Huntsville,the Highway,and Urban Redevelopment

Abstract

In 1968, the Federal Highway Administration allotted twenty-one additional Interstate Highway miles for a spur into Huntsville, Alabama. This article details the long subsequent battle to build the Huntsville spur. Such late additions to the Interstate System stood to be challenged on all fronts amid the nationwide Freeway Revolt and a shifting legislative environment in Congress. Federal highway policy changes during the 1960s and early 1970s gave freeway opponents opportunities to challenge controversial highways. However, decentralized metropolitan growth encouraged Huntsville leaders and city planners to support construction of the new urban expressway. Despite concerns about environmental damage and racial impacts, Huntsville’s freeway revolt faltered. Further, this article argues that, despite Huntsville’s late addition to the Interstate System, the local highway planning process mirrored the earlier national vision of expressway-driven redevelopment of declining central cities.