At 82 years of age, I well remember the chaos and disruption of the Interstate highway construction. (And i have long been a proponent of rail and other transport options.) I would say that those most negatively impacted were more generally low income groups of all races as opposed to just racial impacts. I lived in white towns that were ravaged by the highway construction
I do agree it affected low income communities, but it was done that way due to low income communities being disproportionately minorities (not to devalue the struggle of white communities).
@@Boofus90 There were two reasons low income communities were targeted. 1) The land would be cheaper per sqft and the houses being demolished will have been worth less. 2) less political influence and ability to hire expensive lawyers. It mostly just so happened that low income communities were disproportionately minorities (because of racism, duh). And there was a little bit of extra benefit of minority communities having less political influence as communities with similar income distributions. But I think in a regression analysis. you would find very little of the disparate impact on minorities was caused by purposeful targeting of minority communities.
@@HesderOleh Highways were utilized to strangle minority communities, low income white communities were acceptable collateral when these plans were being developed. Had every low income community been majority white and minority POC, you would at most have the same outcome but with some form of reimbursement or safety net. A low income minority community would be the first to go rather than their white counterpart. Both are extremely important but these actions were clear in who they were directed at.
@@Boofus90 I think you are getting cause and effect mixed up. Highways weren't proposed to hurt people and then the benefits to others were incidental. They didn't think up a way of hurting communities and then decided that highways were a good method. There are isolated examples of people expressing happiness that it would destroy black neighborhoods, but those weren't people who were creating the interstate highway system. Compensation for the property worked (and still works) like any eminent domain. Now there are also better programs to help renters move and some compensation. But in the past it was thought that what you were taking away was the owner's land and building and that a renter doesn't deserve compensation. TLDR the highways weren't "directed" at anyone, it was and still is easy to buy up land in poor neighborhoods.
Not mentioned is the 'homogenization' of the US, where every interstate interchange is almost identical, with your chain fast food and gas station convenience store (frequently together) options instantly recognized. Yet right down the road is probably a dead main street, previously full of businesses offering a local flavor and uniqueness, gone forever....it sucks.
I think you’re both really over-exaggerating like it’s such a terrible thing. Honestly, stopping at your favorite fast food isn’t bad. Plus, most people really only stop to use the bathroom. And it’s not like every single one is the same. While in the eastern part of the U.S can be mostly identical each time, go out into the central and western part of the U.S, and you’ll find plenty of unique local stops. Though most of the time I’m not looking for some “unique place” with a special local item. I just need to get more snacks or use the bathroom
@@gdspace5592 You travel to get away from your normal life/environment to experience a new one. It’s redundant when the entire stretch of your journey is a copy and paste of what you’ve experienced. If most people only stoped to relieve themselves, these businesses would’ve abandoned highways long ago; Its quite clear people buy into what’s being sold. Communities and local economies are being ruined by globalized chains that drive away vital demand from local economies depriving them of growth and actual community. This in turn causes many localities to cater directly towards these corporations rather than their own local businesses, thus hurting the community. These local shops have bathrooms and snacks you’re accustomed too. The fact your point associates basic services with only large chains is indicative of how harmful our current car dependent/highway orientated society is.
When I went an an trip to Chicago we only stopped at an all in one McDonald’s,gas station, pizza place , daycare and sitting area. Literally an whole street of things in one building with nothing else around
One thing that the Interstate system did that was bad was that by being built on the outskirts or avoiding towns altogether, those towns suffered because traffic no longer needed to stop for anything. I live in KS and I have seen over the years what I-70 and I-135 have done to the smaller communities along Highways 40, 18, 24 (that I-70 takes the place of) or 81 hwy (I-135 replaced). While certainly true you aren't having to deal having to slow down going through a 2-5000 pop town every so often, those towns would be better off if the Interstates hadn't taken a good flow of traffic away. If you are ever travelling Denver-Chicago, instead of taking 70 or 80, take Hwy 36 (though you would have to go to Springfield to get to Chicago), you will see what it used to be like back then.
Solid proof exists of this phenomena all over the county and its interesting because it is the exact opposite of the city- divided metaphor put forward in Robert Caro's Power Broker and other more current social justice arguments. Putting the highway through a city causes displacement and economic transformation and putting the highway (main traffic generator/carrier) outside towns and cities cause business migration and sprawl to the highway and the decline of the city. I think the only way to negate this issue is increasing the city size and placing the entire highway on the outskirts of the existing city but within its new boundary area to "capture" the business migration.
@@jamescrane4050 I live in a city that pushed all of its development and resources towards trying to exploit the off-ramp to the interstate, much to the detriment of the rest of the city. Additionally, I spent a lot of my in a town that was mostly off the major highway. The town proper ended up being basically a place for the locals while the outskirts were where people just stopped by, so a lot more gas stations and mainstream businesses. It's basically like 2 towns.
That is primarily a curse of geography. The town grew because something made it grow: the only narrow crossing of a river A river or stream to supply a mill A valley pocket A vein of ore Early railroads and canals that followed naturally flat river banks. All through history as technology or construction changed (straighter rails, canals, new bigger bridges, straighter dirt and two lane roads), these places were skipped. It wasn't personal, it was just the straightening of the world. Tunnels or cleared passes remove miles of snaking. The little towns just a mile off the straight line interstates would have likely been obliterated by the construction which took 30 years. They wouldn't be dead, they'd be gone completely. Once finished, buzzing by at 75mph, nobody has time to even see that quaint diner on Main Street two miles from the offramp, so they wouldn't have even benefitted from interstate frontage 20 yards off the setback. Those town saw a tawdry Californization heyday around WW2 to 1970, but that too was just an accident of geography.
This is why highway robbery is never a sustainable option for small towns. These towns grew simply because of making it impossible to traverse quickly and to get over on your fellow traveller.
You could have mentioned the US highway system that was commissioned in the 1920’s, which still exists today, that provided a national system of non-limited access highways (e.g., US 1 in the east to US 101 in the west).
Yes. Some of these highways ran coast to coast. Like the later Interstate Highway system, these were 2-digit highways that ended in 0. And most that ended in 1 would run either border to border in the West (also US 99), or gulf to border in the East.
But the Interstate Highway System did not take its numbering system from the US system or even adapt its numbering system as Mexico did (Mexican tollways have numbers such as 15D and 40D, reflecting the federal highways that they supplant as through routes. I could imagine US 66 having "US 66 I" closeby, but what would one do with the necessary freeway that became I-75 from the UP of Michigan to Greater Miami? It follows what were or are US 2, US 27, Michigan 76, US 23, US 10, US 25, US 25W, US 11, US 41, Florida 84, and US 27 again..
@@babani8418 They produced more than just cars. Tons of steel and raw mineral exports. Only city that it would not necessarily hurt but stop from being as populated is Detroit.
