000 road-side installations—roughly one for every significanttraffic signal in the nation. These installations wouldcommunicate with transponders in vehicles, andtransponder-equipped vehicles would communicatewith each other. The institutional and financialarrangements for the system are yet to be worked out.

Operations. Also proposed is a national oper-ations-oriented vision along the lines of “travelingcoast to coast with no unexpected delay.” Any delay

The lease of the ChicagoSkyway may provide amodel for financingsystem renewal,expansion, and operationthrough the privatesector.

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on the system would be detected and communicatedto travelers in advance. This vision could have thecompelling simplicity and appeal of the Interstatesystem’s original promise of coast-to-coast travelwithout a traffic signal.

Environmental harmony. Environmental inter-est groups have not yet coalesced around a vision forthe future of the highway system, although the con-cept of “smart growth” has received considerableattention. A system vision that is environmentallyfocused would include bike- and pedestrian-friendlycommunities, development that is clustered to easeservice by public transit, and tolls and incentives todiscourage driving alone, minimizing the need foradditional highway capacity.

Some in the public health community, concernedabout obesity and sedentary lifestyles, favor landuse–transportation arrangements that support activelifestyles. Many others, however, question the links

between obesity, transportation, and land use. Expanded rail. Rail figures prominently in

some plans. On the freight side, some would like toshift as much traffic as possible to rail, with con-tainers and trailers on flat cars, at least for the long-haul portion of a movement. Railroad companieshave seen this as a potential business opportunityfor some time, and European countries haveinvested heavily in this strategy. Success stories aredifficult to find, although freight increasingly movesvia containers.

On the passenger side, high-speed rail has been afocus. Advocates envision a network of services thatwould capture a significant share in intercity marketsup to 500 miles apart. Such services may or may nothave a role for Amtrak, and may have an expandedrole for states. Lurking in the future is the dream ofmagnetic levitation or maglev trains. All face theissue of cost.

This list illustrates the range of visions underdiscussion. Nothing approaching consensus isapparent—but this is not surprising. The originalInterstate program spanned a 20-year gap betweenconception in the 1930s to full funding in 1956.The debate about a national system of high-speedhighways began before World War I.

Yet no comparable vision today seems likely toyield consensus support as the Interstate did.Therefore it is possible that federal leadership,which was essential for the Interstate network andsubsequent surface transportation planning, devel-opment, and financing, will continue to erode.

Ominous ProspectIf the Interstate is an exception that cannot be repli-cated, where does that lead? One dark vision of thefuture federal surface transportation program maybe found in the history of the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers. Founded in 1824, the Corps has a longtradition of fine engineering.

Early on, Congress supported the Corps in thedevelopment of a significant system of internalimprovements. This also was an exception to ournation’s history of deferring to states, localities, andthe private sector in the development of infrastruc-ture, but it was short-lived. After only 15 years,Congress cut back support for system-level devel-opment and shifted the support to individual proj-ects.

Today, every dollar of the Corps’ multibilliondollar civil works budget is earmarked to a specificproject by Congress, and many observers prefacedescriptions of the work with the term “pork bar-rel.” The surface transportation program could fol-

Websites Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Interstate

Highway SystemAmerican Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

http://interstate50th.org/American Society of Civil Engineers

www.asce.org/history/monuments_millennium/highway.cfmAmerican Road and Transportation Builders Association

www.artba.org/50th/50th.htmFederal Highway Administration

www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/50_splash.htmwww.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/homepage.cfm

State Departments of TransportationColorado—www.dot.state.co.us/50Anniversary/index.cfmFlorida—www.fl-interstate.comGeorgia—www.dot.state.ga.us/50th/index.shtmlIllinois—www.IL50.com Iowa—www.iowainterstate50th.com/Kansas—www.ksdot.org/interstate50th/Minnesota—www.dot.state.mn.us/interstate50/Nebraska—www.dor.state.ne.us/i-80-anniv/index.htmOhio—www.dot.state.oh.us/interstate50Oregon—www.oregon.gov/ODOT/COMM/interstate50.shtmlRhode Island—www.dot.state.ri.us/news/50th.htmSouth Carolina—www.dot.state.sc.us/getting/50year_ann.shtmlTennessee—www.tninterstate50.com/Texas—http://tti.tamu.edu/interstate_anniversary/Virginia—www.virginiadot.org/infoservice/100years/interstates.aspWisconsin—www.dot.wisconsin.gov/library/history/50/

—Compiled by Jessica Fomalont, Assistant Librarian, TRBTR N

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The original Interstateconstruction requireddurable materials(above). The next phasealso may call for a“wired” system equippedwith high-tech intelligenttransportation devices.

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High-speed rail (far left,the Eurostar in London’sWaterloo station) andmaglev trains offerpotential alternatives toInterstate expansion.

low the Corps of Engineers model and evolvetoward continued project-level focus and legisla-tive earmarking.

That prospect is ominous, but not hopeless.Today’s challenging situation provides a valuableopportunity to explore new systems, as well as newinstitutional and financial arrangements to allowthe systems to develop and flourish. To paraphrasethe late Peter Drucker, the present is the enemy ofthe future. Thomas Hughes, the historian of tech-nology, makes the same point: old systems suffocatenew ones.

Most readers have observed in their lifetimeshow new systems can displace their parent systems.The federal government forced the breakup ofAT&T in 1984, paving the way for two decades ofextraordinary innovation and development in com-munications. Where would that industry be todayif the AT&T monopoly had remained intact?

Evolving FeaturesNo one knows how the surface transportation systemwill evolve. The Interstate system will remain in usefor generations, and the public is certain to demandcontinued renewal. Looking forward, several featuresappear likely:

The private sector will play a larger role infinancing. Given the state of the federal budget, theaversion to increasing the gas tax, and problems withthe future of the gas tax, federal financing is unlikelyto lead the way as it did by providing 90 percent of thefinancing for the Interstate.

Future federal support will be influencedincreasingly by politics. Despite calls for an end toearmarking, a return to a system driven by expert plan-ning instead of political control will be difficult.

Vehicle infrastructure integration will expand.Significant accomplishments in the area of electronictoll payment already are in place. The institutionalissues are formidable, but if these can be addressed,significant system performance increases are possible.

A Contest of ValuesAn important lesson of the Interstate is that a thought-fully engineered system can bestow enormous bene-fits. Although far from perfect, the Interstate systemhas made extraordinary contributions to the nation’squality of life. The Interstate is exceptional among thenation’s major infrastructure systems in the magnitudeof the federal role and in the duration of the federalcommitment to building out the system.

No vision as compelling as that of the Interstate hasyet emerged. Achieving an Interstate-like consensus—a worthy objective—may not be possible. Limiting theexploration of alternatives to those that require a con-sensus would be a mistake, leading to more of thesame. In this extraordinary time, it is imperative toexplore new systems, new institutional and financialarrangements, new roles, and new responsibilities.

Conceiving and realizing the nation’s transporta-tion future will be an ongoing contest among oftenstrongly held views about mobility, accessibility, equity,environmental stewardship, economic competitive-ness, and resource conservation. This contest is notonly about the technical and engineering efficiency ofthe transportation system—it is about values.

The transportation leaders of the mid-20th centurywrestled with these issues and created the vision thatbrought the Interstate program into being. Today’stransportation leaders have an equal obligation to forgea new future. That could be their most important legacy.

References1. U.S. Department of the Treasury. Report of the Secretary of the

Treasury on the Subject of Public Roads and Canals. WilliamDuane, Philadelphia, 1808.

2. Williamson, J., and D. Steele. Federal Aid to Domestic Trans-portation: A Brief History from the 1800s to the Present.Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Wash-ington, D.C., 2003.

3. Rohatyn, F. G., and W. Rudman. It’s Time to Rebuild Amer-ica: A Plan for Spending More—and Wisely—on OurDecaying Infrastructure. Washington Post, December 13,2005, p. A27.

4. Poole, R. W., Jr. The Emerging Threat to Toll Revenues. PublicWorks Financing, No. 202, February 2006, pp. 23–24.

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The author is Director,University of CaliforniaTransportation ResearchCenter, Berkeley. She isan emeritus member ofthe TRB Transportationand Land DevelopmentCommittee and serves onthe Transportation Issuesin Major U.S. CitiesCommittee and theTransportation andSustainabilityCommittee.

Interstate highways have had broad socialeffects on the United States. The Interstateshave not only altered how the nation travels,and how much, but also have changed the

structure of communities and regions and thechoices that residents are able to make on where tolive, work, shop, and play.

For many, the social impacts of the Interstateshave been positive: increased access, mobility, andoptions for individuals, households, and firms. Forothers, however—especially for those not able toown or drive a car—the Interstates have decreasedaccess and mobility by undermining the viability ofalternative modes of transport. Similarly, some com-munities have developed because of the Interstates,but others never have recovered from Interstate con-struction and are subjected to Interstate-related noiseand emissions.

The Interstate Highway System also has had pro-found impacts on American institutions. The Inter-state program helped create highway departmentswith a strong set of norms, values, and beliefs thatcontinue to guide organizational missions, day-to-day activities, and views of the department’s role insociety. In turn, the program has led to changes ingovernment organization, sometimes to counteractthe dominant focus on highway building. The redis-tribution of power and authority from independenthighway commissions to governors and legislatorsand from state highway departments to metropoli-tan planning organizations is an example of insti-tutional change sparked by the Interstate programand its impacts.

Dominant TechnologyThe social impacts have been wide-ranging becausethe Interstate Highway System is a dominant tech-nology. Except during peak periods of use in urbanareas, Interstates offer speed and ease of travel sub-stantially better than those available with othermodes. The Interstates, however, require mass own-ership and operation of mass-produced, affordableautomobiles on the operator side of the system.

The Interstate, together with privately owned vehi-cles, quickly displaced or reduced the role of earliertechnologies such as passenger and freight rail sys-tems. In smaller cities and those that have developedwith the automobile, the Interstates have displacedtransit. In older, denser cities, transit continues to playa major role but often has failed in the suburbs.

As massive works of engineering, the Interstatesalso have dominated the landscape. Highways arecultural icons and landmarks, but their meaning hasvaried—in some cases, the roads were a “technolog-ical sublime” and a form of engineering as art, but inother cases, the road was a “monster” that rippedthrough urban fabric or through natural landscapes,wreaking havoc.

Facilitator of ChangesInterstate highways have played a major role in thesuburbanization of the United States, but they werenot the first transportation technology to do this,nor was transportation the only factor in suburban-ization. Residential suburbanization followed theoutward deployment of rail and streetcar technolo-gies, and the trend accelerated with increased own-ership of mass-produced automobiles.

Other contributors to suburbanization includedthe local government practice of zoning industries outof the cities and in the urban fringe; industrial pro-duction practices and technologies that favored single-floor layouts, requiring large amounts of land; housingpolicies and practices that favored home ownershipand suburban locations—such as redlining or with-holding home loans in the inner city and older sub-urbs, tax deductions for mortgage interest, and massproduction of housing on greenfield tracts; de jureand de facto segregation by race and income; and themodernist idea that new is improved. Retail and ser-vice employment followed the population shifts out-ward, often attracted by the lower cost of land and bya business environment that was less regulated.

The Interstates facilitated these moves but the sameshifts occurred along other, lower-design primaryroads as well, supporting the conclusion that many

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centripetal forces were operating. Big-box retail andother new forms of doing business that depend oneasy access to a large market area require automobilesbut can work with less-than-Interstate facilities.

Standards and Professional LifeThe Interstate Highway System was a massiveendeavor that occupied many years of transportationprofessionals’ careers, from the 1950s through the1970s and beyond. To get the job done, highwaydepartments established rigid chains of command andsharp hierarchies—a military model of organization.

In addition, the program imposed uniform, fed-erally established design standards nationwide, tominimize conflicts and to produce a homogeneousflow with an emphasis on speed, safety, and effi-ciency as primary values. Road design was by thebook. Civil engineering programs began to havetrouble attracting the best students, in part becausethe work was seen as routine, with less room for cre-ativity and innovation than other fields could offer.

New Forms of OrganizationOnly a few observers—such as Lewis Mumford andDaniel P. Moynihan—predicted conflicts when theInterstates reached the city. The standard Interstatedesign did not fit all urban areas, and freeway revoltserupted in San Francisco, Boston, New Orleans,Memphis, Washington, Baltimore, Los Angeles,Sacramento, Phoenix, and many other cities.

The freeway revolts led to organizational change.By the early 1960s, Congress required that highwayprojects in metropolitan areas be approved througha process involving local elected officials. Severalstate legislatures dismantled independent highwaycommissions and gave more authority to appointedsecretaries of transportation who could be pulledback from unpopular projects.

The image of the Interstate highway program andprograms such as urban renewal as a “federal bull-dozer,” disregarding social and environmental effects,helped produce additional legislation that requiredenvironmental impact assessment and an increasedrole in decision making for local elected officials andcommunity residents. Highway departments beganto add—sometimes uneasily—new units thataddressed community and environmental factors,and regional agencies evolved into metropolitanplanning organizations.

Legacies and Evolving ImpactsThe Interstate Highway System remains the domi-nant transportation system in the United States,although the growth in international trade suggeststhat ports and airports are the new driving engines

of the economy. TheInterstates are the majorcommuting corridors,the main routes forintercity travel and inter-city freight, and themajor links to ports andairports nationwide.Their many roles inshaping American socialand cultural arrange-ments continue tounfold. Their impactsremain major considera-tions for planners.

The Interstate high-ways are facing prob-lems. The facilities areold, and funds for main-tenance and reconstruc-tion are not easy to find.The highways continueto have negative effectsas well as positive ones,dividing communities and exposing nearby popula-tions to noise and emissions. Some bypassed com-munities have benefited from traffic relief, but othershave suffered as land uses along former major arter-ies have lost markets. Congestion on urban Inter-states has pushed traffic back to some of thesearterials during peak periods, creating a new set ofchallenges and perhaps opportunities.

The legacy of the freeway revolts of the 1960sand 1970s can be found in social justice and envi-ronmental organizations in many cities. Regionalplanning agencies have continued to gain in author-ity in most areas and have taken over part of thedecision making from state highway departments.

Highway departments also are changing. Mostnow plan for high-occupancy vehicle lanes as well asautomobile lanes, and the tight grip of uniform stan-dards is beginning to loosen with context-sensitivedesign guidelines. Megaprojects that include some-thing for everyone and attempt to mitigate or com-pensate for every possible adverse impact can be seenas another legacy of the freeway revolts.

All of these changes can be viewed as social con-sequences of the Interstate Highway System. Thesystem has changed the way that the nation lives,works, and plays; has had a long-lasting imprint onthe civil engineering profession; has spawned neworganizations; and has shaped the nation’s land-scapes and points of reference. Even after 50 years,the effects of the Interstate Highway System con-tinue to unfold.

Construction of I-45approaches centralHouston, Texas, circa1961.

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The author is President,Economic DevelopmentResearch Group, Boston,Massachusetts. He chairsthe TRB Transportationand Economic Develop-ment Committee.

Build a highway, and they will come. Thatwas the hope of those who wanted toattract more business to local communi-ties, and it was the fear of those who did

not want to attract any more development. Thereare many examples of new industrial and office parksbuilt alongside Interstate highways and at inter-changes. Yet there are many more examples—tens ofthousands of miles of highways—with no businessactivity at all alongside.

