On June 29, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law that marked
the beginning of the biggest public works project in American history.
What was that public works project? The Interstate Highway System
I’m Mr. Beat, and I’m standing near the very first stretch of Interstate highway
built, just west of Topeka, Kansas. Construction on this section of it began on November 14,
1956. And ok, actually three states claim to have the first interstate.
Kansas, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. Missouri was indeed the first state to award a contract with
interstate highway funding.And Pennsylvania claims to be the first with their Pennsylvania Turnpike
that was actually built back in 1940, but for crying out loud, Pennsylvania that wasn’t part
of the official Interstate Highway System and look Missouri, Kansas paved this baby first, alright?
Anyway, why was the Interstate Highway System built,
and how did it transform the United States? Also, how the heck does it
work? Well here’s everything you need to know about the Interstate Highway System.
For this story, let’s first go back to the year 1915.
There was this relatively new invention called the automobile, ya know, CARS,
that was starting to dramatically change the world, especially the United States. Still,
at the time, the roads sucked, and there were only about 2 million cars on those crappy roads,
or one for every 50 people. In response to these crappy roads, Congress passed the first-ever
federal highway funding law, the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. It provided federal money
to states for the construction and improvement of the highways that connected their cities.
Still, American highways generally sucked. Three years later, a 28-year old lieutenant colonel
went on a cross-country trip planned by the United States Army to test out how military
vehicles would do on the country’s highways. That lieutenant colonel was Dwight Eisenhower,
a Dwight Eisenhower who still had hair on his head, I might add. The trip was…rough,
to say the least. Their convoy needed 62 days to drive more than 3,200 miles (5,100km). Vehicles
broke down and got stuck. Some roads were so bad the convoy had to go back and find
another way around. Eisenhower never forgot the difficulties of that trip.
Flash forward to World War Two, and now Eisenhower was the supreme Allied commander leading forces to
defeat Nazi Germany. As the Allied armies invaded Germany, Eisenhower was quite impressed with the
country’s autobahn, or national highway system. In fact, it was so good that it actually helped
the Allies win the war since it aided them in efficiently re-supplying their forces.
Flash forward again to 1954, and Eisenhower is now the President, and he begins pushing for
an American version of the autobahn. He appointed Lucius Clay, who served under him in the war,
to lead a committee that came up with a national highway system plan. Well they came up with a
plan, man. Clay’s committee suggested building 40,000 miles (64,000km) of divided highways
linking all American cities with more than 50,000 residents. They estimated it would take
approximately 10 years to build them. Eisenhower loved the proposal, but was a little worried about
the price tag. $100 billion. He suggested toll roads as a way to offset costs. However, Clay shut
his idea down, convincing Eisenhower that they didn’t make much sense outside of highly populated
areas. In February 1955, Eisenhower sent Clay’s proposal to Congress, and it became a bill that
most U.S. Senators enthusiastically supported. However, in the House of Representatives,
House Democrats were generally more worried about how the federal government would pay for it. But,
after Eisenhower talked to them about paying for it with a trust fund, paid for by a gasoline tax,
they were then on board, too. Soon, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, aka the National
Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was law, baby. That word, “defense,” was originally added
to get more people on board with the law. However, make no mistake. This highway system was for
ordinary, everyday folks getting around. Still, today there are a bunch of myths surrounding
the law that all seem to revolve around the idea that law was mainly passed for national defense.
Here’s one example for ya. For years, folks told me that one in five miles of the Interstate
Highway System is straight so airplanes can land in emergencies.
Well that’s a myth. It’s a bloody lie.
It doesn’t mean airplanes haven’t ever landed on an interstate highway. In fact, it happened a year
and a half ago on an interstate in Minnesota. But the interstates weren’t built for this.
Anyway, the Federal Aid Highway Act said the federal government would pay for 90 percent of
the cost of building interstate highways. Many toll highways that states had built prior to the
law were incorporated into the Interstate system. Still, these previously built highways had to
be updated, as the Interstate Highway System had strict design standards. These standards included
limited access, a minimum of two travel lanes in each direction,
12-feet wide lanes, 10-feet paved right shoulders, and 4-feet paved left shoulders.
(yelling at cars) Hey slow down! (turning to camera)
Unlike the autobahn in Germany, the Interstate has speed limits
determined by each state. Here in Kansas, the maximum speed limit on some stretches is 75 mph.
The highest interstate speed limit today can be found on some stretches of it in Texas.
85 miles per hour. However, for several years,
Nevada and Montana didn’t even have a speed limit on their interstates.
So how are interstates numbered? Well, the current numbering policy goes back to 1973.
While there are many exceptions, which you can see in this amazing video by CGP Grey,
in general, major interstates are given one- or two-digit numbers,
while shorter routes that go through major urban areas, like spurs, beltways, and bypasses,
are given three-digit numbers where the last two digits match the interstate it branched out from.
The major interstates going east-west get even numbers and the major interstates going
north-south get odd numbers. Odd-numbered routes increase going from west to east,
and even-numbered routes increase going from south to north. Numbers divisible by five are
meant to be big connecting interstates that carry a lot of traffic long distances north to south,
or south to north. Double-digit numbers ending in zero are meant to be big connecting interstates
that carry a lot of traffic long distances east to west, or west to east. That said, there is no
Interstate 50 nor Interstate 60, as that would have confused a bunch of people since there are
U.S. Highways with the same numbers that would pass near them. Yeah that would be confusing.