@@babani8418 lol. The rust belt is not remotely doomed. It has the most water and the best soil and is best protected from the coming effects of climate change.Give it time and watch all you superior people from the parched west and southwest and coastal cities come running to the rust belt and ruining those places
@@babani8418 well Illinois here. You are wrong..only folks stuck in the past refer to it by rust belt.lets call it the abundant freshwater and good soil belt if we want to be honest
Freeways actually gave rise to the central business district idea in American downtowns. People often think skyscrapers are a sign of a healthy urban environment, but it’s actually not. Unlike New York skyscrapers, most skyscrapers in America are supported by suburban commuters, and it makes the street level anti pedestrian because most skyscrapers are sitting on top of massive bunkers of parking garages. Instead of having dozens of small retail spaces for businesses, the skyscraper provides a massive parking garage bunker at the street.
Chicago Loop area existed before the freeways and had skyscrapers before New York did I'm sure other cities had central areas too. And without the Freeways there would be far less suburban development centered around cars so Skyscrapers would correspondingly less car centered.
@@sitdowndogbreath The other reason for the building of highways was because after the war there was a great rise in automobile sales and ownership. You think those people would have parked their "new" cars and took the "train"?
I’ll comment to improve this excellent videos algorithm blessing, but I also wanna say that you could add one thing which is a significant feature on the inter estate: trucking; Without the interstate trucking wouldn’t be as prominent as it is today, with railroads still having the supreme preeminence that they did in the late 1800s and early 1900s for moving goods around, this would have huge ramifications for people though. It is likely that Amtrak would never have been created as the railroads continued their work due to retaining profitability without losing freight to trucks on longer routes, and there may be many private railroad companies still operating high speed and glamorous rail transport. This would likely save a significant amount of road damage, car accidents and pollution from being made
True but coal the mother of all commodities was also in decline as both industry and home heating market were moving to natural gas and oil. But you are correct, inter-city truckers used publicly funded highways and railroads paid taxes on everything from stations to railways etc. Same goods movement but different costs as one was socialized and one was private.
@@jamescrane4050 at least in my country where most railways are owned by the government, access charges of $9/tonne km are levied on the freight railways whereas trucks only need to pay a yearly registration fee, despite causing huge road damage which is quite frankly unacceptable to me that we manipulate the freight market in such a way, especially when there are signifcantly more positive externalities with rail freight compared to road freight (eg better for the enviornment, more efficient) and road freight causes congestion, fatal car accidents, whereas rail freight accidents aren't very common.
Frankly passenger trains were failing long before the interstates were built. The day the USPS chose to fly and truck the mail, that was the day passenger trains died. No longer do passenger trains have on their consists a dozen or more mail cars...
Not only did AAA advocated for interstates, so did the Teamsters... Without interstates it would take twice as long to drive across America slowing through cities and towns, stopping at lights, etc. I recall driving through America before the interstates, you would do good averaging 40 miles in an hour, instead of the present 70+ miles in an hour... Maybe America should have bypassed and circled large cities instead of running the interstates through the cities like interstates bypassed small towns, and had built better rail transit systems in the cities... But without any doubt interstates overall are positive throughout rural America...
@@sniper.93c14 trucking is way more efficient if you take into account the amount of clients. Maybe in sheer load amount rail could compete due to shipment-heavy industries locating themselves close to railways and building tracks for the last hundred meters or even kilometers. But don’t think that trains dont kill people, especially the more trains the more deaths, just like with trucks. Considering all criteria though, trucking clearly allows more even development across the whole country and the roads they use serve literally millions of different passenger car route combinations, while trains would serve way less options to passengers, except in city to city situations.
Good video. I would be interested in hearing from an economist on how the economy of a non-interstate America would have developed, and if they think it would be better or worse.
As a retired truck driver, I can tell you it would have had a massive influence on the economy. A semi can get coast to coast in less than a week. The first commercial over the road delivery was a load of tires from Akron OH to NYNY. It took a month to make the trip. Today you can make the trip in a little over a day. I'm disappointed that this video was another social justice rehash on the evils of roads rather than an even handed approach on the benefits and drawbacks of the interstate road system.
@@mlneale1959 there are definitely the obvious benefits of the interstate and there's no doubt about how useful it is but there was no need to have interstates go straight through cities. Even Eisenhower himself didn't expect planners to put the highways going through cities. Not only does this negatively affect truckers by needing to go through the most congested parts of a city that it might not even be stopping in, it also hurts the city with the noise, the traffic, the pollution, and the giant obstacle that's literally splitting your city like a wall.
@@mlneale1959 > I can tell you it would have had a massive influence on the economy I agree, he completely missed the point on how the Interstate Highways affected the flow of commerce and changed how goods moved to and from the cities to the point of actually causing the bankruptcy of many railroads in the North East by providing a more efficient, cost-effective, and timely method of moving goods by truck. This, in turn, caused the economic decline of many older textile-based cities, as factories moved to cheaper land in the mid-west and the northeast then got the nickname "The Rust Belt".
This is really interesting, I live in the city of Glasgow, Scotland and it was the first and last British city that ran a motorway through the centre of the city. Nowhere else did it for very good reason! It was part of the cultural vandalism that took place here in 50s and 60s.
One thing he didn’t mention, is that since the inters highway was built people who have been stopping at family restaurants in smaller towns didn’t stop at them anymore nor gas stations or small motor hotels but just stopped at the chain restaurants that were on limited access roads to the highway so they could get an easy off faster on the highway which is normal. But some small towns went broke or the restaurants and gas stations in small towns since people didn’t drive through them as much anymore
So interstate highways indirectly put the mom and pop restaurants out of business , unique restaurants in general and now we’re just have mostly to see chain restaurants.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 Although many survived as franchises of nationwide chains. The wise mom and pops moved out to the interstate bypass as well...
You fail to mention that the interstate highways program was a result of the Cold War mentality that gripped the U.S. during the 1950's. The need to evacuate cities in case of a nuclear attack by Russia was one reason for the program, as well as enabling military forces to be able to move from state to state as quickly as possible. Plus, for every three or four miles of interstate highways that were constructed, one mile had to be completely straight to be used for emergency landings by military aircraft should the need arise.
It is at least alluded to with how inefficient moving military units were across the country in the video. Building the interstate highway system was a way to move them faster and was partly inspired by the autobahn. But it's kind of ironic how at this point, I'm more likely to still be stuck in LA traffic on the highway if a nuke comes down before I could get out haha
@@tedwalker1370 nope haha I dont think they knew what it would look like if half a million cars tried to exit a city at the same time. Theoretically highways going out of the city should be rolling at the minimum since not so many cars would be exiting, causing back ups. The only problem would be filtering in the thousands and thousands of cars joining. Any highway or road, being used as a funnel to an out-of-city highway would be total chaos. I wonder if something can be done by local authorities to soften the congestion, for example closing districts and opening one after the other. Similar to what they would have to organise for train or plane evacuations with multiple queues alternating.
@What If Geography look into it? What if a large city had to evacuate all of its population as fast as possible. I assume theres been some or at least some close scenarios (hurricanes and such).
Before the interstate system was established in 1956, many states (primarily in the north and east) built their own limited access toll highways. That likely would have continued without the interstate system. What are now I-90 and part of I-70 (west of New Stanton) in PA were originally designed as extensions on the PA Turnpike. Ohio had plans for a second turnpike from Cincinnati to Conneaut (roughly the route of today's interstates 71, 271 and 90 east of Cleveland). Michigan also had plans for its own turnpike that would have been roughly along the route of I-75 and I-275 in southeast Michigan. Most of the toll highways, however, skirted rather than went through major cities.