An Interstate highway does not lead automati-cally to new development. Other location factors—such as access to markets, proximity of theworkforce, and availability of utilities—also are nec-essary for attracting businesses.

Matter of LogisticsThe impact of Interstate highways on industry can bemeasured in more than the savings in travel timesbetween cities—the system has enabled a dramaticevolution in business location and development pat-terns. The speed and reliability of Interstate highwaysexpanded the labor market for firms, the range of sup-pliers that firms could choose, and the size of the cus-tomer base that could be served with same-daydeliveries. Some industries were able to realizeeconomies of scale with larger manufacturing plantsand warehouses. The Interstates brought industrialgrowth to outlying areas that formerly had been too farfrom cities but now were within a day’s round trip.

Areas that were still too isolated and distant from

urban markets, however, were not helped as much.Research findings have confirmed that the greatestimpacts of the Interstate system on business growthoccurred in nonmetropolitan areas adjacent to met-ropolitan areas (1).

The system’s reliability dramatically improved deliv-ery schedules. The Interstate highways provided a pass-ing lane to get around slow-moving vehicles and didaway with at-grade intersections that caused backupdelays. The Interstate system also brought more uni-formity to overpass heights and bridge weights.

The expanded market reach, greater reliability,and the connectivity to intermodal terminals intro-duced a new level of logistics planning. The systemfacilitated just-in-time manufacturing and stockingsystems, which in turn led to supply chain corri-dors, such as Auto Alley, which has attracted sevenautomobile manufacturers and hundreds of suppli-ers to locate along the I-65 and I-75 corridors fromAlabama and Tennessee to Kentucky, Indiana, andOhio. Businesses along a multistate corridor candraw from different labor markets yet still be part ofa same-day delivery system.

Strategic InterchangesIndustrial and commercial businesses often hadsprawled along older highways for many miles, butthe Interstates focused new business developmentnear interchanges or along routes accessible to inter-changes. A study funded by the Federal HighwayAdministration found that the impacts of new Inter-

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Industrial, warehouse, and retaildevelopment clustered at theintersection of I-75 and Ohio StateRoute 122, Middletown, Ohio.

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state highways on economic development variedwidely. Some of the case studies that probed intolocal business locations showed that new industrialparks usually were built near interchanges or alonglocal highways that easily connected to interchangeswith the Interstate routes. New logistics and ware-housing centers were locating at interconnectionsbetween north–south and east–west highways in thevicinity of labor markets and with the necessary zon-ing and utilities in place (2).

A 10-year tracking of new manufacturing plantlocations in Wisconsin shows that industrial plantswere built primarily along

Interstate highways, Other four-lane highways that did not have the

Interstate designation but had similar access controlfeatures, and

Rural two-lane highways that had easy accessto an Interstate highway interchange (3).

Intermodal ConnectionsThe Interstate Highway System and its intermodalconnections have provided a model for investment ininterregional transportation systems elsewhere. TheTrans-European Network, for example, is a $100 bil-lion effort to improve transportation connectivityacross Europe.

Nonetheless, transportation investments still arenecessary to support the changing pattern of indus-tries in the United States. With the expansion oflarge regional, national, and international markets formany goods, freight ton-miles are growing at a fasterrate than the population. As international exportsalso gain a larger share of the U.S. economy, thenation’s system of international gateways—airports,marine ports, and border crossings—is facing newdemands. Because the Interstate Highway Systemprovides access for goods movement to and fromthese gateways, demands will arise for new invest-

ment to support the changing role of Interstatehighways in our nation’s continuing development.

References1. Rephann, T. J., and A. M. Isserman. New Highways as Eco-

nomic Development Tools: An Evaluation Using Quasi-Experimental Matching Methods. Regional Science andUrban Economics, Vol. 24, No. 6, 1994, pp. 723–751.

2. Jack Faucett Associates and Economic DevelopmentResearch Group. Economic Effects of Selected Rural Inter-states. Federal Highway Administration, 2005.www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/econdev/county.htm.

3. A Study of New and Expanding Manufacturing Plants in Wis-consin During 1990–1996. Wisconsin Department of Trans-portation, Madison, 2001.

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Domestic and foreign-owned automotive plantsand suppliers in thenorthern section of theI-65 and I-75 corridor,with network of links toother Interstates.

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The author is SeniorResident Fellow,Transportation andInfrastructure, UrbanLand Institute,Washington, D.C., and amember of the TRBTransportation and LandDevelopment Committee.

That the Interstate Highway System hasreshaped development patterns in theUnited States probably would not sur-prise its creators. In 1961, as the Inter-

state system was hitting full stride, a report byWilbur Smith and Associates (WSA), Future High-ways and Urban Growth, pointed out that “freewaysare magnets for commercial development” and citedsome of the early beneficiaries, including RooseveltField on Long Island, Century City in Los Angeles,and Route 128 outside Boston. The WSA reportalso recognized that forces already were pushingdevelopment toward suburbanization:

Retail shopping centers were locating strate-gically in suburban trade areas,

The market for downtown office space waslargely stagnant, and

Population growth was occurring primarilyin the suburbs of large metropolitan areas.

Edge City EvolutionThe rapid growth that was transforming Americabecame evident by the 1980s, when new skylinesappeared in the suburbs, which author Joel Garreaucalled “edge cities” (1). According to Garreau, edgecities were places that “went from country to city inthe last 30 years, about when the Interstate systemreally started taking hold of the country.”

Edge cities were commercial centers with largeamounts of office and retail space and were definedby the automobile and supporting highways. Exam-ples include Post Oak/Galleria outside Houston;King of Prussia outside Philadelphia, identified onhighway signs as “Mall Next Four Exits”; and theultimate placeless moniker, “287 and 87,” at theintersection of two Interstates in New Jersey. Edgecities are the product not of urban planners whoknow how people should behave, but of developerswho know what people want and how people act.

While planners moaned and Garreau enthusedabout edge cities, which were organized largelyaround major Interstate routes, a new form of sub-urban development emerged that was even more

troubling to planners. Robert Lang of Virginia Techidentified the next evolution as edgeless cities, char-acterized by

Low-scale office development, No center, Single-use, unconnected structures accessible

only by autombile, Vast areas, More rapid growth than edge cities, and Dispersion throughout suburban areas.

Atlanta, often cited as an exemplar of sprawl,illustrates the impact of edgeless cities. In the1990s, edgeless cities grew around Atlanta at theexpense of edge cities. Although edge cities cap-tured 25 percent of metropolitan office space—exceeding the 24 percent share downtown—theedgeless cities contained 41 percent of the metro-politan office space, according to Lang’s estimate(2). Edgeless cities appear to be an example ofextreme sprawl—no clustering, no economies ofscale, and no travel options, requiring a car even forlunch and daytime errands.

Fixing Edge CitiesEdgeless cities present enormous challenges forplanners, but there are some ideas and examples forfixing edge cities (3):

Break up the superblocks and increase con-nectivity. If customers can patronize a variety of busi-nesses more easily, walking becomes an option,transit becomes feasible, and the place becomes moreattractive to users and more profitable for commerce.

Embrace mixed uses. Mixed uses create crit-ical mass and a sense of place. They also offeropportunities for short internal trips, which can bemade on foot. In most cases, however, mixed userequires changes in zoning codes.

Create a pedestrian-friendly place. Breaking upsuperblocks and creating nearby destinations toencourage walking is not enough. Careful attention tomanaging traffic and creating a more attractive pedes-

EDGE CITY,JUST OFF THE INTERSTATEBoon or Bane?

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trian environment will help people want to walk. Create a public–private partnership. Because

most new edge cities are in unincorporated munic-ipalities, changing them requires collaboration—best handled through a partnership—amongproperty owners, businesses, and government.

Share and manage parking. Vast parkingareas are a defining feature of most new edge cities.To improve the quality of the place, it is essential tomanage the parking but allow businesses to shareand create a one-stop experience.

Protecting Interstate ServiceThese measures may fix some of the problems thatedge cities pose for development and transporta-tion. But because of limited plans for expandingurban highways, the future challenge is how to pro-tect Interstates from losing excess service tounplanned growth. Without effective efforts tochannel growth into infill or to areas that are closer

to the metropolitan centers, housing markets mayexpand geometrically as consumers search foraffordable places to live. The leapfrogging of com-mercial centers to more distant locations willprompt residents to move even farther for housing.

Areas on the fringe have some of the least con-gested and fastest-moving segments of urban Inter-states—at least for a while. Regional strategies areneeded to protect such scarce transportation capac-ities by containing and clustering commercial growthas much as possible, which also will improve thesustainability of suburban commercial centers.

References1. Garreau, J. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. Doubleday,

New York, 1991.2. Lang, R. E. Edgeless Cities: Exploring the Elusive Metropo-

lis. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2003.3. Booth, G., et al. Ten Principles for Reinventing Suburban

Business Districts. Urban Land Institute, Washington,D.C., 2002.

The Denver Tech Center, Denver’s premier edge city, was originally conceived as a less expansive alternative forbusinesses, 15 miles on the Interstate from downtown. The center now has more jobs than downtown, butgrowth in the corridor has created one of the worst bottlenecks in the United States. A mammoth projectcalled T-Rex is reconstructing and expanding the Interstate and adding transit service. (Photo by GreggGargan, Colorado Department of Transportation.)

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Hoel is the L.A. LacyDistinguished Professorof Engineering andDirector of the Center forTransportation Studies atthe University ofVirginia, Charlottesville.A member of theNational Academy ofEngineering, he is a pastchair of the TRBExecutive Committee(1986) and of theSubcommittee for NRCOversight (1996–2004).Short is a Captain in theU.S. Army, completinghis master of sciencedegree in transportationsystems engineering atthe University ofVirginia.

The Interstate Highway System now mark-ing its 50th anniversary is the largest andmost expensive public works project inU.S. history. The Interstate’s role in pro-

moting economic development, strengthening thenation’s defense, and facilitating vehicular travel iswell known, but its impact on engineering and tech-nology is not widely understood.

Although some of the technology and engineeringexpertise needed for this massive undertaking wasalready in place, the 42,500-mile Interstate HighwaySystem was a complex engineering effort withoutprecedent in the history of transportation. Manyadvances and techniques developed as the projectprogressed.

On the Shoulders of GiantsWhen President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed theFederal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that authorizedthe Interstate project, the concept of a national high-way system had been under investigation for manyyears. Enormous challenges were associated with the

bold plan for a limited-access highway system thatwould link the contiguous 48 states. For example,the geography, geology, and climate of the UnitedStates varied greatly from state to state, as did theexpertise in highway engineering and construction.

Lessons from RailThe experience of the railroad era demonstratedthe feasibility of constructing a national transpor-tation system. Railroad building began on a massivescale after the Civil War (1861–1865). By 1880, thesystem included about 94,000 miles of track, whichpeaked at more than 254,000 miles in 1918, at theend of World War I.

Engineers learned important lessons about soilbehavior, drainage, structural design, and gradingthat would prove useful to the engineers buildingroads in the 1930s and 1940s. Railroad constructionproceeded without the kinds of equipment andtechnology that were available for highways in the1950s. Many highways followed along the right-of-way of previously constructed railroads.

THE ENGINEERING OF THEINTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEMA 50-Year Retrospective of Advances and Contributions

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Connecticut’s MerrittParkway—shown herenear Fairfield—was built inthe 1930s and served as amodel for the Interstates.

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Highway PrecedentsLimited-access highways in America were notunknown in 1956. Parkways and freeways had beenconstructed in several states between 1920 and 1945.The Henry Hudson and Bronx River Parkways inNew York, the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, andthe Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles are earlyexamples of highways that served as models for theInterstates.

Perhaps the best example of an early limited-access highway is the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Mod-eled after the German autobahns, the PennsylvaniaTurnpike opened in 1940 with higher geometricand design standards than had been applied in theUnited States. The facility still serves as a majoreast–west artery in Pennsylvania and is now a seg-ment of the Interstate system. Interstate designstandards would be based on similar principles.

Bridge and Tunnel ModelsMany railroad and highway bridges and tunnelswere constructed in the 19th and early 20th cen-turies, well before Interstate highways. The Hol-land Tunnel, which opened in 1927, connectedlower Manhattan with New Jersey. It was theworld’s first long, underwater, mechanically venti-lated tunnel. The twin-tube design consisted of115,000 tons of cast iron and 130,000 cubic yardsof concrete. The Lincoln Tunnel, the second tunnelunder the Hudson River, opened in 1937 andremains a significant crossing for the New Yorkmetropolitan area. Both tunnels served as modelsfor those to be constructed during the Interstateera for highway and rail transit.

The George Washington Bridge, completed in1931, connected New York City with northern NewJersey. Built over a four-year period, its two steeltowers with a span length of 3,500 feet are embed-ded deep in rock and concrete. The towers risemore than 600 feet to support steel suspensioncables that contain more than 107,000 miles ofwire. The bridge carries approximately 300,000vehicles per day and is one of the most heavily trav-eled bridges in the world.

In 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge connected SanFrancisco to Northern California. Its 4,200-foot span isan engineering achievement that continues to serve asa major artery for the California highway system.

World War II ExperienceWorld War II had an impact on the development ofthe highway engineering expertise that would beneeded to design and build the Interstate. Militaryengineers faced large and complex challenges inthe European and Pacific theaters. Many construc-

tion projects—including roads, bridges, airstrips,and harbor facilities—were completed quickly andunder adverse conditions.

When hostilities ended in 1945, many returningservicemen enrolled in engineering schools funded bya federal grant known as the GI Bill. Some attendedstate or private universities that were redirecting theirtraining and research programs toward this new areaof studies. Schools such as the University of Califor-nia at Berkeley, Yale University, and NorthwesternUniversity were early leaders in highway engineeringand traffic management education.

State highway departments, as well as the U.S.Bureau of Public Roads1 (BPR) and consultingfirms, eagerly employed engineering graduates toembark on careers that would center on the Inter-state system.

World War II also advanced the state of U.S.construction practice. Servicemen returning fromthe war had experience with construction equip-ment. In addition, the expanding manufacturingsector brought the development of highway con-struction equipment to a new level of performance.

Overcoming ConstraintsSeveral unique engineering problems faced the engi-neers who were tasked with building the Interstatesystem. The problems centered around three con-straints: the size of the project, the scope of the proj-ect, and the time required to complete the project.

The enabling legislation had anticipated comple-tion within 13 years, but engineers soon learned thatthe scope and cost of the project would greatlyexceed early estimates of the materials and person-nel required. In contrast to earlier projects, in whichthe major challenge was conquering nature, the

The Golden Gate Bridge between San Francisco and Northern California took 4 years to build;Golden Gate Strait below is 400 feet deep, and the bridge’s two towers rise 746 feet.

The Lincoln Tunnel underthe Hudson River betweenNew York City and NewJersey was an engineeringachievement thatprovided know-how forthe building of theInterstate system.

1 Now the Federal Highway Administration.

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Interstate system was conceived as a means to con-nect cities and to relieve traffic congestion. Conse-quently, engineers were constructing these facilitiesin a difficult and more hostile environment.

