WI: Interstate Highway System Built During Depression

kernals12

Banned
The idea of building a massive Federal network of 6 lane highways was around long before it came to fruition in 1956 and obviously, Nazi Germany built its Autobahn system at the same time, so what if construction had begun on a 40,000 mile network of highways in 1936 instead?
 
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The idea of building a massive Federal network of 6 line highways was around long before it came to fruition in 1956 and obviously, Nazi Germany built its Autobahn system at the same time, so what if construction had begun on a 40,000 mile network of highways in 1936 instead?

From...https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/moment/roosevelt.cfm
but in the next few years, visionaries and several members of Congress introduced variations on the theme. Senator Robert J. Bulkley (D-Oh.) introduced one of the most prominent plans in 1938. He proposed creation of a United States Highway Corporation that would build three transcontinental and seven north-south toll superhighways, linked by spurs and connectors. The key feature was that the cost would be self-liquidating through the usual combination of toll revenue and sale or rental of excess land in the 600-foot wide right-of-way.

What made the Bulkley plan stand out from the similar visions was President Roosevelt's public support for it. The President wanted to show his support for Bulkley, a strong supporter who was up for reelection. On February 2, 1938, Senator Bulkley visited President Roosevelt in the White House to outline his plan. According to The New York Times:


The President was reported to have told the Senator that he had been thinking of a similar plan for some time, and to have told him to draft a bill. This the Senator from Ohio is now doing with the help of engineering and financial experts.
...
On that same day, February 2, President Roosevelt met with BPR(Bureau of Public Roads) MacDonald at 4:00 p.m. During the meeting, President Roosevelt handed MacDonald a large 1935 United States System of Highways map showing the AASHO-approved U.S. numbered highways as red lines. The map, at approximately 50 inches by 32 inches, was the type of map that highway officials framed for display in their offices. On the map, the President drew or had already drawn lines in blue showing three east-west transcontinental routes and five north-south routes. The east-west routes linked:


  • New York City and Seattle.
  • Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
  • Savannah, Georgia, and Los Angeles.

The north-south routes connected:


  • Boston and a point in north central Florida corresponding with Lake City.
  • Cleveland, with Mobile, Alabama.
  • Minneapolis and New Orleans.
  • Great Falls, Montana, and El Paso, Texas.
  • Seattle and San Diego through the central portion of the three western States.

RG30_Series10_FDRProposedHighways-1.jpg

The United States System of Highways map showing the AASHO-approved U.S. numbered highways as red lines. The map, at approximately 50 inches by 32 inches, is the type of map highway officials framed for display in their offices.


Because the President envisioned intercity routes that did not go into cities, his toll superhighways ended before the terminal points. For example, the line to Boston ended near Springfield, Massachusetts; the line to New Orleans ended near Port Allen, Louisiana; and the line approaching Washington ended in a junction with the north-south route in Virginia.


The President asked MacDonald to study the feasibility of constructing toll superhighways in these corridors. The study also was to evaluate the feasibility of excess condemnation of more-than-needed right-of-way that could be sold or rented. Because the White House did not announce that the President had requested the study, the press focused on the Bulkley plan.


According to America's Highways 1776-1976:


Returning from the White House, Chief MacDonald handed the map to Mr. [Herbert S.] Fairbank and asked him to get on with the study. Thus began the first assembly of detailed information on traffic flow on a national basis, possible only because of the rapid progress by the States on the highway planning surveys. [page 271]


MacDonald sent BPR's report to the White House on April 17, 1938. It concluded, first, that likely traffic on a toll superhighway network would not generate enough revenue to retire construction bonds. Second, the goal of a national highway system should be to modernize existing highways in rural districts and provide new routes to relieve congestion in metropolitan areas. Finally, while sale or rental of excess right-of-way could help liquidate the original investment costs, most States lacked the statutory authority to acquire the land; a Federal Land Authority with the appropriate authority would be needed.


Although the report was not made public, it did not go unnoticed. Congress, having heard of the study, included Section 13 in the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1938 requesting a similar report on a limited toll superhighway network. The resulting report, Toll Roads and Free Roads (1939), concluded that traffic volumes would not be sufficient to finance most of the toll superhighways, but the country needed a network of toll-free express highways. In 1941, President Roosevelt appointed a National Interregional Highways Committee to study the subject further. The committee's 1944 report, Interregional Highways, prompted Congress to include a provision in the Federal-aid Highway Act of 1944 directing the Public Roads Administration (PRA), as BPR was called in the 1940s, to work with State highway officials to designate a 40,000 mile "National System of Interstate Highways."


So in the 1930s, it would have started as a Toll road system, like the various turnpikes around the nation.