That's bullshit. Both system can coexist and bring convenience and prosperity to every citizen. Japan, together with the Shinkansen has an extensive highway network, so does China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and more.
@@markoandy7421 the difference is that those governments didn’t sell out to General Motors and other car companies nearly as much as America did, which its effects last to this day
Great, nuanced video! You certainly deserve more subs. Two things, however. 1) Pre-interstate act, out "suburbs" looked very different from our current defintion of them. They were typicaly more dense & walkable, and often even had decent transit connections (usually bus). So most of these winding mcmansion suburbs would likely bot have existed at such a scale, especially outside of the south. Without any major highway system for most cities, the limits of suburbanization would likely have been reached sooner, prompting a resurgence of upzoning and improved public transit sooner that we wouldve seen in our own timeline. 2) at 7:16 this is my hometown of Milwaukee - bot far from where I used to live. Its a small & dense city with good (by american standards) transit so car-induced smog has never been an issue here. That video is likely either special effects or regular fog.
The picture claiming to be smog appears to be taken from approximately 300 feet above ground in the morning fog. I don't think the creator is old enough to know what smog looks like.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 Right. Its not much an issue anymore in western cities, unless they're really large and/or have mountains. That being said, invisible air pollution is still disastrous in any city if you live close wnough to a highway, so we till needa tear a lot of them down.
Roads traditionally divided economic zones too. I lived in a small suburb where living north of the main road was cheaper than living south of it. No Highway involved; just more industrial and commercial in the north and more parkland in the south.
There were plenty of passenger rail lines that went 100+ MPH back in the early fifties; as the highways filled in the railroads shut down and slowed down their trains until the establishment of Amtrak in 1971.
The Canada Highways Act was passed in 1919 around the same period as the landmark 1916 US Federal Aid Road Act. So long story short, the answer to the video's primary question is to look at the history of the Canadian Provincial Highway System as it provides the best alternative model approach in North America. Would highways still have been constructed? Yes and some were already being built before the 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highway Act: PA Turnpike 5/31/37, NJ Turnpike 4/14/49, NY Thruway 6/24/54. But the overall system construction would have been at a much slower pace and most likely much slower in remote areas where local/state demand would not support it. Also Auxiliary 3 Numbered Highways would most likely be fewer system-wide and Washington politicians highway projects would have been far less. The US system would also have some more variants but not as wide some might figure - as both design, build, and construction costs would over time provide better cost comps and limit costly variants to a given range. Would highways have still cut through the center of cities - yes. Why? Due to the fact that businesses, major industries, and local/regional/state politicians thought at the time that a true by-pass of the city, could kill off a given city's downtowns business districts as businesses migrated to areas with more accessible highway exits. I think the racial aspect was a component and contributed to some routes choices as these were coupled with the then fashionable "slum removal" and replacement public housing approach - however the decision to route traffic through cities was not always or solely based on racial or class issues but was viewed by some at the time as a way to revitalize the city as access increased - a benefit for all. But in fact, it did the opposite and sped mitigation to cheaper property outside the city and made matters worse for city residents. I would like to see a US vs Canada highway video in the next segment.
Canada's joke of a national highway, the Trans Canada is both dangerous and poorly maintained. Through large sections like northwestern Ontario it is merely a winding two lane road. When gasoline tax was introduced in Canada it was meant to be a way to pay for roads, a toll. But like most things government in Canada most of the revenue was diverted to general revenue. Good roads unite good countries and allow free people to freely move about.
At the time in the 1950s and 1960s, most of the warehouses and factories were located near the downtowns of most cities and towns. Only after the interstates were built circling the cities did the warehouses and factories build near the new interstates circling large cites and bypasses of small towns... The truckers desired better highways to service these warehouses and factories whether near the downtowns or on the outskirts of a city...
@@theschiznit8777 Frankly the last paved mile of the Trans Canada Highway wasn't paved and built along Lake Superior in Ontario until the mid 1960s... People today think paved highways were always a thing...
Wait just minute. Don't you realize this is the YT comments section? No well thought out, informed, clearly expressed and grammatically correct comments are permitted.
If the Interstate Highway System had not been built, travel for Black Americans would still be a very dangerous endeavor. While it is true that the IHS obliterated a lot of thriving Black communities, it did allow for the bypassing of numerous "sundown towns" that existed along the US and state trunklines.
I heard an interesting fact about the Interstate Hwy system years ago. They said that every fifth mile had to be straight as an arrow. That way you'd have alternate landing strips for aircraft all over the country. Of course that idea was when all planes still had propellers, even the military's. A mile long runway is short by today's commercial standards. But although impractical, I also heard that this concept helped get congressional approval since the idea of killing two birds with one stone was very appealing.
Well done!! Your script and your voice are upbeat and confident. The video is information dense, yet doesn't get bogged down in trivialities. The counterfactual history you give is well-reasoned and persuasive. (And correct.) You've got 510 subscribers now,. but with more content like this (and the algorithm providing visibility of your channel), you'll be climbing high.
That was already a lot to fit in a short video, but I was wondering what long distance transportation of both goods and people would look like. It's obvious from their design that the interstates were built to accommodate short-distance traffic as well as long-distance; you covered the former well, but the latter was missing.
Well, there would still be national highways for long distance travel, however not as connected to the downtowns. Besides that, because of good intracity public transit and higher densities - effects as mentioned in this video -, intercity rail services wouldn't have seen the downfall they saw after WW2. Instead I'd believe they would've become serious competitors to plane travel. That would be because trainstations are located in city-centers, which works incredibly well in combination with good public transit and high density. Cars would take too long and the convenience of the door-to-door option would be limited, since the ''last-mile problem'' is limited when having good local public transit. Planes would be faster, but ultimately more expensive, less comfortable and less convenient than trains, since air ports are a long way from the actual urban areas (which also add travel time) and sitting in an airplane is less relaxed than in a train.
@@stereotype.6377 You pose some interesting alternative theories. But here are three key factors to consider as well. By 1941, it was clear that as car prices came down, gas stations networks were built out, and the good roads movement took hold - more people used cars for not only daily trips but long-distance as well. WW2 put a stop to this trend temporarily as car production decreased, gas increased, and the USA went on a war footing. Basically, WW2 temporarily halted the decline in passenger numbers that started to appear at the end of the 1920s-1930s and reversed the flow until the end of the war. The NY Central and others also tried everything from new streamliners to diesel and other service improvements to get people back on trains but no dice. Also during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s more Greyhound Intercity Service grew taking a bite out of the value customer segment. Furthermore, also consider that in 1946 the federal government passed the Federal Airport Act and provided money for airport construction and that aircraft innovations followed that increased plane capacity and which also drained high & mid-level passengers away from railroads during these years. You could also add in the movement away from coal toward diesel, natural gas, and oil for further undermining the railroads financial backbone. All these forces were pulling on the privately owned & taxed railroads. What is clear is that the Federal Airport Act, IHS, aircraft & energy innovations speed-up generational trends and greatly accelerated railroads slide into bankruptcy. I think that if federal spending had been more limited or restrained, the railroads would have had some more breathing room but they had a whole host of crippling issues thrown at them due in part to federal action. In essence, the federal intervention into what had largely been a state issue like transportation has been complex, transformative, and in many ways destructive in hindsight.