The Interstate Highway System became known asthe most extensive engineering project since the con-struction of the Great Pyramids. The complexity andchallenges of the project greatly exceeded those facedby earlier builders of the nation’s transportationinfrastructure. Contractors expended about 2.6 bil-lion person-hours building Interstate highways andused more than 1.5 million tons of explosives toexcavate material in large cut sections and tunnels.

State PreparationsAlthough the federal government provided at least 90percent of the cost, individual highway departmentswere responsible for building the segments of thesystem within their state. The Federal Aid Road Actof 1916 required all states to establish a departmentof highways as a condition for receiving federalfunds. Only a few states, however, had the expertiseand the engineering staffs qualified to design and

construct highways at an Interstate scale. Many agencies competed to secure qualified engi-

neers; those who were hired became “the Interstategeneration.” States such as New York, California, andPennsylvania had organizations with seasonedemployees who were prepared for the challenges. In-house staff, contractors, and consultants would estab-lish working relationships during the course of theInterstate program.

States shared enthusiasm and excitement for thework. Ellis Armstrong, BPR Commissioner from 1958to 1961, predicted “many obstacles” and conceded,“We’re up against a pretty tough schedule.” Nonethe-less he believed that the industry would respond andthe Interstates could be built on schedule.

State highway engineers recognized the Interstate asa challenge and an opportunity of a lifetime. Althoughthe desire to succeed was strong, concerns arose thatshortages of engineers, materials, construction equip-ment, and contractors could hinder completion.

Uniformity in PracticeFortuitously, by 1956, through the efforts of BPR, theAmerican Association of State Highway Officials2

(AASHO), and the Highway Research Board3 (HRB), anetwork was in place for creating and transmittingtechnical information between state highway depart-ments. The process for communication and the estab-lishment of design policies had been perfected duringthe first half of the 20th century, long before the Inter-state system was begun, during a period when high-way building was an active priority in many states.

BPR, established in 1893 as the Office of RoadInquiry, helped state and local governments to createroad projects that would employ workers during theGreat Depression of the 1930s and spearheaded thefederal government’s involvement in national high-way building, including the Interstate system.

AASHO, formed in 1914, facilitated coordina-tion between states, brought an orderly arrangementto road systems, established standards for construc-tion, and promoted highway development.

HRB, organized in 1920 as part of the NationalResearch Council associated with the National Acad-emy of Sciences, established relationships between thestates and the federal government to serve as a facili-tator of highway research and to assist in dissemina-tion of new information to the highway community.

These three organizations were instrumental indeveloping uniformity and consistency in engineer-

2 Now the American Association of State Highway andTransportation Officials.3 Now the Transportation Research Board.

Researchers film andrecord data after a testtruck crosses a bridgeduring the AASHO RoadTest, which contributedto the development ofdesign criteria andstandards for theInterstates.

Construction on thePennsylvania Turnpike inthe late 1930s. TheInterstate precursor raisedU.S. geometric and designstandards for highways.

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ing practice throughout the country, a necessity forthe successful completion of a system with the Inter-state’s scale. Engineers could tailor design criteria tospecial conditions, and lines of communicationemerged as the nation was inventing the modern dis-cipline of highway engineering.

Design and ConstructionStandardsAn important feature of the Interstate is the uniformityin design practice to assure safety and efficient opera-tions. Design standards could be modified, however, asinnovations and new techniques were developed.

In partnership, AASHO and BPR assembled andcodified the knowledge gained by states before theInterstate project and communicated the informationto all state highway departments. The partnershipproved valuable in sharing technical knowledge andin establishing consensus within the engineeringcommunity.

Research StudiesThe policies published by AASHO were the result ofproven engineering research and experience, based onstudies conducted by BPR, the National CooperativeHighway Research Program (NCHRP) establishedunder HRB in 1962, state research laboratories, anduniversities. The partnership effectively disseminatedinformation in such subject areas as geometric design,pavement and bridge design, highway capacity, andtraffic control.

Highway departments could build Interstate proj-ects because of these established standards, whichwere based on results secured from state practice.Many states had minimal experience in building lim-ited-access highways. Yet through creativity, sensi-tivity, and engineering practice, each state couldconstruct highways that were uniform in somerespects, but also unique to the settings.

AASHO Road TestOne of the most significant research projects of theInterstate era was the AASHO Road Test, conductedbetween 1958 and 1960. The purpose of the projectwas to develop pavement design criteria for Interstateconditions. Standards for asphalt and concrete pave-ments and for bridge design would assure a longdesign life that could withstand expected increases inheavy truck travel.

The testing was conducted in Ottawa, Illinois,and consisted of more than 800 concrete and asphaltpavement sections arranged in six loops. Each laneon the loop carried traffic with axle loads rangingfrom 2,000 to 30,000 pounds.

Test vehicles, driven by members of the U.S.

Army, traveled around the loops continuously formore than two years. The pavement conditions weremeasured and analyzed to produce pavement designrelationships describing how various pavementstructures would deteriorate with exposure to traffic.

The results became the basis for pavement designpractice in the United States and throughout theworld. The AASHO Road Test advanced knowledgeof pavement structural design, pavement perfor-mance, load equivalencies, climatic effects, and thedesign of short-span bridges.

Advances in Technology The construction of the Interstates produced signif-icant advances in civil engineering technology, par-ticularly in asphalt and concrete pavements,drainage, bridge design, soil mechanics, and trafficforecasting.

In 1876, Belgian chemist Edmund DeSmedtsupervised the asphalt paving of PennsylvaniaAvenue in Washington, D.C., and in 1891, GeorgeBartholomew paved Main Street in Bellefontaine,Ohio, with concrete. Soon other cities in the East andMidwest began paving their roads.

Paved roads, however, rarely ventured outside ofcities. When automobiles arrived, the need for hard-surface roads was critical, prompting efforts to dis-cover how to build better pavements.

Engineers had limited knowledge of the proper-ties of concrete and asphalt before the Interstate,especially about the wearing and load-bearing char-acteristics. Between 1945 and 1955, the total num-ber of automobiles in the nation doubled to 61million. States had conducted quality testing of pave-ments, but the requisite knowledge was not devel-oped until the AASHO Road Test. The Interstateswere to be designed for 20 years of service, but manysections lasted many more years, and some portionshave carried three to four times the loads for whichthey were designed.

Prototype slip-formpaver, developed in theIowa DOT laboratory inAmes, producedsidewalk-size sections ofconcrete in 1948, andsoon yielded a modelthat produced sections 9feet wide and 6 inchesdeep.

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AsphaltAsphalt technology greatly improved during WorldWar II because military aircraft required surfaces thatcould withstand heavy loads. But Interstate con-struction called for larger equipment than was avail-able. Electronic leveling controls, extrawide finishersfor paving two lanes at once, and vibratory steel-wheel rollers were developed. Innovative construc-tion techniques that now are considered state of theart included rubblization and crack-and-seat meth-ods, which enabled the use of worn roadbeds as thefoundation for asphalt surfacing.

The basic principles of highway constructionremain the same, but many elements have changedin the past 50 years. Recent improvements inasphalt pavement design include Superpave®,stone-matrix asphalt, and open-graded frictioncourses. Superpave—which stands for SuperiorPerforming Asphalt Pavement—can be tailored toclimate and traffic and has shown durability inhighway performance. The open-graded frictioncourse design has improved surface drainage ofwater, reducing hydroplaning and skidding.

Research to produce a quieter, more durable, andeconomical paving material continues. Under way isthe development of warm-mix asphalt, which maylower the production and construction temperaturefor asphalt pavement material by 50 to 100 degrees.This new technology would require less energy toproduce the mix; would reduce emissions, fumes,and odor; and would age more slowly in produc-tion, making it less prone to cracking.

ConcreteConcrete generally has a higher initial cost thanasphalt but lasts longer and has lower maintenancecosts. The first concrete roads were primitive, andeach was unique to the builder. From the 1920suntil 1960, the concrete for pavements was pro-duced on-site. With the development of a large cen-tral mixer, concrete trucks could take the mixdirectly to the project site, improving the speed ofthe concrete placement and the quality of the mix.The central plant mixer was up to 12 times fasterthan on-site production.

Another advance in concrete paving was the slip-form paver, developed in an Iowa laboratory in 1947.Two years later, a slip-form paver was available thatproduced a section 9 feet wide and 6 inches deep.With the construction of the Interstate, larger andmore efficient pavers were developed, greatly increas-ing construction workers’ productivity.

Other improvements in concrete technologyinclude fiber reinforcement and superplasticizers foradmixtures. High-performance concrete was intro-

duced in 1987. Areas of ongoing research on concretepavements include improving information for inputsinto pavement management systems, comparing theperformance of alternative designs under dynamicloads, finding solutions to durability problems, anddeveloping more economical ways of recycling andreconstructing old pavements.

The goal is to devise mixtures that are economi-cal and long-lasting. Although high-quality concretewas available in small quantities at the inception ofthe Interstate, quality control often was sacrificedfor speedy construction. Engineers and contractorslater fully understood the implications of high-qual-ity concrete for durability and longevity.

Culverts and DrainageThe Interstate also advanced drainage techniques,including culvert design and materials. Before theInterstate, culverts were made of clay or concrete,and during the 1950s, highway builders used metalor concrete culverts.

Today the development of plastic pipes has pro-vided engineers with another alternative. In a recentproject in Salt Lake City, Utah, for example, corru-gated polyethylene pipe allowed completion of a $1.5billion project on I-15 in time for the 2002 WinterOlympics. The pipe’s long length reduced the num-ber of joints, saving labor and installation time.

BridgesAs noted earlier, many long- and short-span bridgesfor railroads and highways had been constructedbefore the Interstate. For example, the BrooklynBridge opened in 1883.

Yet the dramatic progress in bridge engineeringduring the Interstate years is illustrated by a partiallist of advances that came into widespread use onhighway bridges during the past 50 years: prestressedconcrete, segmental construction, high-performanceconcrete, high-strength steel, weathering steel,welded connections, computerized analysis anddesign, cable-stayed spans, elastomeric bearings,epoxy-coated reinforcement, radiographic inspec-tion, and bridge management systems.

PlanningTravel forecasting was necessary for Interstate plan-ning because the design had to size the system toaccommodate traffic volumes 20 years into thefuture. In contrast to other aspects of engineeringdesign, the state of the art in travel forecasting wasin its infancy.

Large-scale urban transportation planning studieshad been initiated in cities such as Chicago, Detroit,and Los Angeles. The pioneer effort was the 1955

Telegraph Pass, Interstate8, near Yuma, Arizona.

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In the dark of night, a car zips along Interstate 70 toward the decel-eration ramp at California Avenue. No one else is on the road.

Veering out of control, the car smashes head-on into a sign. Whenthe driver finally is able to stop, he pinches himself to see if he is stillalive. He scratches his head, wondering why he wasn’t killed. Thenhe shrugs, throws his car back into gear, and zooms away.

At the speed the car was traveling, the driver should have died.The car should have been demolished, split in half. As it is, the carisn’t dented. The driver hasn’t suffered a scratch.

Why?The sign post the careening car hit was a product of research. The

post was joined in such a way it withstood normal wind but broke offwhen struck by a car traveling at more than 30 miles per hour. Thesign flew over the top of the car, and neither the sign nor the post wasseriously damaged.

This incident, with a few conjectures, was reported in theTopeka State Journal, January 18, 1967. It was part of afeature article about the importance of the research thatthe Kansas Highway Commission1 was doing to protect

the traveling public—as well as the taxpayers’ investment in thehighway system.

Research always has played an essential role in building and main-taining the nation’s transportation system. The Kansas Highway Com-mission cooperated with the Texas Transportation Institute, 11 otherstates, and the Bureau of Public Roads2 to develop the break-away signpost more than 40 years ago, and research on sign posts and other road-side obstacles continues.

The first segment of the National System of Interstate and DefenseHighways designated by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 wascompleted in Kansas on November 14, 1956. During the building of theInterstate System across Kansas, many research studies were conducted,and the technologies that were developed have played a role in build-ing safer and more durable public roadways.

Among the advances that research related to Interstate 70 has madepossible are the following:

Drake device. Frank Drake, an engineer with the Kansas HighwayCommission, developed a mechanism for cross-slope control of asphaltpaving machine screeds or leveling devices, which allowed for the place-ment of a smoother asphalt pavement. The Drake device is the basis forthe automatic, electronic screed controls now incorporated into allpavers. The Drake device was required for equipment in Kansas in the1950s and other states soon adopted it.

Durable (Class I) concrete aggregate. Research showed that byevaluating individual beds of rock in limestone quarries, the departmentcould identify sources of freeze–thaw resistant limestone for crushing

into concrete aggregate. Implementation of this finding, along with aconcrete freeze–thaw testing program that evaluates aggregates fromeach of the ledges, has extended the service life of concrete pavementsproduced since 1980.

Optimized mix design. With the optimized mix design, concretepavement consolidates much more easily than with previous mixes,yielding higher strengths for the same amount of cement. The mixdesign reduces the amount of cement needed, easily obtains good den-sity and air void systems, and yet yields pavements that are as strong asor stronger than pavements with other mixes. Studies show that higher-density pavements are less prone to faulting.

Bridge deck protective systems. Several different types of high-performance concrete have been used for bridge deck construction andreconstruction of I-70 and for the bridges over I-70. These include newbridge deck overlays with silica fume or ground blast furnace slagadmixtures. In addition, the rehabilitation of bridge decks with KansasSystem dense concrete overlays, Iowa System dense concrete overlays,and polymer concrete two-coat broom and seed methods has extendedthe service life of many bridges.

SuperPave® with quality control and quality assurance testing.All bituminous pavements placed on I-70 in the late 1990s have usedthis pavement design system, which evolved from research sponsoredby the Strategic Highway Research Program. Kansas was the first stateto implement concurrently the SuperPave binder and mix design spec-

Paving the Way with Research and Innovation

The Kansas Interstate Example

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In unfavorable weather conditions, fogging of concrete—here,during placement on an I-70 bridge—reduces cracking on newdecks.

The author is Engineer of Research, Kansas Department of Transportation, Topeka,and a member of the TRB Library and Information Science for TransportationCommittee and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program ProjectPanel on Performance Measurement Tool Box and Reporting System for ResearchPrograms and Projects.

1 Now the Kansas Department of Transportation.2 Now the Federal Highway Administration.

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ifications and the quality control and quality assurance (QC–QA) test-ing specification. The contractors perform the QC testing, and KDOTstaff or representatives are responsible for the QA testing. To support thisspecification, Kansas State University has developed a Certified Inspec-tor Testing and Training program.

Bituminous recycling. Several methods have been used on I-70 to recycle in-place pavements for reconstruction and to extendthe life of bituminous pavements. These include partial and full-depth projects, as well as surface, hot, and cold methods, dependingon pavement conditions.

Use of Class C fly ash. I-70 construction projects have usedmany tons of Class C fly ash—a waste product of the electric powerindustry—for subgrade stabilization, cold in-place recycling of bitumi-nous pavement, concrete pavement, and slurry injection of widedepressed transverse pavement cracks.

Passive cathodic protection of bridges. Cathodic protection usesa sacrificial zinc foil layer beneath an overlay to protect the steel rein-forcement in bridge decks from corrosion caused by chloride intrusion.