Again, CGP Grey goes into all the details in his video.
Even Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico get Interstate Highway System funding,
even though their highways are not…uh…ya know, INTERstate highways.
On one- or two- digit interstates, the mile marker numbering almost always starts at
the southern or western line of a state’s border. It’s good to know if you are lost.
And don't have your phone. Or GPS. Or a map. Or anything, really.
Not everyone welcomed the interstate highways with open arms. In places like San Francisco
and New York City, activists fought back and were able to prevent some stretches from being built
after they realized these highways would displace people from their homes
and quite literally break up communities. However,
these were the exceptions. Most of the interstates were still built as planned.
When Congress first established the Interstate Highway System, it originally set aside $25
billion to help build 41,000 miles (66,000 km) of highway over a period of 10 years. Uh yeah,
it ended up costing more than $535 billion, adjusted for inflation, and took around 35 years
to build. On October 17, 1974, Nebraska became the first state to complete all of its major
interstate highways, but it wasn’t until October 14, 1992 that the original Interstate Highway
System officially finally was complete with the opening of Interstate 70 through Glenwood Canyon
in Colorado. By the way, this 12-mile (19km) stretch is considered an engineering wonder.
They built it through giant mountains, for crying out loud. Also in Colorado is one of the highest
tunnels in the world, named the Eisenhower Tunnel, of course. Since 1992, the Interstate
Highway System has expanded, but in recent years it has become more and more difficult to maintain.
A huge wake-up call came on August 1, 2007, when the Interstate 35 West Mississippi River bridge
near Minneapolis suddenly collapsed, killing 13 people and injuring another 145. The tragedy is
still one of the worst bridge failures in American history, and we learned soon after that around
150,000 of the country’s 600,000 bridges were considered “structurally deficient or functionally
obsolete.” Since then, the federal government has slowly been trying to upgrade these bridges.
Today, the Interstate Highway System is more than 46,000 miles (74,000km) long,
and about 1 out of every 4 miles driven in the United States are on interstates like this one.
The Interstate Highway System has not only dramatically helped increase the development
of commerce throughout the United States, but arguably also around the entire world.
Shipping prices went down. Travel times went down. Suburbanization increased. Road trips became more
common. Not just road trips, in fact. Tourism overall went up. Small towns became big cities.
The trucking industry, in particular, sharply expanded. All of this was due to the interstate.
In fact, the reason why some gas stations look like this is the interstate. And
much of the population growth of the future is predicted to be along or near, you guessed it,
interstates. I knew you would get that one. I knew it!
That all said, critics have argued that the Interstate Highway System has actually led
to the decline of some cities, especially with regards to displacing minority neighborhoods
in urban centers. Many have blamed the Interstate Highway System on the decline
of public transportation in the United States since the 1950s. Interstates have undoubtedly
increased traffic, smog, and just car dependency. Regardless, there is no
denying that the Interstate Highway System has dramatically changed how the country has grown.
The United States would not have grown into the economic superpower that it is today if it weren’t
for its big investment into its Interstate Highway System. And these highways will likely be here
long after we die. Unless you’re watching this in the year 3000. If you are watching this in
the year 3000, please comment below. And now, (holding up thumb), I need a ride back home.
This video is once again sponsored by Brilliant. Brilliant is a problem solving based website and
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I want to give a special shout out to Kyle from the channel InterstateKyle. Kyle provided
MUCH of the footage you saw in this video. And he has quite a bit of interstate highway footage.
Why? Well, he has been filming himself driving around on the United States Interstate Highway
System for many, many years, and posting these videos over on his channel since 2011.
His videos are high quality and his channel is astonishingly underrated, so just go subscribe
to it, ok? I’ve put a link in the description. So what’s your favorite stretch of Interstate?
Let me know down below. And now, it’s time for my monthly shout out to all my Patreon
supporters who donate at least $15 or more each month to my channel. Starting with my $20
a month donors in reverse alphabetically, I’ve got William Rousch, Sean Conant, Pat Iapicca,
Osbers Gaming, Noah Hoff, Nik Everett, NeoR14, Matt Standish, Kyle Fassbinder,
Ezra, emptymachine, Dr. Paul J. Lilly, Corey Rieman, Austin Siros, Aseef Ismail,
Anthony Beckett, Andrew B., and Alicia Solberg. At the $15 a month level, Zachary F. Parker,
Waterford, Thomas Oppenheim, Steve Bryan, Samuel Striz, Nelson Guzman, Naterade,
Kit Walker, John Johnson, Joe Serrano Lozada, Jakob Birnbaum, Jack L, Ilan Capone, Ian Driscoll,
Grant Hughes, Gael Guerard, Brian Leighton, Andrew Schneider, Alex Gorell, and Adam Christians. Thank
you all, thanks to the cars on the highway for being quiet, and thank YOU for watching.
Thank you all. Thanks to all the cars on the highway for being quiet
and thank YOU for watching.