We would have a lot of HSR lines just as many Interstates we have in this country. Have an Extensive Transit systems in every city. We would’ve been like Europe & Japan but better.
I suspect that the interstate system, like freeway systems in all industrialized countries, was built with the efficient transportation of freight in mind as much as the transportation of people.
I don't think the Interstate highway system should have never been built, but built a bit smarter. It is essential for the movement of commerce and goods today. It has been a change for the best in that way. The US highway system was not capable of handling today's traffic. Where they had the problem was routing them through the cities. They would have been better off bypassing the cities with ring roads rather than cutting through them, and using arterial roads through the cities, and public transit.
If you build out a smart system were goods and people get around primary by rail there isnt much need for big divided highways in the first place. So a lot of today highways could just be normal roads
Pretty good video. Yeah, I often want the connector (I75 I85) in Atlanta to be put underground or removed to reclaim the land. The highway divides the city in half.
@@DTD110865 You may not but I do. Freeway construction displaced and split communities (specifically those who where poorer or not affluent and white). Freeways in cities like that increase noise, traffic, and contribute to pollution in those areas.
@@blitzir And you think there isn't noise and pollution on surface streets? You think railroads don't divide neighborhoods? Did you ever think that if more of the freeways in Atlanta that we're supposed to have been built had been built there wouldn't be n overlap of I-75 and I-85?
Great video. To add, I read that the IHS idea actually was birthed during the mid 1940s while Eisenhower was still Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Once stateside, he was all in. His election in 1952 really got it going, resulting in his signature on the appropriations bill in '56. The idea was not as simple as the Pentagon, literally drawn up on a paper napkin.
Yeah Vancouver BC does not have a “interstate” going through downtown so it has great rail transit system instead. It can take a long time to get into downtown during rush hour. Manu cities in the world don’t have a direct highway into the city either. I do wish we had more rail transit system in the USA than what we have now. I wouldn’t depend on the car too much. :)
It would be kind of nice if we could have all those street cars and interurbans and inner-city trains and all those bus routes that we had back in the day. I think that'd be kind of neat.
Looking at Washington, DC and Madrid (I studied in Madrid the first half of the year, but both are capitals so it makes sense) from the air it really makes sense. For the few times I was on Spain's highways (notable to historical sites outside of the city). The radial routes often just terminate at various beltways (with M30 being the closest in with the loop line of Metro, Line 6 being a few yards further in. If it were like the US, the A-2 and A-6 would be a single road bisecting from Ciudad Univrsitaria and paralleling Line 7 to Avda de America. Excluding DC's red line, I think if you altered Madrid's line 6 to fit DC (interestingly, the stations for the universities would be roughly in the same location, Georgetown is probably closer to Principio than Moncloa). Ignoring Metro Sur and the 7/10/TFM branches (but including the Line 3 El Cesar extension). The original borders of DC and Madrid's Core/A-Zone (although 2 stops on Line 10 and the Southern Termini of Line 11 and 3 are in B1)-and that includes its only airport with two stations, with a town in the middle. DC does want to build a Loop line and I think they will look a lot alike...in each metro's respective style
In Tucson we have a Bikeway system called the Huckleberry Loop that loops around the whole city, but the reason it's so stretched is because planners needed to find a way to get it through I-10 on each side of the city. They had no choice but to have the bikeway go all the way out there like Cape Horn before the opening of the Panama Canal to go under some Interstate bridges. Interstates in cities are just annoying.
Wow, I did not expect to meet another Tucsonan in the comments section. I agree, I share a disdain for Interstates that bulldoze through cities. I'm thankful the I-10 doesn't bulldoze entirely through Tucson like Houston's. As far as I am aware, Tucson is the only place that has a Bike Loop. It is a nice change of scenery in a city full of Car-Dependent infrastructure, but cycling anywhere besides the loop sucks. Are you part of Tucson's cycling community? Would love to meet up if you're open to it.
@@mrbeandip2356 Most of the Tucson bike loop is boring, flat and often ugly. lts big plus is that while on it you're not likely to become memorialized by one of those all too frequent ghost bikes, like the one on West lna or Orange Grove.
The interstate highway system spawned the greatest misallication of resources in our country's history. It created the building of vast suburbs that literally cannot function without everyone over 18 owning an automobile
I hate the suburbs. They are filled with the worst humanoid scum to ever live (read as entitled idiots who know nothing, i.e. Karen). But, we need those highways. I like the highways.
It utterly destroys the walkability and bike-ability of the large cities as well. It's basically like having a barrier between neighborhoods that is only passable at a select few points.(overpasses or underpasses)
Insane crime, shitty schools and municipal services drove people out of the cities. There's no point in having a subway if people use it to do heroin and as a homeless shelter
Wrong, it allowed people to drive freely without being forced to hop on a train or bus, not being able to stop to watch nature and depart again and many many other things. The interstate highway was a blessing, while Europe and Asia fell back in the past with those inconvenient and useless trains and buses.
A complicated issue is how much the Cold War affected the development of highways. Undoubtedly it was the primary reason for much or most of the development of the system. And that system was good and bad. On the bad side, it's poor planning was catastrophic for some urban centers like my hometown of Boston, where one of the most historic pieces of America was sliced and diced to death by masses of concrete. Pretty grim
Nice video. I can't imagine a more devastating misstep in human ecology than the urban highway. The thinking was so short-sighted and classist that it borders on psychotic. Those people don't deserve an anonymous legacy.
If it weren't for the US interstate highway system, the primary highway system would be the US Numbered Highway System (i.e. US Routes or US Highways), and that system would have a variety of highway standards, from fully limited access and divided freeways all the way down to two-lane roads. (Even as it is, it's kind of the case, just that the fully limited access highways are mostly covered by the interstates.) Such is very much the case in many other countries, both developed and less developed.
Great video. I personally feel blessed to have been born and raised in NYC the most walkable city in the us and I'm thankful for ppl who've protested the construction of highways through the heart of any city. Too bad the auto industry got the majority of us cities. But videos like these and mindsets changing we can probably see cars becoming less predominant in us culture
Small towns would have more business. The then existing passenger rail system would probably still be around. Manufacturing would have remained more decentralized as truck transportation on a cross country basis would be more difficult and costly.
When the USPS chose to fly and truck the mail, the days of passenger trains died quickly.... Even UPS and FedEx choose to fly and truck... No longer are there a dozen or more mail cars on a passenger trains consists...
As non-American, i say this could even affect much of the entire world. During the Cold War many countries looked forward to American style development. Had the US never built the interstate, the same most likely would happen in many other developing countries.
As a white man who now lives in Charleston, it is totally visible and it's sad. You can see I26 split the peninsula in half. But the other half is on the up and up.
Ike wanted them to bypass the cities, but as there was no money available for transit, urban politicians wanted a piece of the action and got urban highways like I-78 and I-280 in New Jersey built. Those highways turned Newark into a wasteland.
At 3:36 , I wouldn't consider that "normal street". That looks like a city street catering to cars and not the residents that live nearby. But I understand your point.