I-buttons. Embedded at various depths in concrete, i-buttons aresmall electronic devices used to investigate temperature changes overtime. The i-button stores the temperature every few minutes for severaldays and then is “read” with a special device that captures the storedinformation. Findings from a research project on an I-70 bridge west ofTopeka, Kansas, in the summer of 2003, for example, showed that tem-peratures were more severe than expected. As a result, curing specifi-cations were modified so that bridge deck concrete would undergo lessstress during curing and would gain durability.

Curing specifications. In 1994, Kansas was the first state torequire a full seven-day wet burlap cure for concrete and in 1995 wasthe first to require fogging of concrete during placement when theambient weather conditions were not acceptable. These specifica-tions have reduced bridge deck cracking on new bridge decks.Because of its research with the University of Kansas on ways toreduce bridge deck cracking, Kansas DOT serves as the lead on a$950,000 pooled-fund project supported by the Federal Highway

Administration and several states. Bridge repair with epoxy injection. Epoxy injection tech-

nology, first investigated by Kansas DOT researchers in the 1970s,recently was used to repair the debonded deck on the I-135 bridgeover I-70 in Salina, Kansas. The method is less costly than removaland replacement of the affected deck areas. Kansas DOT researchersdeveloped another use of epoxy injection that involved angle-drilling of cracked bridge girders, insertion of extra reinforcing steel,and then epoxy injection into the void and surrounding cracks tostrengthen the bridge and extend its life. Several bridges on I-70were repaired using this technique, although some have beenreplaced. The technique had saved an estimated $25 millionstatewide in bridge repair costs by 1990.

Air-void analyzer. This device allows real-time evaluation ofconcrete air voids to ensure that the concrete does not fail prema-turely from freezing and thawing. Immediately after the pavementis placed, a concrete sample is taken for analysis. Testing takes about30 minutes, so that changes can be made to the mix on the same day,if necessary. Kansas was the first state to incorporate use of thisdevice in pavement specifications.

The construction of the Interstate Highway System across thecountry required the development of ways to improve safety, cutcosts, reduce maintenance, and increase the effectiveness of materi-als. Research is ongoing to expand on the advances that were madeduring the height of Interstate construction. The findings will helpto ensure that the roads built today are the safest and most cost-effec-tive possible.

“Over the years, many dedicated people have worked to giveKansas a top-notch transportation system and to improve the art ofhighway construction,” Kansas DOT Secretary Debra Miller observedat the department’s 75th anniversary celebration, April 1, 2004.

I-button electronic device installed on an Interstate 70 bridge torecord pavement temperatures; the data assist in modifyingconcrete curing specifications to increase durability.

Kansas claims the first segment of the Interstate system that wascompleted under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, 8 miles ofconcrete pavement for U.S. 40.

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Chicago Area Transportation Study, which developeda series of models to forecast traffic patterns and flowbased on a four-step methodological procedure thatincluded trip generation, trip distribution, modalsplit, and traffic assignment. Many of these modelsare still in use today.

Other contributors were Alan Voorhees, whoseseminal paper, “A General Theory of Traffic Move-ment,” proposed a “gravity model” for forecastingtrip origins and destinations. His planning firm andothers completed many transportation studies apply-ing these principles. BPR perfected the planningmethods developed for the Interstate, which havebeen implemented in many urban transportationstudies in the United States and worldwide.

Operations and SafetyTravel monitoring was another challenge for high-way engineers. Among the many advances in thisarea is the first high-tech roadway, the 27-kilometerGlenn Anderson Freeway–Transitway, I-105 in LosAngeles. This Interstate section, which opened in1993, features the latest in highway technology, withsensors buried in the pavement and links to com-puters that allow technicians to monitor traffic flow.In addition to meters that help regulate traffic onramps, closed-circuit television cameras alert offi-cials to accidents on the highway.

Road safety standards also have improved in thepast 50 years. As early as 1960, researchers weredeveloping reflective markings for highway pave-ments. Other developments include guardraildesigns such as the Jersey Barrier, breakaway signs,clear zones, and reflectorized traffic signs. Con-struction zone practices assure safety for highwayworkers. Statistics show that the Interstates have hadthe best safety record of all classes of roadways.

Other AdvancesThe Interstate has brought with it many advances thathave contributed not only to the highway, but to manyother engineering projects. Engineers have adaptedhighway design to comply with environmental lawsand regulations. For example, in Florida’s Everglades,the construction of I-75—known as Alligator Alley—included underpasses that allow the endangeredFlorida panther and other wildlife to cross under thehighway. Improved drainage also has enhanced theflow of water within the Everglades.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel in Norfolk,Virginia, opened in 1964 and was named one of the“Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World”in a 1965 competition. The structure connects Vir-ginia Beach and Norfolk to Virginia’s Eastern Shore,with bridges and tunnels that total 17.6 miles in

length and that feature two mile-long tunnelsbeneath the ocean bottom to allow passage of com-mercial and military ships.

The most recent engineering challenge was the I-90 and I-93 Central Artery–Tunnel Project, or BigDig, in Boston, Massachusetts. The original elevatedhighway was chronically congested, plagued bysharp turns and many entrance and exit ramps.

Engineers employed the slurry wall technique tocreate 120-foot deep concrete walls on which theold highway could rest while a new road was con-structed below. The concrete walls also stabilizedthe construction site and prevented cave-ins duringthe tunneling. Completed over budget and fiveyears behind schedule, the $15 billion projectnonetheless is considered an outstanding engi-neering accomplishment.

Looking AheadEngineers will continue to address challenges inmaintaining, improving, and adapting the InterstateHighway System to the needs of the future and to theinformation age. The can-do attitude of the Interstategeneration remains the standard for transportationengineers today and in the future.

As Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr., a noted engineer andhighway builder, has stated: “For those of us who arefortunate to have been trained and to serve as engi-neers, there is great satisfaction in working on his-toric and important infrastructure projects. Theyimprove the quality of life, in both safety and con-venience, and facilitate improved commerce and eco-nomic growth around the world.”

As the 21st century begins, the engineers andplanners who designed and built the Interstate High-way System are in the twilight of their careers. It isimportant to remember the lessons learned and skillsacquired in completing the Interstate Highway Sys-tem. The torch has passed to a new generation oftransportation engineers who will face new chal-lenges in a fast and changing technological world.

Boston’s 14-year CentralArtery–Tunnel Project,known as the Big Dig,has reconfigured thejuncture of I-90 and I-93.

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Reaching into CitiesALAN M. VOORHEES

Urban transportation planner; past Chair, TRBExecutive Committee (1972); deceased December 2005

Working at the Automotive Safety Foundation in1955, I heard from various sources that the Interstateprogram did not have the support of local govern-ments because they did not know what they weregoing to get. There were no plans for Interstates inurban communities.

Then I was asked to find some cities that had free-way plans and to estimate the cost of building theInterstate in urban areas. No city had good plans, butwe did develop an estimate for urban areas. The orig-inal proposal was for $70 billion—we doubled that,and the bill was passed overnight.

The Sagamore conference in New York was thefirst in a series that started the development process forplanning the Interstate system in urban areas. Theconferences were cosponsored by the Bureau of Pub-lic Roads, the Highway Research Board, and the Amer-ican Municipal Association and focused on highwaysand urban planning after the passage of the transpor-tation reauthorization bills. The plans developed in theconferences, however, often did not match up with theplans that had been used for the cost estimates.

Moving Toward SustainabilityJOSEPH M. SUSSMAN

JR East Professor of Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Cambridge; past Chair, TRB Executive Committee(1994)

Asked about the impact of the French Revolution,Henry Kissinger famously said, “It’s too early to tell.”Perhaps it is too early to tell about the Interstate sys-tem, too.

There is no question about the extraordinary roleof the Interstate in the United States and the world.The Interstate is a product of the U.S. agenda for eco-nomic growth, implemented at the close of World WarII, when political leaders were concerned that thenation would fall back into the economic depressionof the 1930s.

The idea was to invest in highway transportation—and to an extent, in air transportation—to enable asubstantial period of economic growth. In this, the

RETROREFLECTIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Interstate has been a success. Sustained economicgrowth has been a primary characteristic of the UnitedStates during the last half of the 20th century and intothe 21st.

But the Interstate also has planted the seeds for theexplicit consideration of sustainability as the over-arching design consideration for the transportationsystem of the future. Sustainability entails balancingequitable economic growth and development withstewardship of the environment. The sustainabilitymovement in the United States has roots in the socialmovements that protested against the negative impactsof the Interstate—the “stop the highways” movementsin San Francisco and Boston are two examples.

Mobility and economic growth remain critical U.S.policy objectives, even with the close of the Interstateera. But the Interstate also has laid the groundwork forsustainable transportation as a policy objective withina framework of sustainable development for theUnited States and perhaps the world. Its full impact isstill to be seen.

Freedom and TransformationE. DEAN CARLSON

President, Carlson Associates, Topeka, Kansas; formerExecutive Director, Federal Highway Administration,and former Secretary, Kansas Department ofTransportation; past Chair, TRB Executive Committee(2002)

In 1956 I was working for the Nebraska Departmentof Roads on a route study of Interstate 80 from GrandIsland to North Platte to decide which side of the PlatteRiver would be most suitable. A friend who was inter-ested in right-of-way activities asked me to keep himposted on the outcome. I did not do that, because Iwanted no part in land speculation.

But that friend also was certain that the Interstatewould have the most dramatic impact on the land-scape and the economy since the building of the rail-roads. I thought then he might be exaggerating, butafter 50 years I think he underestimated the impacts.

The impact of the Interstates has exceeded that ofthe railroads or of any other innovation in transporta-tion because the system brought freedom to the indi-vidual. It is hard to imagine America without theInterstate system. I am pleased to have worked for 50years in helping to achieve the transformation that thesystem made possible.

Voorhees

Sussman

Carlson

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Building Block for InnovationWILLIAM L. GARRISON

Professor Emeritus, Civil and EnvironmentalEngineering, University of California, Berkeley; pastChair, TRB Executive Committee (1973)

The Interstate was a latecomer to the automobiliza-tion story that goes back to the highway improve-ment programs of the 1910s and 1920s. Did theInterstate distort, as well as augment, a story alreadywell along? Did the Interstate system serve as amodel for federal programs that use the we-will-withhold-your-money-unless-you-do-what-we-saystyle of exerting power? Those questions deserveanswers, but here are responses to the questions ofwhere we are and what to do.

Congestion is increasing. Capacity increases toooften require breathtakingly high costs and are easilyresisted by those who are affected adversely—unlesssubstantial amounts of money are bled for mitiga-tion. Consequently, efficient traffic operations andfacility preservation are priorities, as is financing.Fuel and related taxes are hammered by escalatingcosts, and funds are siphoned by the highway-funds-as-cash-cow attitudes and actions of those who divertfunds to other purposes.

What to do? Experience shows that legacy sys-tems can suffocate new systems but also can bereplaced by new systems. The Interstate may pro-vide a building block for innovation—the new isbuilt partly from old building blocks, as the econo-mist Joseph Schumpeter observed in 1934. Alsoavailable are cadres of highly skilled and professionalactors and agencies—that is, the highway establish-ment. The Interstate therefore may be in the recipefor improved services and improved futures, insteadof a deadweight in a dynamic economy.

Experience and logic say that discovery beats pre-scription every time. Exploration to match new combi-nations of facilities, vehicles, and operations to marketsmay establish the Interstate’s role in creating opportu-nities to do old things in new ways and to do newthings—that may be the road to improved futures.

Strategic Advantage in theGlobal MarketplaceT. R. LAKSHMANAN

Director, Center for Transportation Studies, BostonUniversity

The Interstate Highway System, constructed at a totalcost of $58.5 billion (in 1957 dollars) was a wisepublic investment, with major transformationalimpacts on the economy, society, and lifestyles of theUnited States.

The Interstate highways have spawned a variety ofeconomic effects: for highway users, increased mobil-ity and time savings; for consumers, a larger shop-ping selection and lower average consumer prices;and for firms, lower assembly and delivery costs, thecapacity to consolidate production and distributionsites and to expand outputs, and reductions in inven-tory costs to just-in-time levels.

Studies for the U.S. Department of Transporta-tion suggest that highways accounted for 25 percentof the national productivity increases in the Ameri-can economy between 1950 and 1989. Aided by theInterstate system and the contemporaneous adventof jets and containers, firms expanded their markets,knitting together and economically developing thefar-flung regions of the country, creating an inte-grated, nationally sourced and coordinated produc-tion system by the early 1980s.

In recent decades, with the globalization of theAmerican economy, the transportation infrastruc-ture has been important to the competitiveness ofU.S. firms, enhancing U.S. trade and augmentingindustrial productivity with logistical savings, loca-tional flexibility, and economies of scale in the pro-vision of public capital. These characteristics haveadded production value and strategic advantage toU.S. firms in the global marketplace.

Garrison

Lakshmanan

Renewing the Commitment to Road SafetyLILLIAN C. BORRONE

Chairman, Eno Transportation Foundation; formerAssistant Executive Director, Port Authority of NewYork and New Jersey; past Chair, TRB ExecutiveCommittee (1995)

One of the Interstate Highway System’s most importantachievements in the past 50 years has been its crucialrole in deepening the national commitment to makingtravel on America’s highways safer and more efficient.

The system was a landmark in safety engineering,producing new highways designed to offer reason-able road safety at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour.Moreover, as the system encouraged mobility, ithelped to raise awareness about the need for moresafety measures.

Ten years after the legislation that created theInterstate system, Congress passed the National Traf-fic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Seat belts becamestandard equipment. Padded dashboards, air bags,collapsible steering wheels, children’s car seats, andother improvements followed.

William Phelps Eno, the “father of traffic safety,”would be proud of these achievements, but he alsowould have recognized that transportation profession-als concerned about safe mobility have much work todo. With more than 42,000 people losing their lives onthe nation’s highways each year, the commemoration ofthe Interstate system’s 50th anniversary should renewthe commitment to developing and promoting betterroad safety policies and technologies.

Boundless Benefits—But Some Negative ImpactsTHOMAS B. DEEN

Consultant; former Executive Director, TRB(1980–1994)

The Interstate system was one of the largest publicworks projects of all time. Given its geographicalextent over our vast decentralized country, the sys-tem was a triumph of concept, engineering, plan-ning, administration, and finance. Its impacts sinceits completion have been equally vast and compre-hensive, extending into every aspect of society,whether geographic, economic, social, or political.

Most Americans accept these generalities, but thereis less consensus about whether the impacts have been,on balance, primarily positive. This is in sharp contrastto the flow of positive impacts that were expected afterthe passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956,which set the program in motion.

I had just taken my first job that year after finish-

ing my schooling. Working for the mayor of amedium-sized city that was choking on its growingtraffic, I strongly believed—along with my profes-sional colleagues—that a major expansion of thehighway system would be an unmitigated good.

We—and most of the public—believed that wecould make better cities by routing the new roadsthrough slum areas, using excess lands to build newneighborhoods, and expanding economic opportu-nities. Little did we know of the problems of dis-placed families, disrupted neighborhoods, negativeenvironmental impacts, environmental justice, or theimpending problems with energy supplies.

Today I have not changed my views that the Inter-state was a boundless benefit to America, but I alsoacknowledge that some negative impacts are part of itslegacy. Any new transportation program that includesurban areas will have to accommodate a public that ismore sensitive to environmental, energy, and devel-opment concerns than people were a half century ago.A better understanding of both the positive and neg-ative impacts will be required.

