Editorial: Celebrating Our Interstates
s we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the legislation that created the nation’s Interstate Highway System — which led directly to the birth of a truly interstate trucking industry — we all owe much to the foresight of earlier generations and especially two presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The combination of Roosevelt’s idea for a massive public works project that would speed commerce and put many Americans to work, with Eisenhower’s memories of a grueling coast-to-coast trek as a young lieutenant colonel in 1919, ultimately materialized as the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
The genesis of Eisenhower’s plan for a 40,000-mile network of controlled-access roads — stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada — was the military convoy he joined on what was literally a pioneering trip of 3,251 miles, from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. The journey took 62 days — only five more than scheduled.
Proof of the success of Eisenhower’s vision is that a coast-to-coast trip today by truck or car can take as few as four days. Americans travel some 3 trillion miles a year on the interstate system.
The legislation funding the ambitious project, which became the biggest in history, passed in 1956 only after the trucking industry was persuaded to support a 50% increase in the federal fuel tax, to 3 cents from 2 cents. This would help finance the federal government’s 90% share of building costs. States would kick in the remaining 10%. The anticipated price tag was put at $50 billion.
The plan’s success has created a new need. Today, much of the interstate system begs to be rebuilt or expanded. We’re told that federal fuel taxes — now at 24.4 cents a gallon for diesel and 18.4 cents for gasoline — are insufficient to pay the entire bill, especially considering today’s costs: The price tag for replacing one (admittedly large and complex) Interstate 95 bridge over the Potomac River south of Washington is $2.44 billion.
The talk around Washington these days is of new tolls, variable toll pricing or higher fuel taxes to finance the huge infrastructure revitalization.
What trucking wants as the nation celebrates 50 years of a job well done and prepares its roadways for the next 50 years, is a fair and balanced plan to pay for those roads.
This editorial appears in the June 19 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