I'm not sure much would've changed, as the country's roadways were going to need a massive overhaul at some point anyway. Regardless of the prevalence of rail, highways of some type were coming across the world. Think about Europe where public transit is a lot better & railways are used often for public transport, large roadways were still growing as the freight & shipping industries steadily moved towards trucks as the primary tool for hauling. Despite the use of rail, shipping by truck has increased dramatically over Europe, even with projects intended to curb & deter that from happening. In Germany, 71% of freight is shipped by truck, while only 18% is done by rail. France is even worse, with rail declining each year until now only 8% is by rail & 86% by truck. In the US, only 36% is shipped by truck compared to 28% by rail... and considering the massive amount of goods being shipped overall, that's a HUGE amount dedicated towards rail freight. Point being large highways of some kind were coming one way or another everywhere.
Not disagreeing but I’m skeptical of plain stats about modes like that. Does X% by truck mean X% goes by truck at some point in the journey or does Y% by rail mean it only traveled by rail at all? The US is huge and as you increase trip lengths the number falls by the log. The longer the trip or the heavier your cargo the more you can justify rail and barge. Naturally for a country like Germany a larger proportion of end to end truck trips can cross the entire country without any need for rail. But even then Germany has incredible canal and rail freight access. The US should still be really proud of its freight network though and that it didn’t treat it’s freight like passenger networks.
The economic boom following WWII would not have come about, because--while not formally stated as such-- The interstate highway system permits 'just in time," goods production, that is, the Smithville Ohio Welding Shop can weld-up three farm combines a day, and these could have been then put on trucks and sent immediatey to the Orrville Ohio Tractor Factory, five miles away. Under a freight rail system, Smithville would have to build large warehouses, and store up enough combines to be carried by five flatcars. Railroads do not like to haul less than ten cars at a time between one point and another. It is wasteful in many ways. Orrville would have to build warehouses to store combines for orderly finishing work. All of this costs money and takes up space. In the period from roughly 1900 to 1970 there actually were large numbers of warehouses built in the United States because the railroad system was inadequate in carrying all the goods made. This problem was very common in the post WWII era to the point where Fortune magazine ran several articles on the hidden costs. It was a major reason as to why a number of firms left big cities. What then happened is that city officials would bother other manufacturers around the country about the "old Wlson Worsted Mills Complex," only to be told that no one would take the mills, even if offered free, because the railroad access was poor. Then, there also is the fact that people have the right to live out in the country in single-family houses. Country life is less stressful than city life. And, in the 1950s the large cities had far worse air quality than they do, today. As a boy, I could walk across the Detroit Superior Bridge in Cleveland, stand in the middle, and not be able to see either end of the bridge, due to the air pollution. Further, if you look at home movies made in Cleveland back in the period of 1915 to 1960, and compare the scenes to modern videos of the same locations, today, you become impressed by the fact that house lots back then had two or three houses where one house sits today, a lot of today's lots are empty, and a more careful examination indicates that the bulk of housing had two large families per floor, and that there were two floors per house, with more people in finished attics. In WWII there was a special census in Cleveland to examine such issues so as to avoid a repeat of the Detroit race riots over housing for war workers. Cleveland had about 950,000 people in the 1940 and 1950 censuses, but 1,250,000 in 1943. Another point: Juvenile delinquency was very serious in the big cities during the war years. This came about because men were drafted, and mothers were working. No one really watched over the kids. The houses were lightly built, and had been neglected for decades. They could not be easily rebuilt or replaced because the streets were lightly built and narrow, so delivery of lumber and bricks would have been costly. Also, demolition debris removal would have been a problem. So, they were not replaced. Eventually, in Cleveland, the city cleared off 1,000 acres of urban prarie, rich in trees, few in houses, and has used a boulevard to open access to the University Circle area of Cleveland for access by suburbanites. The bulk of the 1,000 acres seems to be reserved for speculative deployment of high-end chip-making factories, and medical production plants. The inputs and oiutputs of such plants cannot be realistically restricted to rail carriage.
if this never happened we would've had high speed rail, & great Intercity, Regional & rapid transit, We would have beautiful walkable cites. We could've been better than Europe if it wasn't for highways tearing through our cites. We would have HSR all over the country. & if y'all the US without highways is bad look at Europe they have highways but most of the people don't use them because most of them have HSR. & Our intercity, Long Distance & High speed rail would've been the interstate railway system.
Also the cars themselves may look vastly different as the cars back in the late Fifties were actually designed for the new interstate highways. The popularity of today's SUV's may have occurred thirty years sooner.
We just need a high speed rail system in conjunction with good public transportation to cover major and minor cities. No one will take it from NYC to LA. But people will take it from NYC to Philly. Someone in Philly will take it to Pittsburgh. Someone in Pitt will take it to Cleveland and so on. The interstate shouldn’t be used for commutes or inter city travel, just makes for too much traffic and trouble. People need subways and buses. Rural areas will always dependent on cars.
I drove cross country one time completely using the “blue highways” (William least heat moon “blue highways”) and it was a wonderful experience.if you are time crunched, the interstates are the best, but if you have time, I highly recommend the slow way.
Same here, in the late 80s. Sadly, much of the US is just plain ugly, not necessarily geographically, but in the architecture, industrial structures and the attitudes of the people. Whether and how it might be different or better without the interstates is difficult or impossible say with any assurance. One thing is certain, as the US currently exists, whatever their many, obvious negatives, interstate highways allow us to get through areas we don't like much more quickly and safely than would be possible otherwise. There are parts of the country where l prefer to keep my interaction with the residents and their "territory" to a minimum and interstates make that much easier.
@@frankmiller95 I look like the people in these smaller towns and I can find common ground with them It's not hard. Dont know how the "attutudes" thing would even come up with the usual small talk when passing thru these places
@@Fireneedsair Really? To me, you look exactly like John Belushi. Seriously, my appearance provides the same "cover." lt's easy enough to carry on a friendly, casual and superficial conversation with the people l'm referring to, just keep it to guns, cars and sports, all of which l'm familiar with. My problem is with how most of these people seem to think.....and vote. That's what l cannot relate to.
@@frankmiller95 these stereotypical midwest ppl u refer to are everywhere. I lived in the western usa for 20 years. Believe me > know. I can relate to them because I understand them. I'm a student of psychology and neuroscience . I just feel bad so Many people cannot step back and see where their beliefs originate from and what purpose they serve. I do constantly. Maybe Iowa is not vibrant but chicago sure is, as is pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland, columbus and more. My vibrant means culture, energy, open minds ,all present in the midwest
@@Fireneedsair No doubt there are people you describe to be found almost anywhere in US. My problem is at my stage in life, l don't have the emotional time and energy necessary to find them.
the interstate was a direct response to the countries need for rapid response for military vehicles carrying air defense missiles of the era,that is also the reason that the minimum clearance for over passes was fourteen feet,the reason being that was the lowest they could transport the air defense weapons without damaging the fins that would guide the missiles after being launched defending the air space over cities.in boston Massachusetts,barry's ridge in was one such launch site.urban area's where grinding to a halt because of the transportation of cargo by trucks and the failure to modernize railroads for the transport of goods,also the advent of a large portion's city dweller's shifting from public transportation to private ownership of cars for commuting to work demanded the construction of interstate highways
My first thought was that without interstate highways, traffic would be hell but at the same time cities all across the United States would be much more densely built.