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Assembling a Bold New VisionDANIEL L. DORNAN

Senior Consulting Manager, AECOM Consult, Inc.,Naples, Florida

For me as a baby boomer born in the early 1950s,the Interstate Highway System was what the U.S.space program would become in the 1960s—a mas-sive and highly visible infrastructure initiative thatreflected the highest vision, technology, and capa-bilities of the nation.

The Interstate system was instrumental in dis-tributing much of the urban population away fromthe central cores of congested cities, which were vul-nerable to nuclear attack. In doing so, the Interstatesystem launched one of the greatest voluntary pop-ulation relocations in the history of the world, asurbanites flocked to the urban fringes and created anew urban form called the suburb. This stimulatedeconomic development—pent up since the end ofWorld War II—along the Interstate corridors.

The Interstate system permitted prompt mobi-lization of civil defense and military resources fordomestic or international emergencies. The systemwas a major boost to the motor carrier industry,leading to greater modal competition in the surfacefreight industries and to the deregulation of therailroad and trucking industries in the 1970s and1980s. Interstate highways became the primary sur-face transportation arteries for moving people andgoods across the United States.

In celebrating the accomplishments of the gen-eration that envisioned and built what many con-sider to be one of the wonders of the modern world,this generation faces the daunting task of preserv-ing and expanding the Interstate system to meetthe needs of the next generation. With limited fund-ing and many institutional impediments, the chal-lenge is to assemble a bold new vision that willcapture the nation’s imagination, apply the latesttechnologies, and serve as a testament to what theUnited States can achieve when it pulls together forthe common good.

This will require retooling the entire program toaccommodate program diversity and competition,innovative funding and project delivery, and theflexibility to apply best practices in funding, financ-ing, operating, and managing these critical infra-structure assets. As a major competitor in the globaleconomy, the United States can adapt the programand thrive, or it can resist change and wither. Weowe it to the previous generation to extend theirvision and to the next generation to enable theirs.

The humorist Will Rogers once said that thecause of congestion in America is that governmentagencies build the roads and private companiesbuild the cars. Cars are produced in a competitivemarketplace and sold to customers who select thebest value. Roads generally are built by governmentagencies as a public monopoly and treated as sunkcosts, so that the level of service is a function ofunbridled demand. To move forward, the Interstatesystem needs to become more competitive in itsservice offerings, introduce pricing in the most con-gested urban areas, and provide the necessaryresources and methodologies to preserve its long-term future.

Will Rogers also quipped: “I’ll tell you how tosolve Los Angeles’ traffic problem. Just take all thecars off the road that aren’t paid for.” This is how theUnited States traditionally has treated the buildingof roads under the Federal-Aid Highway Program—begin development only when funds are available topay in full. The U.S. highway program needs totransition from a Soviet-style program to a capital-ist-style enterprise.

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Dornan

C E L E B R AT I N G T H E I N T E R S TAT E ’ S 5 0 T H A N N I V E R S A RY

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The author, a transporta-tion consultant in FallsChurch, Virginia, isChair of the TRB HistoryCommittee and of theData and InformationSystems Section. He alsochairs the NationalCooperative HighwayResearch ProgramProject Panel on UsingAmerican CommunitySurvey Data forTransportation Planning.

Among my earliest recollections of the Inter-state was when I was working part-time for aconstruction firm while still in college. The firmwas part of the consortium building the LongIsland Expressway (LIE), and I got to drive onit each morning on the way to work, monthsbefore it opened to the public—probably the lasttime anyone drove the LIE at the speed limit inthe peak hour.

The 50 years we are celebrating mark theanniversary of the funding plan for theInterstate, passed in the Federal-Aid High-way Act of 1956. That funding plan put the

Interstate program on the map. The concept and theplan had been around for at least 20 years, and some-thing like an official map dated back to 1944.

This celebration gave me the opportunity to readin full two of the great works of our profession:Toll Roads and Free Roads from 1939 and Interre-gional Highways from 1944. These documents are arevelation. Both reports should be made more avail-able, and both should be read by people in our pro-fession. Republishing these documents wouldexpand the understanding of all members of ourprofession.

The books are largely the product of the geniusof one man, Herbert S. Fairbank, for whom theTurner-Fairbank Highway Research Center is partlynamed. For many decades Fairbank was the righthand of the Chief of the Bureau of Public RoadsThomas H. MacDonald. Some still around todayparticipated with Fairbank in that work and deserveour recognition and our thanks.

Genius and PersistenceBut the Interstate required another kind of genius—a genius for inspiring people to do great things, agenius for organizing and setting challenges and thenachieving them. That was the genius of Dwight DavidEisenhower. The word genius and Eisenhower do notusually appear in the same sentence. Like many oth-ers, I saw two Eisenhowers—the hero of the “Cru-sade in Europe” and the avuncular character whobecame President 10 years later. Yet his genius for

VISION, INSPIRATION,ANDPERSEVERANCEConcluding Thoughts

A L A N E . P I S A R S K I

President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Oval Office.

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organizing an effort, inspiring people to action, andputting in place the tools that would permit them tosucceed made the Interstate possible.

Many of us with the myopia of the present mayhave a vision of the past in which the Interstatewas inexorable—it was guaranteed, it had to be, ormaybe it always was—because it is such a mainstayof our world today. But the Interstate did not haveto be. Frank Turner told me about the crushingdefeat of the plan for the Interstate in 1955 (TRNews 213, March–April, 2001)—the plan had to besold and sold again. People like Turner and Presi-dent Eisenhower had to work continuously to maketheir vision part of the national vision. They weremen who would come back from setbacks anddefeats and try again and succeed.

Eisenhower’s State of the Union addresses in1954, 1955, and again in 1956 show that it tookinspiration and perseverance on the part of many tocreate the Interstate system and to make it a suc-cess. Eisenhower’s message to Congress in 1955reveals the scale of his vision:

Together the uniting forces of our communica-tion and transportation systems are dynamicelements in the very name we bear—UnitedStates. Without them, we would be a merealliance of many separate parts.

Today the United States is not “a mere alliance

of separate parts” in large degree because of thegreat vision of our predecessors whom we celebratein this 50th anniversary year.

Safety and Saved LivesSince its inception, the Interstate has had an exem-plary safety record. The system demonstrated thathigh-speed movement can be accommodated safely.In its early years the fatality rate was less than 3 per100 million vehicle miles of travel (VMT)—almosthalf the rate on non-Interstate facilities.

The Interstate demonstrated the value of goodsafety-conscious design for all facilities, and as aresult, Interstate and non-Interstate facilities haveimproved dramatically. Today the fatality rate onnon-Interstate facilities is lower than that of theInterstate in its early days and in 2004 reached thelowest level recorded in the United States—1.46per 100 million. The fatality rate on the Interstatesystem also has improved markedly, with levels nowwell below 1 per 100 million VMT.

These low rates, however, still are unacceptable,representing more than 42,600 fatalities per year.Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower cited 36,000roadway deaths as one reason to build the Interstatesystem; in contrast, considering the nearly fivefoldincreases in the numbers of vehicles and VMT, wecan see tremendous progress. The lives saved dur-ing those 50 years are perhaps the most importanttribute to the systems we have created.

What They Were Expecting, What They Got—and What We Got—from the Interstate Highway System

1956 1965 1965 2006Actual Forecast Actual Actual

Population 169 million 180 million+ 194.3 million 300 million

Vehicles 54 million 81 million 90.3 million 237 million

VMT 628 billion 814 billion 888 billion 3 trillion

GNP $357 billion+ $500 billion+ $720 billion+ $13 trillion+

VMT = vehicle miles traveled; GNP = gross national product

Interstate interchangesnear Kansas City, circa1963.

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The author isEngineering Geologist,New HampshireDepartment ofTransportation, Concord.

Rock fall is increasingly a concern as thelarger slopes along the Interstate high-ways constructed 30 to 40 years agoweather and become unstable. Transpor-

tation agencies have used metal reinforcements tostabilize highway rock slopes for more than 35 years.Corrosion of the metal elements and loss of anchor-age can shorten the service life of these installations.Evaluating the condition and determining theremaining service life of the systems is a good assetmanagement strategy.

ProblemRock reinforcement systems have a limited perfor-mance history, and accurately determining the condi-tion of the reinforcement elements is difficult;therefore assessing a system’s longevity is critical.Although the expected design service life of unpro-tected rock reinforcement systems is 50 years, condi-tions and installation procedures vary from site to siteand can greatly affect the service life.

Replacement and repair of these systems can beexpensive and difficult. The New Hampshire Depart-ment of Transportation (DOT) installed its first rein-forcement to stabilize a highway rock slope in the early1970s. Although New Hampshire DOT conductsannual inspections of 10 rock reinforcement sites,inspectors lacked a consistent method for determiningthe actual condition of the rock reinforcement.

SolutionNew Hampshire DOT initiated a two-phase researchstudy to assess the condition of a 32-year-old rock rein-forcement along I-93 in Woodstock. The first phaseinvolved measuring the corrosiveness of the surround-ing environment and performing nondestructive testing(NDT) on selected reinforcement elements.

Samples of weathered rock and groundwater weretested for pH, resistivity, moisture conditions, andsulfate and chloride ion concentrations. A rate lossmodel was used to determine potential metal lossfrom corrosion and to estimate the remaining life ofthe reinforcement.

The study used four NDT methods, recommendedfor evaluating metal tensioned systems in the finalreport from National Cooperative Highway ResearchProgram Project 24-13 (1). Two were electrochemical:half-cell potential measurement and measurement ofpolarization current; and two involved wave propaga-tion techniques: the impact echo test and an ultra-sonic probe.

The electrochemical tests identify the presence ofcorrosion or the vulnerability of the reinforcementsteel to corrosion. The wave propagation techniquesassess the severity of the corrosion, diagnose the lossof prestress and the lack of grout cover, determine ifthe cross section had been compromised, and identifylocations of potential bending.

The anomalies identified by the NDT were investi-gated with destructive testing to reveal or confirm dis-tressed elements. Calibrating and verifying the NDTresults with destructive testing provided an effectivemethod for identifying areas of possible corrosion, forassessing the condition of the reinforcement system,and for estimating the service life.

The second phase, which was a pooled fund study,used destructive testing to verify results from Phase I.The techniques included the lift-off testing of selectedrock reinforcement and the physical, chemical, andmetallurgical testing of steel and grout samplesretrieved from exhumed reinforcement.

The grout condition was evaluated by observationof the coverage of the reinforcement, by the consis-

Assessing the Condition andEstimating the Longevity ofRock Reinforcement SystemsR I C H A R D L A N E

R E S E A R C H P AY S O F F

Rock bolts wired for nondestructive testing.

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tency of the grout, and by the physical properties of thegrout mix. Bulk specific gravity and absorption wereused to determine the effectiveness of the grout as abarrier against moisture and to mitigate the intrusionof elements that could cause corrosion.

Examination of the exhumed metal elements con-sisted of visual observations of corrosion and measur-ing the pit depths and the loss of section. Sample metalreinforcements were subjected to tension tests to mea-sure the percentage of elongation and to determine thecorresponding stress-strain curves. Metallurgical testsincluded a spectrographic analysis to assess the metalcomposition, and a metallographic examination toobserve the microstructure of the thread bar material.

Destructive testing verified that the electrochemi-cal tests correctly identified the presence of corrosion.The lift-off tests and direct measurements confirmedthe echo test results. Measurements on exhumed rockreinforcement verified that the greatest loss of sectionwas within the free length behind the anchorageassembly.

ApplicationWoodstock was a unique site for determining theeffectiveness of these techniques because of the age ofthe reinforcement, the environmental conditions, thevariety of installation procedures, and the use of dif-ferent types of grout.

The loss of measured cross section of the unpro-tected portion of the rock reinforcement was consistentwith the predictions from the mathematical models forthe service life of unprotected steel and with the obser-vations from the NDT. Measuring the corrosiveness ofthe environment therefore is a reasonable method forpredicting the remaining service life.

The NDT was a good indicator of the condition ofthe rock reinforcement but sometimes did not identifyspecific features that needed rehabilitation along thelength of an individual reinforcement. Destructive testmethods are the most direct way to assess the condi-tion but are often too expensive and time consumingfor extensive use on a large number of reinforcementelements.

BenefitsThe research demonstrated that a combination of NDTand destructive tests can provide a cost-effective, tech-

nical approach for identifying specific rock reinforce-ment elements that need replacement or rehabilitation.

The initial concern was that nearly all the rein-forcement at the Woodstock site would need to bereplaced in the near future, at a cost of more than $1.5million. The results of NDT and destructive testing,however, indicate that only a portion of the reinforce-ment will require replacement or rehabilitation, at anestimated cost of $400,000—a potential savings of$1.1 million for the site.

Additional savings may be realized from accuratecalculations of longevity, which allow optimal use ofthe reinforcement and timely scheduling of remedialwork. Early condition assessment and timely remedialaction can prevent rock fall damage to property andinjuries to the traveling public.

Benefits can be realized by applying this technologyat other sites in New Hampshire and in other states.This approach for assessing the condition of buriedrock reinforcement provides a sound technical basisfor planning future maintenance and rehabilitationactivities, resulting in cost savings. This is a valuabletool in prioritizing long-term budgets for remediationand in making effective use of limited constructionresources.

For further information contact Richard Lane, NewHampshire DOT, Bureau of Materials and Research, Box483, Concord, NH 03301, phone 603-271-3151, fax 603-271-8700, e-mail dlane@dot.state.nh.us.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Appreciation is expressed to G. P.Jayaprakash, Transportation Research Board, for hiseffort in developing this article.

Reference1. NCHRP Report 477: Recommended Practice for Evaluation of

Metal Tensioned Systems in Geotechnical Evaluations. Trans-portation Research Board, National Research Council,Washington, D.C., 2002.

Suggestions for“Research Pays Off”topics are welcome.Contact G. P.Jayaprakash, Transpor-tation Research Board,Keck 488, 500 FifthStreet, NW, Washing-ton, DC 20001 (tele-phone 202-334-2952,e-mail gjayaprakash@nas.edu).

Loss of cross section of rock bolt from corrosion.

Overcoring to exhume rock reinforcement.

Geosynthetics are synthetic products and materialsused to improve the performance of grounds orfoundations in geotechnical engineering. L. DavidSuits’s career in geosynthetics spans three

decades. As Executive Director of the North AmericanGeosynthetics Society (NAGS), Suits is responsible for assist-ing colleagues with technical decision making, developingprograms and ideas to promote and carry out the mission ofthe society, and devoting time to making NAGS more visibleto the engineering and academic communities.

Before accepting the position at NAGS, Suits spent 37years at the New York State Department of Transportation(NYSDOT) in the Geotechnical Engineering Bureau. Hejoined NYSDOT in 1968, serving first as a junior engineer; he

went on to serve as assistant soils engineer in 1969, and soilsengineering laboratory supervisor in 1976. During his time atNYSDOT, Suits was involved in many research studies on theuse and performance of geosynthetics.

“Activity in the area of research has opened many doors forme,” he says. “I came to know, on a first-name basis, many ofthe geosynthetic innovators and pioneers. I also had theopportunity to be a contributor to a new technology that notonly enabled cost savings for civil engineering projects, butimproved methods of construction and in many instancesenabled a project to be constructed.”

