A century ago, hard-topped roads leading outward from the industrial downtowns of America stopped at the city line. Amid weeds and cornfields, dirt paths snaked outward, routes that were often impassable in rainy seasons. But smoky locomotives and electric interurban trains streaked by on iron rails, carrying passengers and produce into the bustling depots. In the early twentieth century, bicycles and automobiles changed all that and caused a national clamor for good roads. Railroad depredations had poisoned the well of public opinion, and rail owners returned government's contempt. But the motor industry, which the public embraced as an alternative to the hated rails, viewed government as a partner in progress. This contrast spelled doom for the iron horse and untold prosperity for the horseless carriage. The American highway-motor complex, by fostering the myth that driving is cheap and an inalienable right, created a national policy of subsidizing the roads while starving the rails. Its legacy is a nation with clogged superhighways and underused railroads existing side by side.
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References
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1. Oliver Jensen, The American Heritage History of Railroads in America (New York: American Heritage, 1975), p. 16.
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2. Donald M. Itzkoff, Off the Track: The Decline of the Intercity Passenger Train in the United States (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985), pp. 7-8.
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See also “U.S. Budget—Historical Statistics of the United States, 1976,”Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1950 (Washington, DC: Department of Commerce, 1950), p. 297. The advent of the federal income tax in 1913 and a world war would make federal budgets measured in millions a thing of the past.
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13. Constitution of the United States, Art. 1, § 8.
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14. Congress modeled the ICC after some of the weaker state railroad commissions. Interview with Frank Wilner, then assistant vice president, Association of American Railroads, Washington, DC, 27 Apr. 1993.
15.
15. Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, §§ 1-4, 11.
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21. Ibid., p. 347.
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30. Undated memo in correspondence of Thomas Harris MacDonald, 14 vols., in the library of the Department of Transportation, Washington, DC.
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31. Bruce E. Seely, Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), pp. 54-59.
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32. Ibid., p. 108.
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38. Seely, Building the American Highway System, p. 53.
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39. Sproiles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, at 385, 394.
40.
See also Kenneth S. Davis, The New Deal Years, 1933-1937 (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 111.
41.
41. The term “highwaymen” denotes the collective public-private road-building partnership and is gender-specific, since nearly all such individuals at that time were men. As the highwaymen of old robbed travelers on the road, so modern highwaymen have robbed Americans of a choice of travel options.
42.
42. Mark Rose, Interstate Highway Politics (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1979), p. 4.
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43. Albro Martin, Railroads Triumphant (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 365-366.
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Lee Mertz , “Origins of the Interstates” (Paper, Federal Highway Administration, Department of Transportation, 1987), p. 31.
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Mertz , “Origins of the Interstates,” p. 41.
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See also Stover, American Railroads, p. 184.
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49. Mertz, “Origins of the Interstates,” p. 32.
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50. Ibid., p. 109.
51.
51. Leo Egan, “Eisenhower Bids States Join U.S.,”New York Times, 13 July 1954, p. 1.
52.
See also Gary T. Schwartz, “Urban Freeways,”Southern California Law Review, pp. 435, 498 (Mar. 1976).
53.
See also Schwartz, “Urban Freeways,” pp. 444-447.
54.
See also Martin, Railroads Triumphant, p. 377.
55.
55. Stephen B. Goddard, Getting There: The Epic Struggle Between Road and Rail in the American Century (New York: Basic Books, 1994), chap. 13.
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56. A. Q. Mowbray, Road to Ruin: A Critical View of the Federal Highway Program (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1968), pp. 15, 102.
57.
57. Ibid., p. 101.
58.
58. The predecessor lines were the Ann Arbor Railroad, the Central Railroad of New Jersey, the Erie Lackawanna Railway, the Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, the Penn Central Transportation Company, and the Reading Company.