I'm here after being gobsmacked by the differences in aerial images from 1947 and now of Minneapolis. Everything was clearly done by rail and so many homes, buildings, industries, apartments are just gone. It has made me ask the question proposed in the title.
I have decades of driving experience, but I never drive on the highway. Not only do the high speed limits of highways scare me, but also there is a soul sucking, emptiness about them that upset me. I don't know how commuters handle such monotony every day.
I see the highways as as they where first called: Defense routes. In my mind, the highways are only for commercial, industrial, & military use. Also you left out some key details, see further comments for details.
One of the more interesting outcomes to think about would be that we'd likely would have had an interstate system of sorts - only mostly toll roads instead of the freeways we have today. I know that Pennsylvania had a systematic plan for toll roads that pretty much echoes the combined toll road and freeway system within the state today, plus Ohio and Indiana had plans to toll roads going north-south, connecting major urban areas (Louisville-Indianapolis-Chicago for Indiana, Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland(-Erie) with a spur from Columbus to Toledo for Ohio). My guess is that there would have been plenty of toll roads built east of the Mississippi (though likely not as dense a system as the Interstate system eventually became), fewer toll roads west of it with certain states building anyway (Oklahoma had success with the Will Rogers and Turner Turnpikes, would have likely built out 35 and further built out 44 had the Federal-Aid Highways Act of 1956 not passed.) The long interstates out west would likely never had been built, since much of that was with a focus on national traffic. Also, each state would have built out their Toll Roads first and THEN connected to each other's roads - fewer intentionally cooperative efforts as the Indiana/Ohio/Pennsylvania Toll Road system (and Kansas-Oklahoma, as I-35 was originally going to be tolled in Oklahoma) and, more connections developed as the systems knitted themselves together.
Simple: people would actually have to remember that "flyover country" exists, as it would not be so flyover. On the flipside, more people would probably die in hurricanes due to evacuations being made more difficult.
At 82 years of age, I well remember the chaos and disruption of the Interstate highway construction. (And i have long been a proponent of rail and other transport options.) I would say that those most negatively impacted were more generally low income groups of all races as opposed to just racial impacts. I lived in white towns that were ravaged by the highway construction
I do agree it affected low income communities, but it was done that way due to low income communities being disproportionately minorities (not to devalue the struggle of white communities).
@@Boofus90 There were two reasons low income communities were targeted.
1) The land would be cheaper per sqft and the houses being demolished will have been worth less.
2) less political influence and ability to hire expensive lawyers.
It mostly just so happened that low income communities were disproportionately minorities (because of racism, duh). And there was a little bit of extra benefit of minority communities having less political influence as communities with similar income distributions. But I think in a regression analysis. you would find very little of the disparate impact on minorities was caused by purposeful targeting of minority communities.
@@HesderOleh Highways were utilized to strangle minority communities, low income white communities were acceptable collateral when these plans were being developed. Had every low income community been majority white and minority POC, you would at most have the same outcome but with some form of reimbursement or safety net. A low income minority community would be the first to go rather than their white counterpart. Both are extremely important but these actions were clear in who they were directed at.
@@Boofus90 I think you are getting cause and effect mixed up. Highways weren't proposed to hurt people and then the benefits to others were incidental. They didn't think up a way of hurting communities and then decided that highways were a good method.
There are isolated examples of people expressing happiness that it would destroy black neighborhoods, but those weren't people who were creating the interstate highway system.
Compensation for the property worked (and still works) like any eminent domain. Now there are also better programs to help renters move and some compensation. But in the past it was thought that what you were taking away was the owner's land and building and that a renter doesn't deserve compensation.
TLDR the highways weren't "directed" at anyone, it was and still is easy to buy up land in poor neighborhoods.
And we would still have privately operated inter-city passenger trains; and therefore no need for Amtrak.
Not mentioned is the 'homogenization' of the US, where every interstate interchange is almost identical, with your chain fast food and gas station convenience store (frequently together) options instantly recognized. Yet right down the road is probably a dead main street, previously full of businesses offering a local flavor and uniqueness, gone forever....it sucks.
very very sad to think about... all the same every single exit......
I think you’re both really over-exaggerating like it’s such a terrible thing. Honestly, stopping at your favorite fast food isn’t bad. Plus, most people really only stop to use the bathroom. And it’s not like every single one is the same. While in the eastern part of the U.S can be mostly identical each time, go out into the central and western part of the U.S, and you’ll find plenty of unique local stops. Though most of the time I’m not looking for some “unique place” with a special local item. I just need to get more snacks or use the bathroom
@@gdspace5592 You travel to get away from your normal life/environment to experience a new one. It’s redundant when the entire stretch of your journey is a copy and paste of what you’ve experienced. If most people only stoped to relieve themselves, these businesses would’ve abandoned highways long ago; Its quite clear people buy into what’s being sold.
Communities and local economies are being ruined by globalized chains that drive away vital demand from local economies depriving them of growth and actual community. This in turn causes many localities to cater directly towards these corporations rather than their own local businesses, thus hurting the community. These local shops have bathrooms and snacks you’re accustomed too. The fact your point associates basic services with only large chains is indicative of how harmful our current car dependent/highway orientated society is.
@carlsagan lives
Is that the result of Interstate Highways specifically or bad planning more generally?
When I went an an trip to Chicago we only stopped at an all in one McDonald’s,gas station, pizza place , daycare and sitting area. Literally an whole street of things in one building with nothing else around
One thing that the Interstate system did that was bad was that by being built on the outskirts or avoiding towns altogether, those towns suffered because traffic no longer needed to stop for anything. I live in KS and I have seen over the years what I-70 and I-135 have done to the smaller communities along Highways 40, 18, 24 (that I-70 takes the place of) or 81 hwy (I-135 replaced). While certainly true you aren't having to deal having to slow down going through a 2-5000 pop town every so often, those towns would be better off if the Interstates hadn't taken a good flow of traffic away. If you are ever travelling Denver-Chicago, instead of taking 70 or 80, take Hwy 36 (though you would have to go to Springfield to get to Chicago), you will see what it used to be like back then.
Solid proof exists of this phenomena all over the county and its interesting because it is the exact opposite of the city- divided metaphor put forward in Robert Caro's Power Broker and other more current social justice arguments. Putting the highway through a city causes displacement and economic transformation and putting the highway (main traffic generator/carrier) outside towns and cities cause business migration and sprawl to the highway and the decline of the city. I think the only way to negate this issue is increasing the city size and placing the entire highway on the outskirts of the existing city but within its new boundary area to "capture" the business migration.
Route 66 is probably the best known example of this happening. Some cities survived and are still around, but many became ghost towns.
@@jamescrane4050 I live in a city that pushed all of its development and resources towards trying to exploit the off-ramp to the interstate, much to the detriment of the rest of the city.
Additionally, I spent a lot of my in a town that was mostly off the major highway. The town proper ended up being basically a place for the locals while the outskirts were where people just stopped by, so a lot more gas stations and mainstream businesses. It's basically like 2 towns.