Suits was able to participate in projects and professionalactivities outside NYSDOT. In the mid-1970s, during theplanning stages of a design to replace the old West Side High-way in New York City, Suits and a group of colleagues demon-strated to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that ageotextile curtain could provide sufficient protection againstpotential contamination from the Hudson River, a likely resultof proposed dredging. Using samples of the river water and

soil that was to be dredged, Suits and his team developed sev-eral new geosynthetic testing techniques and devices todemonstrate the capabilities of the geotextile curtain.

“At one point, we decided to see how the river water, with-out any of the dredged soil, would affect the geotextile,” Suitsrecalls. “The naturally suspended material in the waterplugged the geotextile in six hours. The EPA asked no morequestions.”

Although the design for the West Side Highway replace-ment was not implemented, some of the test methods devel-oped by Suits and his colleagues were adopted as standard testmethods for geosynthetics by the ASTM (American Societyfor Testing and Materials) International Committee onGeosynthetics.

Suits advises young engineers: “Don’tbe confined by the ‘four walls’ of youremployment organization—becomeinvolved in outside professional activi-ties.” He adds, “The potential for newresearch opportunities aside, I alwaysknew and still know that if a question orproblem arises for which I—or myimmediate office associates—don’t havethe answer, I can get on the phone andget an answer in a short time.”

Suits’s involvement in TRB beganwhen he attended meetings of the Sub-surface Drainage Committee in the

1970s. He joined the committee in 1983 and served as chairfrom 1990 to 1996. He has chaired the Geosynthetics Com-mittee, Soil Mechanics Section, the Design and ConstructionGroup, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Pro-gram’s (NCHRP) Project Panel on Implementation Plan forAutomating Highway-Materials Testing. Currently, he is amember of the TRB Technical Activities Council.

In addition to his work at NAGS, Suits serves as an adjunctprofessor for the geosynthetics design graduate course at theRensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. He is a grad-uate of Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, where heearned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering in1967 and 1969, respectively.

He has received many awards for his work in geosynthet-ics, including NYSDOT’s Excellence in Engineering Award in1991 for work in geosynthetics, and the department’s Awardof Excellence in 1995 for work in the revision of AASHTOspecification M-288 on geotextiles. In 2006, Suits was namedan emeritus member of the TRB Geosynthetics Committee.

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P R O F I L E S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Don’t be confined by the ‘four walls’

of your employment organization—

become involved in outside

professional activities.”

L. David SuitsNorth American Geosynthetics Society

Gale Page has worked in pavement technology formore than 40 years. He began his career in 1965at the Wisconsin Department of Transportationas a project manager and supervisor working in

highway planning, design, and construction contract admin-istration. For the past 26 years, he has been the engineerresponsible for all flexible pavement–related specifications,testing, and research, and for the performance analysis of in-place flexible pavements for the Florida Department of Trans-portation (DOT).

Working for Florida DOT, Page contributes to the devel-opment and realization of many pavement-related procedures,tests, and training programs. He is an advocate for hot-mixasphalt (HMA) pavements. From 1979 to 1982 he participatedin the development and implementation of in-place strength

measurements of pavement layers for use in the AmericanAssociation of State Highway and Transportation Officials’(AASHTO’s) modified pavement design for flexible pavementrehabilitation projects.

Page has participated in developing specifications, proce-dures, and practices for milling and for reuse of reclaimedasphalt pavement into quality HMA. He participated in devel-opment and implementation of binder and mix specificationsfor higher performance in Superpave®, an improved system forspecifying the components of asphalt concrete, asphalt mixdesign and analysis, and performance prediction. He contin-ues to work to improve those specifications.

From 1998 to 2001, Page was involved in the creation of acomprehensive, five-part HMA training program for con-struction technicians. The training materials developed forthe program have assisted many other state DOTs.

Looking back on his years of service in the transportationindustry, Page considers his greatest accomplishment to be hisrole in the hiring and professional mentoring of seven engi-neering graduates at Florida DOT. Five of the engineers are stillworking in asphalt materials and pavements at the department.

“If I look back at what I’ve accomplished and the contri-

butions I’ve made to the transportation industry, that is his-tory—in today’s what-have-you-done-for-me-lately environ-ment, the past is not of interest to many,” Page observes. “Whatis important is who you have hired or mentored to take on thechallenges of the future.”

Page’s involvement with TRB began in 1982, and he haschaired or served on many TRB committees and NationalCooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) panels.He served as the vice chair of the Asphalt Advisory Commit-tee during the Strategic Highway Research Program, and hehas chaired several NCHRP Project Panels, overseeing prac-tical research on Laboratory Determination of Resilient Mod-ulus for Flexible Pavement Design; Investigation of theRestricted Zone in the Superpave Aggregate Graduation Spec-ification; Quality Control and Quality Assurance Procedures

for Superpave Mixes; and Superpaveand Its Implementation.

For the Technical Activities Division,he has chaired the Characteristics ofNonbituminous Components of Bitu-minous Paving Mixtures Committee,the Bituminous Materials Section, andthe Design and Construction Group,and was a member of the TechnicalActivities Council.

“My participation in TRB and mywork with the Design and ConstructionGroup has been personally and profes-

sionally rewarding,” Page comments. “I believe that the Designand Construction Group is the ‘heart’ of TRB, and as long asthat heart thrives and beats, TRB will continue to fulfill the mis-sion started by its predecessor, the Highway Research Board.”

In 2001, Page was the recipient of the Secretary’s Award forSustained Superior Achievement—the highest award pre-sented by the Florida DOT. He is a registered professionalengineer in Florida and Wisconsin, and has published widelyon topics related to pavement testing, materials, design, andevaluation.

Page graduated from the University of Wisconsin with abachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1965, and a master’sdegree in engineering in 1975. He is a member of the Amer-ican Society of Civil Engineers, served as a member on theASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) Board ofDirectors, chaired the ASTM Committee on Road PavingMaterials, and served as president of the Association ofAsphalt Paving Technologists.

“I look at participation in technical and professional orga-nizations as being integral to my job,” Page notes. “Sharing myexpertise and learning from others helps to improve the sci-ence, technology, and practice of what we do as engineers.”

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P R O F I L E S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Sharing my expertise and learning

from others helps to improve the

science, technology, and practice of

what we do as engineers.”

Gale C. PageFlorida Department of Transportation

Guiding Research on RailNetwork PerformanceE L A I N E K I N G

Rail Transport Specialist, TRB

In the past 2–3 years, the freight railroad industry hasbeen transformed. The tremendous increase in inter-national trade—primarily in intermodal containersarriving by sea from China and continuing by raildomestically—has driven much of the industrychange. In addition, three of the Class 1 freight rail-roads have new leadership.

The increased freight traffic is straining the capac-ity of freight railroads. Congestion in other modes oftransportation has led to increased demand for com-muter and intercity passenger rail services. Many ofthese services, however, must share tracks and otherfacilities owned by freight railroads, adding to thepressure on rail system capacity.

The TRB Workshop on Research to Enhance RailNetwork Performance, April 5–6, 2006, at the

National Academies’ Keck Center, Washington, D.C.,examined the dramatic changes in the railroad busi-ness under three major themes: capacity, safety, andefficiency. The workshop, sponsored by the FederalRailroad Administration (FRA), asked the TRB Com-mittee for Review of FRA’s Research, Development,and Demonstration Programs to provide assistancein developing input for a new Five-Year Strategic Planfor Railroad Research and Development by engagingthe stakeholders and customers of the programs in adiscussion about needed research. Railroad industryand government leaders shared their perspectivesfrom the freight and passenger sectors on issuesrelated to the core themes.

Charles “Wick” Moorman, President and CEO ofNorfolk Southern, stated that research could assist inimproving all the components of system capacity,including workforce, locomotives, rolling stock, andinfrastructure. He emphasized development of posi-tive train control (PTC) technology, noting its poten-tial for increasing capacity, safety, and efficiency.Moorman also urged the application of moreresources for research on rail networks and systems.

Representing commuter rail, Philip Pagano,Executive Director of Chicago’s Metra, echoedmany of Moorman’s concerns about capacity onshared rail lines and seconded the need forresearch and development on PTC.

Jo Strang, FRA Associate Administrator for Safety,provided an overview of safety issues, calling for amore proactive approach supported by research. Thiswill require more attention to risk assessment and

Tracking the Trends in Light Rail TransitTRB, the American Public Transportation Association, and theInternational Association of Public Transport (UITP) sponsoredthe 10th National Light Rail Transit (LRT) Conference: LightRail—A World of Applications and Opportunities, April 9–11,2006, in St. Louis, Missouri. More than 400 participants fromNorth America and Europe attended, and the program presentedthe latest research and experience in key LRT areas such as

Planning and urban integration; Use of infrastructure and design of new infrastructure; The case for contracting; Financing and controlling capital costs; Streetcar applications worldwide; Regulations and standards; Security issues; Light rail vehicle design; LRT or bus rapid transit—letting the market decide; Accessibility; and Remote monitoring for control and information.

The conference papers and presentations will be published asa TRB e-circular on the TRB website later this year.

For more information contact Pete Shaw, TRB (telephone 202-334-2966, e-mail pshaw@nas.edu).

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A work crew welds plates before driving them into the groundduring LRT construction in Phoenix, December 2005.

TRB HIGHLIGHTS

Robert E. Gallamore,workshop chair, givesopening remarks at theplenary session of the RailWorkshop.

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management, development of close-call data toincrease understanding of incident causes, andbehavior-based safety perception studies. The U.S.Department of Transportation and FRA strategicgoals will shape research and development for thenext 5 years—including a department goal of reduc-ing congestion while improving safety.

Addressing efficiency, Matt Rose, President andCEO, BNSF, provided details of the dramatic growthin rail industry traffic since deregulation in 1980while the industry was cutting costs and streamlin-ing operations through reductions in infrastructure,equipment, and workforce. Rose identified criticalelements for efficient growth, including improve-ment in the velocity of traffic on the network, in thephysical infrastructure reliability, in intermodal hubtechnology, in mechanical and equipment reliability,and in performance-based safety.

According to Conrad Ruppert, Jr., Division Engi-neer (Northeast), National Railroad Passenger Cor-poration (Amtrak), the efficiency of passenger raildepends on the productivity of the workforce com-bined with improvements in technology and equip-ment.

Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor experiences uniquecapacity, operational, and safety issues because of

the heavy volume of intercity passenger and com-muter rail in major urban areas, as well as freightmovements.

The workshop concluded with remarks byCongressman Steve LaTourette (R–Ohio), whochairs the Railroad Subcommittee of the HouseTransportation and Infrastructure Committee.LaTourette stressed that railroads are important tothe nation’s economy and provide environmentalbenefits. He underscored the need for increasedinvestment in rail capacity and described the typesof public–private partnerships and funding sourcesthat can meet the investment needs.

Breakout discussion groups offered opportunitiesfor all workshop participants to express their viewson research and development priorities. The break-out groups generated more than 150 research-needsstatements, which will be sorted and prioritized bythe sponsoring TRB committee for publication inworkshop proceedings by year’s end. Reports fromthe breakout discussion groups, along with back-ground materials, are available on the workshopwebsite at www. trb.org/Conferences/RailWorkshop/.

Participating in breakoutdiscussion are workshopgroup attendees (left toright) Reilly McCarren,Arkansas and MissouriRailroad; BrendanHickman, Teradata; andBruce Horowitz, ESHConsult.

EXPLORING THE OPTIONS—Speaking at a meeting of the TRBCommittee on the St. LawrenceSeaway, Anthony Earl, a partnerwith the Quarles and Brady LawFirm, Madison, Wisconsin,discusses the natural resources ofthe Great Lakes region. TheCommittee on the St. LawrenceSeaway is studying ways toenhance the potential for globaltrade in the Great Lakes region,and eliminate furtherintroductions of non-indigenousaquatic species by vesselstransiting the St. LawrenceSeaway.

Charles “Wick” Moorman,president and CEO of NorfolkSouthern, presents the freight-rail perspective on rail-systemcapacity issues.

SHARING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION—Speaker Leni Oman, Director of Transporta-tion Research, Washington State Departmentof Transportation, takes questions fromattendees at the Environmental GeospatialInformation for Transportation Workshop inWashington, D.C. The May 3–4 workshopfocused on issues in Geographic InformationSystem (GIS) applications and GIS use bytransportation organizations to communicateplanning and project information amongdiverse agencies. Attendees included repre-sentatives from state and federal transporta-tion and natural resource agencies, localgovernment, and nongovernmental organi-zations with expertise in natural resourceplanning, transportation planning and proj-ect development, and geographic informa-tion specialists from the Mid-Atlantic Region.

COOPERATIVE RESEARCH PROGRAMS NEWS

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Transit Passenger Safety Inspections:Guidebook in DevelopmentIn response to worldwide terrorist activities and growing concernsabout transit security, many transit agencies are assessing their secu-rity measures and acting to reduce the risk of attacks. One of the morenotable measures under consideration is the introduction of passen-ger safety inspections. In addition to navigating the policy and logis-tical issues inherent in implementing inspections, many publictransportation agencies need guidance on how to determine whetherinspections should be implemented.

The Transit Cooperative Research Program has awarded a $100,000,9-month contract to Countermeasures Assessment & Security Experts,LLC, to develop a guidebook, Public Transportation Passenger SafetyInspections: A Guide for Decision Makers, to assist public transportationagencies in evaluating the feasibility of passenger security inspectionprograms and in introducing the programs.

Questions asked by transportation agencies about the introductionof passenger security inspections include the following:

When are passenger security inspections warranted? What are the legal bases for conducting passenger security inspec-

tions? What are the liability issues associated with implementing or not

implementing passenger security inspections? How can measures be implemented with minimal impact on

operations? What are the precedents in the public transportation environ-

ment? What are the lessons learned? How will the public respond to implementing such measures? What public outreach or stakeholder input should be consid-

ered? What types of passenger security inspections are possible, and

what technologies are available to support the inspections? What human resources are required?

What financial implications and cost considerations are involved? How effective are passenger security inspections expected to be?

What are the metrics? What other challenges must be addressed in implementing pas-

senger security inspections?

Research for the guidebook will be completed in November 2006. Adraft report documenting the research is planned for October 2006.

For further information, contact S. A. Parker, TRB, 202-334-2554,saparker@nas.edu.

Increasing Concrete Girder Shear StrengthFiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) —usually externally bonded laminatesor near-surface mounted bars— are gaining wide acceptance forstrengthening concrete structures. Research has shown that using FRPsystems to strengthen concrete girders improves both long- and short-term flexural behavior.

Lesser known are the effects of FRP systems on girder shear strength.Although experimental data have shown that FRP systems can be effec-tive for increasing concrete girder shear strength, the design of the FRPstrengthening systems has been based largely on system- or project-spe-cific research.

The University of Missouri–Rolla has been awarded a $400,000, 30-month contract [National Cooperative Highway Research Program(NCHRP) 12-75, FY 2006] to develop design methods, specifications,and examples for the design of FRP systems for strengthening concretegirders in shear. The proposed specifications will be prepared in a for-mat compatible with the American Association of State Highway andTransportation Official’s (AASHTO’s) Load and Resistance FactorDesign Bridge Design Specifications and will be recommended for adop-tion by the AASHTO Highway Subcommittee on Bridges and Struc-tures.