Side effect: chance of more powerful gasoline and diesel engines, for all the new Road Construction machinery, could find its way into tanks and landing craft
 
The idea of building a massive Federal network of 6 line highways was around long before it came to fruition in 1956 and obviously, Nazi Germany built its Autobahn system at the same time, so what if construction had begun on a 40,000 mile network of highways in 1936 instead?
I see two major problems with the Roosevelt administration beginning construction of the Interstates. The first is simple: the idea was underdeveloped at the time. In reality, 1936 is about when the federal government seriously started to study the idea of building a superhighway network (versus the federal highway network, with lower quality roads), mostly because of the expansion of state-funded roads in the previous decade, the growth of automobile and truck traffic, and the resulting pressure on the highway network and evident need for a more integrated system. And then it took about twenty years of study and planning to come up with a really good system to put in place. So to start construction in 1936 you really need to have started seriously looking at the idea probably in the mid to late 1910s, which in turn probably means that there needs to have been a lot of traffic then, which is not really that plausible without advancing the automobile at least somewhat.

The second problem, which is linked to the first, is that at the time state authorities were quite active in building new highways, and in fact built some quite good highways that would later become Interstates; the Pennsylvania Turnpike, for instance, was opened in 1940 and presently carries segments of I-76, I-70, I-276, and I-95. And the federal government was supporting this through various methods, like providing funding or supporting inter-state cooperation in the numbered highway system. So especially in the 1920s when you really need to be laying the foundations for such a project, there wasn't any apparent need to be planning on building superhighways directly as a federal responsibility, and just a more limited oversight role would probably seem reasonable, particularly to the Republican administrations of the time.

Probably your best bet to achieve this without mucking around too much would be for the Harding Administration to take an interest in the Pershing Map of 1922 and start pushing and studying that proposal, with that momentum carrying onwards into the Coolidge and of course the Hoover administration, with work likely actually beginning under Hoover in parallel with other infrastructure and works projects like the Hoover Dam. The problem is the typical American disregard for defense needs at the time, so the military value of the highways would probably be discounted, along with the small-government attitudes of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover that would tend to discourage them from starting such a large, expensive project (I mean, it is still one of the most expensive public works projects of all time). It's very difficult for me to see a reason why these Presidents and their administrations would show any great interest in this kind of project, even to the level of just performing studies like the aforementioned "Toll Roads and Free Roads" or "Interregional Highways".
 
It'll be empty during the War. "Take the Train! Save gas and tires for our troops!"
It would probably be used for some defense purposes, but realistically they would probably not be able to build more than a few hundred miles of highway by the time war breaks out, probably in a few segments scattered around the country. So it would hardly be much of a waste--and on the plus side, maybe some of that expertise and equipment can be turned towards building roads elsewhere in the world.
 
Did find some interesting info on transportation for FY1957

Freight Tons
Railroads 47.22%
Car&Trucks 18.47%
Pipelines 17.51%
Ships and barges 15.66%
Airline .04%

Passenger Miles
Ferrys, boats and ships 0.27%
Buses 2.97%
Railroads 3.6%
Airlines 3.89%
Autos 89.27%

By 1957, before a single mile of new Interstate Highways was put down, Railroads already lost the Passenger War

Here is 1938, not as much detail
Passenger Miles
Railroads 21.7B
Autos 183.3B
Buses 8.2B
Airline 0.4B

1944, with Gas and Tire Rationing
Passenger Miles
Railroads 95.7B
Autos 128.2B
Buses 27.4B
Airline 2.2B (Wow-did not expect this)

1946 Rationing out, but shortage of new cars
Passenger Miles
Railroads 64.8B
Autos 228.2B
Buses 27.0B
Airline 5.9B

It seems like Railroads did more Passenger Miles than Airlines for the last time in 1956.

From https://books.google.com/books?id=xy8rAAAAYAAJ
 
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kernals12

Banned
Did find some interesting info on transportation for FY1957

Freight Tons
Railroads 47.22%
Car&Trucks 18.47%
Pipelines 17.51%
Ships and barges 15.66%
Airline .04%

Passenger Miles
Ferrys, boats and ships 0.27%
Buses 2.97%
Railroads 3.6%
Airlines 3.89%
Autos 89.27%

By 1957, before a single mile of new Interstate Highways was put down, Railroads already lost the Passenger War

Here is 1938, not as much detail
Passenger Miles
Railroads 21.7B
Autos 183.3B
Buses 8.2B
Airline 0.4B

1944, with Gas and Tire Rationing
Passenger Miles
Railroads 95.7B
Autos 128.2B
Buses 27.4B
Airline 2.2B (Wow-did not expect this)

1946 Rationing out, but shortage of new cars
Passenger Miles
Railroads 64.8B
Autos 228.2B
Buses 27.0B
Airline 5.9B

It seems like Railroads did more Passenger Miles than Airlines for the last time in 1956.

From https://books.google.com/books?id=xy8rAAAAYAAJ
I suspect it's one of those things were the growth was so insanely fast that not even war could reverse it.
 

kernals12

Banned
If FDR had correctly realized that there's nothing wrong with big budget deficits in a time of very high unemployment, this could've been a very good jobs program.
 
The map shows a straight line from Minneapolis to Des Moines to Little Rock to New Orleans. It cuts right through the rail-sparse Ozark Mountains. The real Interstate connects St. Louis and Memphis, more populated areas, on its way to New Orleans.

The lines on the map seem to bee-line around traditional travel (rail) corridors because they go through steeper mountains. A partial effort might take off in the more densely populated eastern regions. But the issue is that all the way into the sixties, gas stations still maintained 24-hour mechanics because vehicles required so much more maintenance.
 
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