That is primarily a curse of geography. The town grew because something made it grow:
the only narrow crossing of a river
A river or stream to supply a mill
A valley pocket
A vein of ore
Early railroads and canals that followed naturally flat river banks.
All through history as technology or construction changed (straighter rails, canals, new bigger bridges, straighter dirt and two lane roads), these places were skipped. It wasn't personal, it was just the straightening of the world.
Tunnels or cleared passes remove miles of snaking. The little towns just a mile off the straight line interstates would have likely been obliterated by the construction which took 30 years. They wouldn't be dead, they'd be gone completely.
Once finished, buzzing by at 75mph, nobody has time to even see that quaint diner on Main Street two miles from the offramp, so they wouldn't have even benefitted from interstate frontage 20 yards off the setback.
Those town saw a tawdry Californization heyday around WW2 to 1970, but that too was just an accident of geography.
This is why highway robbery is never a sustainable option for small towns. These towns grew simply because of making it impossible to traverse quickly and to get over on your fellow traveller.
You could have mentioned the US highway system that was commissioned in the 1920’s, which still exists today, that provided a national system of non-limited access highways (e.g., US 1 in the east to US 101 in the west).
Let’s not forget Route 66.
And how so much of it was either replaced with interstate highways (US-66, US-16) or has been upgraded to interstate standards.
101 wasn't grade separated until the 1950s. The early highways were surface roads that had plenty of intersections. You could even find stop signs!
Yes. Some of these highways ran coast to coast. Like the later Interstate Highway system, these were 2-digit highways that ended in 0. And most that ended in 1 would run either border to border in the West (also US 99), or gulf to border in the East.
But the Interstate Highway System did not take its numbering system from the US system or even adapt its numbering system as Mexico did (Mexican tollways have numbers such as 15D and 40D, reflecting the federal highways that they supplant as through routes. I could imagine US 66 having "US 66 I" closeby, but what would one do with the necessary freeway that became I-75 from the UP of Michigan to Greater Miami? It follows what were or are US 2, US 27, Michigan 76, US 23, US 10, US 25, US 25W, US 11, US 41, Florida 84, and US 27 again..
I would love an America which has both great roads and track infrastructure.
The South and West would be a lot less developed and the Rust Belt would not have declined as much.
rust belt is doomed no matters what， no interstates means even less cars
@@babani8418 They produced more than just cars. Tons of steel and raw mineral exports. Only city that it would not necessarily hurt but stop from being as populated is Detroit.
@@babani8418 lol. The rust belt is not remotely doomed. It has the most water and the best soil and is best protected from the coming effects of climate change.Give it time and watch all you superior people from the parched west and southwest and coastal cities come running to the rust belt and ruining those places
@@Fireneedsair im from iowa btw😂
@@babani8418 well Illinois here. You are wrong..only folks stuck in the past refer to it by rust belt.lets call it the abundant freshwater and good soil belt if we want to be honest
this just got recommended to me very randomly - you might be getting an algorithm blessing :)
Same
Same
Same
same bruh
Yup, the bias highlighting how bad certain demographics were affected ensures blessing by the almighty algorithm
Freeways actually gave rise to the central business district idea in American downtowns. People often think skyscrapers are a sign of a healthy urban environment, but it’s actually not. Unlike New York skyscrapers, most skyscrapers in America are supported by suburban commuters, and it makes the street level anti pedestrian because most skyscrapers are sitting on top of massive bunkers of parking garages. Instead of having dozens of small retail spaces for businesses, the skyscraper provides a massive parking garage bunker at the street.
Chicago Loop area existed before the freeways and had skyscrapers before New York did I'm sure other cities had central areas too. And without the Freeways there would be far less suburban development centered around cars so Skyscrapers would correspondingly less car centered.
If the interstate never existed, we would probably have a national High Speed Rail network by now.
No, you'd always have highways before rail
@@gui18bifnope rails were here B4 interstates.
Nope highways
@@somebodysthrowaway we had trails seaports Sea routes and railroad before the interstates so know what you're talking about boy.
@@sitdowndogbreath The other reason for the building of highways was because after the war there was a great rise in automobile sales and ownership. You think those people would have parked their "new" cars and took the "train"?
I’m going to assume a better public transportation network and high speed rail being a thing
I’ll comment to improve this excellent videos algorithm blessing, but I also wanna say that you could add one thing which is a significant feature on the inter estate: trucking;
Without the interstate trucking wouldn’t be as prominent as it is today, with railroads still having the supreme preeminence that they did in the late 1800s and early 1900s for moving goods around, this would have huge ramifications for people though. It is likely that Amtrak would never have been created as the railroads continued their work due to retaining profitability without losing freight to trucks on longer routes, and there may be many private railroad companies still operating high speed and glamorous rail transport. This would likely save a significant amount of road damage, car accidents and pollution from being made
True but coal the mother of all commodities was also in decline as both industry and home heating market were moving to natural gas and oil. But you are correct, inter-city truckers used publicly funded highways and railroads paid taxes on everything from stations to railways etc. Same goods movement but different costs as one was socialized and one was private.
@@jamescrane4050 at least in my country where most railways are owned by the government, access charges of $9/tonne km are levied on the freight railways whereas trucks only need to pay a yearly registration fee, despite causing huge road damage which is quite frankly unacceptable to me that we manipulate the freight market in such a way, especially when there are signifcantly more positive externalities with rail freight compared to road freight (eg better for the enviornment, more efficient) and road freight causes congestion, fatal car accidents, whereas rail freight accidents aren't very common.
Frankly passenger trains were failing long before the interstates were built. The day the USPS chose to fly and truck the mail, that was the day passenger trains died. No longer do passenger trains have on their consists a dozen or more mail cars...
Not only did AAA advocated for interstates, so did the Teamsters... Without interstates it would take twice as long to drive across America slowing through cities and towns, stopping at lights, etc. I recall driving through America before the interstates, you would do good averaging 40 miles in an hour, instead of the present 70+ miles in an hour... Maybe America should have bypassed and circled large cities instead of running the interstates through the cities like interstates bypassed small towns, and had built better rail transit systems in the cities... But without any doubt interstates overall are positive throughout rural America...
@@sniper.93c14 trucking is way more efficient if you take into account the amount of clients. Maybe in sheer load amount rail could compete due to shipment-heavy industries locating themselves close to railways and building tracks for the last hundred meters or even kilometers. But don’t think that trains dont kill people, especially the more trains the more deaths, just like with trucks. Considering all criteria though, trucking clearly allows more even development across the whole country and the roads they use serve literally millions of different passenger car route combinations, while trains would serve way less options to passengers, except in city to city situations.
Good video. I would be interested in hearing from an economist on how the economy of a non-interstate America would have developed, and if they think it would be better or worse.
As a retired truck driver, I can tell you it would have had a massive influence on the economy. A semi can get coast to coast in less than a week. The first commercial over the road delivery was a load of tires from Akron OH to NYNY. It took a month to make the trip. Today you can make the trip in a little over a day. I'm disappointed that this video was another social justice rehash on the evils of roads rather than an even handed approach on the benefits and drawbacks of the interstate road system.