For further information, contact Amir N. Hanna, TRB, 202-334-1892,ahanna@nas.edu.

TRB HIGHLIGHTS

Carl J. Seiberlich, retiredNavy rear admiral,World War II veteran,U.S. representative to theInternational StandardsOrganization, and long-time affiliate of TRB, diedin Haymarket, Virginia,on March 24.

Born in Jenkinstown,Pennsylvania, Seiberlich

graduated with a bachelor of science degree inmarine transportation from the Merchant MarineAcademy in 1943. He served in the Merchant Marineand the U.S. Navy for more than 40 years; saw actionduring World War II in the Atlantic and Pacific The-aters as a navigator aboard the USS Mayo; and wit-nessed the September 2, 1945, surrender of theJapanese high command at Tokyo Bay.

In 1952, Seiberlich earned his pilot’s wings flyinglighter-than-air craft or blimps, and made the firstsuccessful blimp night landing on an aircraft carrier.That same year, he received the Harmon Interna-tional Trophy for achievement in aeronautics fromPresident Harry S Truman for his work in the devel-opment and the fleet introduction of the world’s firstoperational, variable depth-tone, towed sonar.

During the mid-1960s Seiberlich qualified to landmultiengine airplanes on aircraft carrier flight decks.He was the only aviator in U.S. Navy history quali-fied to land blimps, helicopters, and airplanes on an

aircraft carrier. In 1967 Seiberlich became com-manding officer of the fleet oiler USS Salmonie. Incommand of the USS Hornet in 1969, he participatedin the recovery of NASA’s first lunar landing craft,Apollo 11, seen by more than 500 million televisionviewers live on July 24, 1969. Seiberlich repeatedhis performance four months later by recovering theApollo 12 crew.

After retiring from the U.S. Navy in 1980, Seiber-lich worked for several defense contractors in thetransportation industry, including American Presi-dent Lines, a global container shipping company,and TranSystems, a maritime consulting corpora-tion. In his transportation career, Seiberlich workedtirelessly to bring an intermodal perspective to trans-portation decision making, and he was a leader in thefield of supply chain management long before itbecame popular.

Active in TRB for 14 years, Seiberlich cochairedthe Task Force on Intermodal Transportation fromAugust 1993 to January 1998. He was a member ofthe Ports and Channels Committee, the steeringcommittees for the Conference on Setting an Inter-modal Transportation Research Framework and theConference on Education and Intermodal Transpor-tation, the Intermodal Freight Transport Commit-tee, and the Military Transportation Committee.

The Rear Admiral Carl J. Seiberlich Fund forYouth Education has been established in his honor.For more information, go to www.uss-hornet.org/seiberlich/index.html.

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FOCUS ON POLICY ANDPRIORITIES—Tyler Duvall,Assistant Secretary forTransportation Policy,United States Depart-ment of Transportation,accompanied by ChristinaCasgar, Office of Freightand Logistics, Office ofthe Under Secretary forTransportation Policy,describes departmentalpolicy and research prior-ities at the spring 2006meeting of the TRB Exec-utive Committee’s Sub-committee on Planningand Policy Review, Wash-ington, D.C.

IN MEMORIAM

Carl J. Seiberlich 1922–2006

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Red-Light Cameras Reduce Crash CostsRed-light running in the United States is estimated tocause more than 95,000 crashes and about 1,000 deathsper year. According to a new study by FHWA, red-lightcameras at intersections can reduce the costs to societyfrom crashes that result from red-light running.

The study examined crash-related results at 132 sitesin multiple U.S. jurisdictions to determine the safety andeffectiveness of red-light camera systems. The frequencyof different crash types, including right-angle (sideimpact), left-turn, and rear-end crashes at signalizedsites with and without cameras, was examined.

Data taken from camera-monitored sites indicatedthat right-angle or side-impact collisions typicallydecreased under camera enforcement, but rear-endcollisions increased. The study also found that red-light camera systems would be most beneficial at inter-sections with relatively few rear-end crashes but manyright-angle crashes.

Data were analyzed from intersections in El Cajon,San Diego, and San Francisco, California; HowardCounty, Montgomery County, and Baltimore, Mary-land; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Because of theobservational, retrospective nature of the study, theauthors note that additional research is necessary.

For more information view the complete report atwww.itsdocs.fhwa.dot.gov//JPODOCS/REPTS_TE//14270.htm.

Bay Area Study Endorses Pedestrian-Friendly ZonesA new study by the Metropolitan Transportation Com-mission showcases the most promising techniques formaking the Bay Area cities pedestrian friendly. TheBay Area Pedestrian Districts Study provides city,county, and regional agency planners with 10 casestudies of Bay Area pedestrian-friendly zone modelsthat examine pedestrian master plans from cities suchas San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.

The driving study identifies 10 models or typolo-gies of pedestrian districts: urban residential, pedes-trian-oriented suburban residential, major mixed-usedistrict, transit village, large neighborhood corridor,major city downtown, medium-sized city downtown,small downtown, urban institutional, and suburbanemployment center.

The study provides practical information for trafficengineers and public works staff, with guidance onhow to identify appropriate streetscape and districtimprovement projects. The study’s cost estimates canassist in determining funding needs for similar projectsby local and regional planning agencies.

For more information, view the complete report atwww.mtc.ca.gov/ planning/bicyclepedestrians/index.htm.

Crash Study Targets Driver BehaviorA report released in April by the U.S. Department ofTransportation estimated that 43,200 people died in carcrashes last year, an increase from 42,636 in 2004.Released at the same time, the 100-Car Naturalistic Dri-ving Study, conducted by the National Highway TrafficSafety Administration (NHTSA) and Virginia Tech’sTransportation Institute, cites inattentiveness and riskybehavior as key factors in crashes and near-crashes.

The study was conducted by equipping 100 vehicleswith sensor devices and video cameras, and trackingvehicle drivers for more than 1 year as they drove nearly2 million miles on U.S. public roads. Drivers wereinvolved in 82 crashes and 761 near-crashes, with 15incidents serious enough to be reported to police.

Findings showed that drowsiness, cell phone use,and reaching for a moving object were forms of riskybehavior that increased the likelihood of a crash. Riskydriver behavior was noted in 80 percent of crashesand near-crashes.

Highway crashes are estimated to cost society$230.6 billion, or about $820 per American. Addi-tional statistics released by FHWA include an increasein pedestrian deaths from 4,641 to 4,674, and anincrease in alcohol-related fatalities, from 16,694 to16,792. A follow-up analysis of the 100-car studyresults also has been released.

For more information, view the study results and analy-sis at www-nrd. nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-13/driver-distraction/PDF/100CarMain.pdf.

Safety Campaign Aims at Seatbelt NonusersAlthough seat belt use has reached record levels nation-wide, approximately 48 million Americans do not useseat belts when driving, according to a report from theNational Highway Traffic Safety Administration(NHTSA). Young males living in rural areas comprise thelargest demographic among those who drive unbelted.

The report also notes that men account for 65 per-cent of the more than 31,000 people killed each yearin passenger vehicle accidents. Other statistics indicatethat of those killed while unbelted, 58 percent werekilled along rural roads; in crashes involving pickuptrucks, approximately 7 out of 10 killed wereunbelted; and approximately 6 in 10 of those aged8–44 years killed in passenger vehicles were not wear-ing safety belts.

As a countermeasure, NHTSA is spending $31 mil-lion this year in state and federal grants for advertisingaimed at drivers in the target demographic. The adcampaign, “Click It or Ticket,” ran from May 22–June4, and was backed with increased enforcement of seat-belt laws nationwide.

For more information, visit www.nhtsa.gov.

NEWS BRIEFS

Red-light camera atNorthwest Highway andI-65, Garland, Texas.

TRB Meetings2006

Additional information on TRB meetings, including calls for abstracts, meeting registration, and hotel reservations, is available atwww.TRB.org/calendar). To reach the TRB staff contacts, telephone 202-334-2934, fax 202-334-2003, or e-mail lkarson@nas.edu. Meetingslisted without a TRB staff contact have direct links from the TRB calendar web page.

*TRB is cosponsor of the meeting.

C A L E N D A R

July8 Challenges of Data for

Performance Measures(by invitation)La Jolla, CaliforniaThomas Palmerlee

9–11 TRB 2006 Summer ConferenceLa Jolla, California

9–11 31st Annual Summer Ports,Waterways, Freight, andInternational TradeConferenceLa Jolla, California

10–12 Traffic Signal SystemsCommittee Summer MeetingWoods Hole, Massachusetts

16–19 3rd International Conferenceon Bridge Maintenance,Safety, and Management*Porto, Portugal

16–20 11th AASHTO–TRBMaintenance ManagementConference*Charleston, South Carolina

23–26 45th Annual Workshop onTransportation LawChicago, IllinoisJames McDaniel

23–26 Geospatial Data AcquisitionTechnologies in Design andConstruction CommitteeSummer MeetingPort Angeles, WashingtonThomas Palmerlee

25–29 5th International Symposiumon Highway Capacity*Yokohama, Japan

30– 2nd International Symposium Aug. 3 on Transportation Technology

Transfer*St. Petersburg, FloridaKimberly Fisher

August2–4 3rd Bus Rapid Transit

ConferenceToronto, Ontario, CanadaPeter Shaw

6–9 1st International Conferenceon Fatigue and Fracture inthe Infrastructure: Bridgesand Structures of the 21stCentury*Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

13–16 7th National AccessManagement ConferencePark City, Utah

13–16 9th International Conferenceon Applications of AdvancedTechnology inTransportation*Chicago, IllinoisThomas Palmerlee

23–26 7th International Conferenceon Short- and Medium-SpanBridges*Montreal, Quebec, Canada

27–29 The Metropolitan PlanningOrganization: Present andFuture—A ConferenceWashington, D.C.Kimberly Fisher

September13–15 10th National Conference on

Transportation Planning forSmall and Medium-SizedCommunities: Tools of the TradeNashville, Tennessee

18–19 Aviation Forecast AssumptionWorkshops: Airports(by invitation)Washington, D.C.Christine Gerencher

18–20 5th National SeismicConference on Bridges andHighways*San Mateo, California

25–26 National Security, NaturalDisasters, Logistics, andTransportation: Assessing theRisks and ResponsesKingston, Rhode Island

25–27 Freight Demand Modeling: AConference on ImprovingAnalysis and Forecasting Toolsfor Public-Sector DecisionMakingWashington, D.C.Elaine King

26 Symposium on Applicationsof Geophysics forGeotechnical ProjectsBreckenridge, Colorado

October2–5 Plastic Pipes XIII Conference*

Washington, D.C.

5–6 Aviation Forecast AssumptionWorkshops: Business Aviation(by invitation)Washington, D.C.Christine Gerencher

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BOOKSHELF

The books in this sec-tion are not TRB publi-cations. To order,contact the publisherlisted.

The Roads That Built AmericaDan McNichol. Sterling, 2006; 255 pp.; $14.95; 1-4027-3468-9.Author and former Department of Transportationappointee Dan McNichol chronicles the creation anddevelopment of the U.S. Interstate system and describesthe visionaries who were responsible for bringing the“world’s greatest engineering project” to fruition. Theideas and intents that shaped the system are examinedin detail, including how the 67 highways, 54,663bridges, and 104 tunnels of the system were createdwith the goals of improving commerce, reducing traveltimes, and protecting the nation from military aggres-sion. The system’s effects on the lifestyle, culture, andeconomy of the nation also are examined.

Mathematical and Economic Theory of Road PricingHai Yang and Hai-Jun Huang. Elsevier, 2005; 486 pp.;$135; 0-08-044487-3.This book presents the most recent advances in theapplication of advanced modeling techniques to roadpricing. Moving beyond the empirical, the studies arecarried out in the context of a general equilibriummodel, with rigorous optimization and application ofeconomic theories.

Topics of discussion include fundamentals of trafficequilibrium problems; the principle of marginal-costroad pricing; models and algorithms for the general sec-ond-best road pricing problems; discriminatory andanonymous road pricing; social and spatial equities;Pareto pricing and revenue refunding schemes; pricing,capacity choice, and financing; simultaneous determi-nation of toll levels and locations; sequential pricingexperiments with limited information; bounding theefficiency of road pricing; and dynamic road pricing.

Access to DestinationsEdited by David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek. Elsevier,2005; 422 pp.; $94.95; 0-08-044678-7.Efficient land use and planning is a key strategy forreducing traffic congestion. Currently measures of traf-fic congestion, however, rarely provide more than asnapshot of a city’s transportation system and often failto indicate how quickly a destination can be reached.

Editors Levinson and Krizek focus on the scienceand policy surrounding the multimodal concept ofaccessibility with a collection of 17 research papers fromthe Access to Destinations conference sponsored by theUniversity of Minnesota Center for TransportationStudies in November 2004. Papers explore manyaspects of accessibility, the loss of accessibility, and howmobility and accessibility relate to one another.

This book should be of interest to planners, engi-neers, and urbanists of all backgrounds. Krizek is chair

of the TRB Telecommunications and Travel Committeeand secretary of the Transportation and Land Develop-ment Committee, and Levinson is a member of the TRBTransportation Demand Forecasting Committee.

Intermodal Freight TransportDavid Lowe. Butterworth Heinemann, 2005; 304 pp.;$79.95; 0-7506-5935-1.Lowe examines the concept of intermodal freight trans-port, placing European experiences, developments inthe United Kingdom, and political influences on inter-modal freight in the context of developments in NorthAmerica and Asia. Topics include rail freight operations,environmental and economic issues, grant aid and gov-ernment support, intermodal road and rail vehicles,maritime vessels, customs procedures, and safety.

A comprehensive review of intermodal freight trans-portation, this book should be of interest to shippers,intermodal road haulers, terminal operators, equipmentmanufacturers, ancillary suppliers, students, and otherswho follow the industry’s trends and developments.

Connected TransportationEdited by Pravin Raj, Sved Hoda, and Howard Lock. CiscoSystems, 2006; 140 pp.; 0-9551959-0-X. The editors from the Cisco International Business Solu-tions Group have assembled a collection of essays bybusiness executives and leaders in government andtransportation organizations highlighting issues in theU.S. transportation industry. The focus is on viablestrategies to meet the demand for transportation ser-vices and to deal with the challenges that threaten tostrain the transportation infrastructure. Topics includethe role of government in transportation; the use ofpricing as a means of controlling congestion; improvingsecurity; and the social, economic, and political factorsinvolved in providing an efficient transportation system.

Adding FAST Lanes to Milwaukee’s Freeways:Congestion Relief, Improved Transit, and Help withFunding ReconstructionRobert W. Poole, Jr., and Kevin Soucie. Reason, 2006; 40 pp. Variable-price toll, or FAST, lanes should become thecore of southeastern Wisconsin’s $6.2 billion freewaymodernization plan, according to the proposals in thisstudy. The FAST lanes would ease traffic congestionand fund road reconstruction in the Milwaukee region.

The authors examine traffic’s impact on publictransportation efficiency and motorist commutetimes; projected toll revenues; toll lane effects onemergency vehicle response times; FAST lane loca-tions; and real-time variable pricing modeled after in-place systems in San Diego, California, andMinneapolis, Minnesota. Poole is a member of theTRB Congestion Pricing Committee.

