no interstate highways

[Straha]

Interstate Highway Act (National Defense Highways Act of 1956), of dubious
constitutionality , is never adopted. Consequences? my ideas are Stronger railroads. A piecemeal highway system of oneshots and interstate
compact initiatives. Fewer people in the South and intermountain West. A
stronger northeast and rust belt. Add far less suburbanization and more of a pre-WWII direct rural-urban dichotomy in US. Less integration of South into majority US culture, harder progress with Civil Rights m ovement, esp. as mass
segregation still probably exists de facto in certain southern areas

[DuQuense]

No Ted Turner and friends buying a Zillion acres in Montana

[Count Dearborn]

Probably end-up with private highways built by huge corporations. "McDonald's Parkway" from Chicago to New York, with McDonald's at every tolebooth.
"Microsoft Autobann", they would have cell towers for wireless web all along the route.

Or, there would be bullet trains between all the major cities, and hub-roads from all the major stops to smaller towns.

See the rpg & computer game "Crimson Skies", airplanes instead of cars.
check the links for Trolley World.

[David S Poepoe]

It would eventually happen for economic and military reasons. Like the prospect of successful nationwide mass-transit this WI is visited over and over - its like we're stuck on the highway and can't get off.

[Torqumada]

As a young Leiutenant, Eisenhower was commisioned to take a convoy from the East Coast to the West on the country's roads. It was that experience that lead him to push for a real interstate system. A POD would be that he never makes that trip and the rest of his career goes on much as it did in our history. He just doesn't have the experience to push for the project.

That being siad, I can't see the development of interstate highway system not happening. WW2 showed that we really needed a true interstate highway system and not the hodgepodge system that existed prior to WW2.

Torqumada

[David S Poepoe]

Not to mention that any US officer or representative doesn't notice the benefits and advantages of the German autobahn during the US Occupation of Germany. I can see the US auto industry supporting the construction of such 'super highways'.

[Straha]

so its almost inevitable in most timelines?

[Torqumada]

Originally Posted by Straha

so its almost inevitable in most timelines?

Only in those that invent the automobile.

Torqumada

[chrispi]

What about a more piecemeal, state-oriented approach to freeways? (Think the old Post Road/I-95, or el Camino Real/I-5 all the way to Vancouver.) And, no, superhighways are not inevitable if there are faster freight trains...

[NapoleonXIV]

...and no cheap oil. America's gasoline at 30 cents a gallon was unique in the world until 1973, a legacy of contracts made with J Paul Getty at a time when the US was the world's major supplier and ibn Saud was begging us to develop his country.

Without them we also get a more natural development of urban areas. The 'Edge City' phenemenon replaced by more healthy downtowns nurtured by Jane Jacob's "valuable inefficiencies and impracticalities" and freed from the 'border vacuums' which wide swaths of uncrossable concrete cause in modern connurbations.

[zoomar]

Since the real impetus for the National Defense Highways was the example and proven effectiveness of the Autobahn - and the fact that President Eisenhower was directly familiar with how well it worked for his army - I suspect the IH system was pretty inevitable in any POD past the Nazi rise to pweor or US entry into WW2.

I suppose its possible that, had the US not entered the war a system as complete and expansive (and expensive and centralizing) as the interstates might never have been politically possible. State Highwasy systems would continue to develop though, and rails would be upgraded and used for national military applications - and possibly be available for nationalization in times of crisis.