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Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTOStrategic Highway Safety Plan: A Guide forEnhancing Rural Emergency Medical ServicesNCHRP Report 500, Volume 14This volume of NCHRP Report 500 provides strategiesto reduce the number of crashes involving drowsy anddistracted drivers by decreasing the occurrence of dis-tracted or fatigued driving and by making the conse-quences of lapses of attention less severe.

2005; 96 pp.; TRB affiliates, $16.50; TRB nonaffili-ates, $22.

Environmentally Sensitive Channel and BankProtection MeasuresNCHRP Report 544 (with supporting material onCD-ROM)Useful, environmentally sensitive channel- and bank-protection measures are described, along with designguidelines for their application and a system for select-ing the most appropriate measure for channel andbank protection.

2005; 50 pp.; TRB affiliates, $22.50; nonaffiliates,$30. Subscriber categories: energy and environment (IB);bridges, other structures, hydraulics and hydrology (IIC);soils, geology, and foundations (IIIA).

Developing Transportation Agency LeadersNCHRP Synthesis 349Practices and innovative approaches for developingtransportation leadership within state department oftransportation (DOT) management and operationsare presented. Four key subtopics are examined:demographics, recruitment and retention, leadershiptraining, and succession management. This synthesiswill be of interest to state DOT personnel, as well as toother professionals in the public and private sectorswho are dealing with the issues of leadership trainingand succession management.

2005; 51 pp.; TRB affiliates, $12; nonaffiliates, $16.Subscriber category: planning and administration (IA).

Crash Records SystemsNCHRP Synthesis 350This synthesis examines current practices in applyingcrash records systems to the improvement of highwayand traffic safety. No single system offers the bestapproaches to data collection, data processing andmanagement, and data linkages for reporting andanalysis, but systems are identified with componentsthat successfully address one or two of these areas.Improvements are suggested for expanding the useand capabilities of crash records systems.

2005; 35 pp.; TRB affiliates, $12; nonaffiliates, $16.

Subscriber categories: planning and administration (IA);highway operations, capacity, and traffic control (IVA);safety and human performance (IVB).

Public Transportation Security: PublicTransportation Emergency Mobilization andEmergency Operations GuideTCRP Report 86, Volume 7Key considerations are highlighted for public trans-portation agencies in working with local communitiesto enhance mobilization. The recommendations andtools derive from extensive research conducted withpublic transportation systems; local, state, and federalemergency planning agencies; and first respondersaround the country.

2005; 124 pp.; TRB affiliates, $18.75; nonaffiliates,$25. Subscriber categories: planning and administration(IA); safety and human performance (IVB); public tran-sit (VI); rail (VII).

Public Transportation Security: Hazard andSecurity Plan Workshop: Instructor GuideTCRP Report 86, Volume 10 (with supporting mate-rial on CD-ROM)This instructor guide is designed to assist rural, smallurban, and community-based passenger transporta-tion agencies in creating hazard and security plans orin evaluating and modifying plans, policies, and pro-cedures consistent with the National Incident Man-agement System. The guide includes a lesson plan, aPowerPoint presentation with notes, a guide for work-shop participants, and a CD-ROM that contains a tem-plate adaptable for participants’ organizations, alongwith sample policies and procedures.

2006; 195 pp.; TRB affiliates, $41.25; nonaffiliates,$55. Subscriber categories: planning and administra-tion (IA); public transit (VI); security (X).

Traveler Response to Transportation SystemChanges: Vanpools and BuspoolsTCRP Report 95, Chapter 5The TCRP Report 95 series comprehensively docu-ments transportation system changes, policy actions,and alternative land use and site development designapproaches. This third edition covers 18 topic areas,each to be published as a stand-alone chapter.

Chapter 5 examines the effects of travel times, pric-ing, and related tangibles and intangibles on the deci-sion to vanpool; quantifies vanpooling andbuspooling; examines vanpooling trends; presentsinformation from rider surveys; identifies indicators ofmarket potential; and explores the cost implications.

2005; 55 pp.; TRB affiliates, $15; nonaffiliates, $20.

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BOOKSHELF TRB PUBLICATIONS (continued)

Subscriber categories: planning and administration (IA);highway operations, capacity, and traffic control (IVA);public transit (VI).

Future Truck and Bus Safety Research OpportunitiesConference Proceedings 38The conference on Future Truck and Bus SafetyResearch Opportunities, held in March 2005 in Arling-ton, Virginia, considered the directions of the com-mercial vehicle industry and explored the types ofresearch needed to meet the upcoming challenges.The proceedings include research papers along withsummaries of the issues, comments, future scenarios,and other information addressed at the conference.Also presented are the results of a follow-up meetingof the conference committee, which synthesized theinformation and deliberated on findings and recom-mendations for future research.

2006; 107 pp.; TRB affiliates, $30; nonaffiliates, $40.Subscriber category: safety and human performance (IVB).

Pavement Rehabilitation, Strength andDeformation Characteristics, and SurfaceProperties 2005Transportation Research Record 1905This multifaceted selection of papers presents infor-mation on asphalt pavement rehabilitation treat-ments, Wisconsin’s experiences with reflective crackrelief projects, the interpretation of transverse pro-files to determine the source of rutting within anasphalt pavement system, assessments of pavementlayer condition with use of multiload-level fallingweight deflectometer deflections, a methodology forthe detection of defect locations in pavement profiles,and modeling hydroplaning and the effects of pave-ment microtexture.

2005; 176 pp.; TRB affiliates, $41.25; nonaffiliates,$55. Subscriber category: pavement design, managementand performance (IIB).

Freight Analysis, Evaluation, and Modeling 2005Transportation Research Record 1906The first section of this two-part volume contains the2005 Thomas B. Deen Distinguished Lecture by LillianC. Borrone, “Sparking the Globalized Trade and Trans-portation Connection: Supplying Freight SystemResponses to Global Trade Demands.” The secondpart includes information on the technical efficiency ofroad haulage firms; urban freight in Dublin City Cen-ter, Ireland; the impact of pickup- and delivery-relatedillegal parking activities on traffic; multiobjective opti-mization for hazardous materials transportation; andmeasurement tools for assessing a motor vehicle divi-

sion’s port-of-entry performance.2005; 128 pp.; TRB affiliates, $37.50; nonaffiliates,

$50. Subscriber category: freight transportation (multi-modal) (VIII).

Construction 2005Transportation Research Record 1907Authors assess topics in construction management,quality assurance, bridges and structures, portlandcement concrete pavement, and hot-mix asphaltpavement. Specific subjects include improving con-struction communication; the computerized systemfor efficient scheduling of highway construction;development of the Florida Department of Trans-portation’s percent-within-limits hot-mix asphaltspecification; design and construction of a full-width,full-depth, precast concrete deck slab on a steel girderbridge; changing the shape and location of pavementload transfer devices; and the initial ride quality ofhot-mix asphalt pavements.

2005; 144 pp.; TRB affiliates, $37.50; nonaffiliates,$50. Subscriber category: materials and construction(IIIB).

Statistical Methods; Highway Safety Data,Analysis, and Evaluation; Occupant Protection;Systematic Reviews and Meta-AnalysisTransportation Research Record 1908Safety studies presented in this volume cover use ofa linear optimization model to maximize the safetybenefits from highway improvements under specificbudget constraints and the analysis of types ofcrashes at signalized intersections with completecrash data. Other investigations examine the eventsleading to a sport utility vehicle rollover, as well ascountermeasures for deer–vehicle crashes.

2005; 235 pp.; TRB affiliates, $44.25; nonaffiliates,$59. Subscriber category: safety and human performance(IVB).

Inland Waterways; Ports and Channels; and theMarine EnvironmentTransportation Research Record 1909The research topics examined in this volume includethe study of short-run grain movements of the inlandwaterway system, long-term forecasting of worldgrain trade by gulf exports, measuring the nontradi-tional benefits and costs of inland navigation, Euro-pean transport policy and the Danube River, ruralwater transport and development, geographical char-acterization of ship traffic and emissions, and oilspills in maritime transit.

2005; 107 pp.; TRB affiliates, $34.50; nonaffiliates,$46. Subscriber category: marine transportation (IX).

To order the TRBtitles described inBookshelf, visit theTRB online Book-store, www.TRB.org/ bookstore/, or contactthe Business Office at 202-334-3213.

TR News welcomes the submission of manuscripts for possiblepublication in the categories listed below. All manuscripts sub-mitted are subject to review by the Editorial Board and otherreviewers to determine suitability for TR News; authors will beadvised of acceptance of articles with or without revision. Allmanuscripts accepted for publication are subject to editing forconciseness and appropriate language and style. Authorsreceive a copy of the edited manuscript for review. Original art-work is returned only on request.

FEATURES are timely articles of interest to transportation pro-fessionals, including administrators, planners, researchers, andpractitioners in government, academia, and industry. Articlesare encouraged on innovations and state-of-the-art practicespertaining to transportation research and development in allmodes (highways and bridges, public transit, aviation, rail, andothers, such as pipelines, bicycles, pedestrians, etc.) and in allsubject areas (planning and administration, design, materialsand construction, facility maintenance, traffic control, safety,geology, law, environmental concerns, energy, etc.). Manuscriptsshould be no longer than 3,000 to 4,000 words (12 to 16double-spaced, typed pages). Authors also should provideappropriate and professionally drawn line drawings, charts, ortables, and glossy, black-and-white, high-quality photographswith corresponding captions. Prospective authors are encour-aged to submit a summary or outline of a proposed article forpreliminary review.

RESEARCH PAYS OFF highlights research projects, studies,demonstrations, and improved methods or processes thatprovide innovative, cost-effective solutions to important transportation-related problems in all modes, whether theypertain to improved transport of people and goods or provi-sion of better facilities and equipment that permits such trans-port. Articles should describe cases in which the applicationof project findings has resulted in benefits to transportationagencies or to the public, or in which substantial benefits areexpected. Articles (approximately 750 to 1,000 words) shoulddelineate the problem, research, and benefits, and be accom-panied by one or two illustrations that may improve a reader’sunderstanding of the article.

NEWS BRIEFS are short (100- to 750-word) items of inter-est and usually are not attributed to an author. They may beeither text or photographs or a combination of both. Linedrawings, charts, or tables may be used where appropriate.Articles may be related to construction, administration, plan-ning, design, operations, maintenance, research, legal matters,or applications of special interest. Articles involving brandnames or names of manufacturers may be determined to beinappropriate; however, no endorsement by TRB is impliedwhen such information appears. Foreign news articles shoulddescribe projects or methods that have universal instead oflocal application.

POINT OF VIEW is an occasional series of authored opin-ions on current transportation issues. Articles (1,000 to2,000 words) may be submitted with appropriate, high-qual-ity illustrations, and are subject to review and editing. Read-ers are also invited to submit comments on published pointsof view.

CALENDAR covers (a) TRB-sponsored conferences, work-shops, and symposia, and (b) functions sponsored by otheragencies of interest to readers. Notices of meetings shouldbe submitted at least 4 to 6 months before the event.

BOOKSHELF announces publications in the transportationfield. Abstracts (100 to 200 words) should include title, author,publisher, address at which publication may be obtained, num-ber of pages, price, and ISBN. Publishers are invited to submitcopies of new publications for announcement.

LETTERS provide readers with the opportunity to com-ment on the information and views expressed in publishedarticles, TRB activities, or transportation matters in general.All letters must be signed and contain constructivecomments. Letters may be edited for style and spaceconsiderations.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Manuscripts submittedfor possible publication in TR News and any correspondenceon editorial matters should be sent to the Director, Publica-tions Office, Transportation Research Board, 500 Fifth Street,NW, Washington, DC 20001, telephone 202-334-2972, or e-mail jawan@nas.edu.

All manuscripts should be supplied in 12-point type,double-spaced, in Microsoft Word 6.0 or WordPerfect 6.1 orhigher versions, on a diskette or as an e-mail attachment.

Submit original artwork if possible. Glossy, high-qual-ity black-and-white photographs, color photographs, andslides are acceptable. Digital continuous-tone images mustbe submitted as TIFF or JPEG files and must be at least 3 in.by 5 in. with a resolution of 300 dpi or greater. A captionshould be supplied for each graphic element.

Use the units of measurement from the researchdescribed and provide conversions in parentheses, as appro-priate. The International System of Units (SI), the updatedversion of the metric system, is preferred. In the text, the SIunits should be followed, when appropriate, by the U.S.customary equivalent units in parentheses. In figures andtables, the base unit conversions should be provided in afootnote.

NOTE: Authors are responsible for the authenticity of theirarticles and for obtaining written permissions from pub-lishers or persons who own the copyright to any previouslypublished or copyrighted material used in the articles.

I N F O R M A T I O N F O R C O N T R I B U T O R S T O

TR NEWS

Highway Capacity Manual 2000Transportation Research Board, ISBN0-309-06746-4, 1134 pages, 8.5 x 11,binder, $110.00 (2000)

The Fuel Tax and Alternatives forTransportation FundingTRB Special Report 285, ISBN 0-309-09419-4, 235 pages, 6 x 9, paperback,$30.00 (2006)

Guidelines for Early-Opening-to-TrafficPortland Cement Concrete forPavement RehabilitationNCHRP Report 540, ISBN 0-309-08835-6,28 pages, 8.5 x 11, paperback, $20.00(2005)

A Guide for Reducing Work ZoneCollisionsNCHRP Report 500, Vol. 17, ISBN 0-309-08847-X, 165 pages, 8.5 x 11, paper-back, $28.00 (2005)

Extending Span Ranges of PrecastPrestressed Concrete GirdersNCHRP Report 517, ISBN 0-309-08787-2,555 pages, 8.5 x 11, paperback, $35.00(2004)

Regulation of Weights, Lengths, andWidths of Commercial Motor VehiclesTRB Special Report 267, ISBN 0-309-07701-X, 270 pages, 6 x 9, paperback,$24.00 (2002)

Surface Transportation EnvironmentalResearch: A Long-Term StrategyTRB Special Report 268, ISBN 0-309-07702-8, 219 pages, 6 x 9, paperback,$23.00 (2002)

The Federal Role in Highway Researchand TechnologyTRB Special Report 261; ISBN 0-309-07246-8, 146 pages, 8.5 x 11, paper-back, $21.00 (2001)

To order these and other TRB publications, visit the TRB Bookstore, www.TRB.org/bookstore/; call 202-334-3213; or e-mail TRBSales@nas.edu.

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) began in 1920 as theNational Advisory Board on Highway Research and soon afterbecame the Highway Research Board. Its creation reflected the states’need for a research clearinghouse as they set out on the unprece-dented task of designing and constructing a national highway systemto accommodate motorized vehicles. The Board relied on and ben-efited from a special partnership with the states and the federal gov-ernment, and in the past 85 years, TRB has grown and evolved as theinterests of the states and the federal government have expanded. In

the 1970s the Board’s scope was broadened to include all modes oftransportation, and its name changed to the Transportation ResearchBoard in 1974. The Board’s first Annual Meeting in January 1922convened 30 participants and three technical committees. The 85thAnnual Meeting in January 2006 attracted more than 10,000 atten-dees who participated in some 550 sessions and more than 550meetings or workshops. TRB continues its commitment to promot-ing highway innovation and progress through research, as demon-strated by the select titles below.

Promoting Highway Innovation & ProgressYesterday, Today, and Tomorrow