@@mlneale1959 there are definitely the obvious benefits of the interstate and there's no doubt about how useful it is but there was no need to have interstates go straight through cities. Even Eisenhower himself didn't expect planners to put the highways going through cities. Not only does this negatively affect truckers by needing to go through the most congested parts of a city that it might not even be stopping in, it also hurts the city with the noise, the traffic, the pollution, and the giant obstacle that's literally splitting your city like a wall.
@@mlneale1959 > I can tell you it would have had a massive influence on the economy
I agree, he completely missed the point on how the Interstate Highways affected the flow of commerce and changed how goods moved to and from the cities to the point of actually causing the bankruptcy of many railroads in the North East by providing a more efficient, cost-effective, and timely method of moving goods by truck. This, in turn, caused the economic decline of many older textile-based cities, as factories moved to cheaper land in the mid-west and the northeast then got the nickname "The Rust Belt".
From what I understand, it was clearly for the better, especially for small towns that weren’t located next to the coast or navigable rivers
@@mlneale1959 Fully agree. The narrator has clearly never been to a non-western country that lacks interstates. like Vietnam
This is really interesting, I live in the city of Glasgow, Scotland and it was the first and last British city that ran a motorway through the centre of the city. Nowhere else did it for very good reason! It was part of the cultural vandalism that took place here in 50s and 60s.
One thing he didn’t mention, is that since the inters highway was built people who have been stopping at family restaurants in smaller towns didn’t stop at them anymore nor gas stations or small motor hotels but just stopped at the chain restaurants that were on limited access roads to the highway so they could get an easy off faster on the highway which is normal. But some small towns went broke or the restaurants and gas stations in small towns since people didn’t drive through them as much anymore
So interstate highways indirectly put the mom and pop restaurants out of business , unique restaurants in general and now we’re just have mostly to see chain restaurants.
Basically Radiator Springs in Cars
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 Although many survived as franchises of nationwide chains. The wise mom and pops moved out to the interstate bypass as well...
You fail to mention that the interstate highways program was a result of the Cold War mentality that gripped the U.S. during the 1950's. The need to evacuate cities in case of a nuclear attack by Russia was one reason for the program, as well as enabling military forces to be able to move from state to state as quickly as possible. Plus, for every three or four miles of interstate highways that were constructed, one mile had to be completely straight to be used for emergency landings by military aircraft should the need arise.
It is at least alluded to with how inefficient moving military units were across the country in the video. Building the interstate highway system was a way to move them faster and was partly inspired by the autobahn. But it's kind of ironic how at this point, I'm more likely to still be stuck in LA traffic on the highway if a nuke comes down before I could get out haha
The HWY may have been built with evacuation in mind but I don't think that will work today.
@@tedwalker1370 nope haha I dont think they knew what it would look like if half a million cars tried to exit a city at the same time. Theoretically highways going out of the city should be rolling at the minimum since not so many cars would be exiting, causing back ups. The only problem would be filtering in the thousands and thousands of cars joining. Any highway or road, being used as a funnel to an out-of-city highway would be total chaos. I wonder if something can be done by local authorities to soften the congestion, for example closing districts and opening one after the other. Similar to what they would have to organise for train or plane evacuations with multiple queues alternating.
@What If Geography look into it? What if a large city had to evacuate all of its population as fast as possible. I assume theres been some or at least some close scenarios (hurricanes and such).
True, though the last sentence is a myth.
I'd rather have European style cities with public transportation rather than being forced to spend thousands of dollars on cars all the time.
This will be one of the biggest geography channel, nice video mate
i found the guys who is always in my youtube shorts feed
Before the interstate system was established in 1956, many states (primarily in the north and east) built their own limited access toll highways. That likely would have continued without the interstate system. What are now I-90 and part of I-70 (west of New Stanton) in PA were originally designed as extensions on the PA Turnpike. Ohio had plans for a second turnpike from Cincinnati to Conneaut (roughly the route of today's interstates 71, 271 and 90 east of Cleveland). Michigan also had plans for its own turnpike that would have been roughly along the route of I-75 and I-275 in southeast Michigan. Most of the toll highways, however, skirted rather than went through major cities.
- What if the US never build the interstate highway?
- That means the US would have the world's largest high-speed rail system.
That's bullshit. Both system can coexist and bring convenience and prosperity to every citizen. Japan, together with the Shinkansen has an extensive highway network, so does China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and more.
@@markoandy7421 the difference is that those governments didn’t sell out to General Motors and other car companies nearly as much as America did, which its effects last to this day
Great, nuanced video! You certainly deserve more subs. Two things, however. 1) Pre-interstate act, out "suburbs" looked very different from our current defintion of them. They were typicaly more dense & walkable, and often even had decent transit connections (usually bus). So most of these winding mcmansion suburbs would likely bot have existed at such a scale, especially outside of the south. Without any major highway system for most cities, the limits of suburbanization would likely have been reached sooner, prompting a resurgence of upzoning and improved public transit sooner that we wouldve seen in our own timeline. 2) at 7:16 this is my hometown of Milwaukee - bot far from where I used to live. Its a small & dense city with good (by american standards) transit so car-induced smog has never been an issue here. That video is likely either special effects or regular fog.
The picture claiming to be smog appears to be taken from approximately 300 feet above ground in the morning fog. I don't think the creator is old enough to know what smog looks like.
@@hewhohasnoidentity4377 Right. Its not much an issue anymore in western cities, unless they're really large and/or have mountains. That being said, invisible air pollution is still disastrous in any city if you live close wnough to a highway, so we till needa tear a lot of them down.
Roads traditionally divided economic zones too. I lived in a small suburb where living north of the main road was cheaper than living south of it. No Highway involved; just more industrial and commercial in the north and more parkland in the south.
Then high speed rail could’ve been a game changer back then.
Every time Democrats try to build it, Republicans stop them.
There were plenty of passenger rail lines that went 100+ MPH back in the early fifties; as the highways filled in the railroads shut down and slowed down their trains until the establishment of Amtrak in 1971.
Glad I found your channel! I love geography, and it seems like you know what you're talking about. Nice job 💯👍
Thank you! Geography is a wonderful subject to explore and I'm excited to share my passion for it!
The Canada Highways Act was passed in 1919 around the same period as the landmark 1916 US Federal Aid Road Act. So long story short, the answer to the video's primary question is to look at the history of the Canadian Provincial Highway System as it provides the best alternative model approach in North America. Would highways still have been constructed? Yes and some were already being built before the 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highway Act: PA Turnpike 5/31/37, NJ Turnpike 4/14/49, NY Thruway 6/24/54. But the overall system construction would have been at a much slower pace and most likely much slower in remote areas where local/state demand would not support it. Also Auxiliary 3 Numbered Highways would most likely be fewer system-wide and Washington politicians highway projects would have been far less. The US system would also have some more variants but not as wide some might figure - as both design, build, and construction costs would over time provide better cost comps and limit costly variants to a given range. Would highways have still cut through the center of cities - yes. Why? Due to the fact that businesses, major industries, and local/regional/state politicians thought at the time that a true by-pass of the city, could kill off a given city's downtowns business districts as businesses migrated to areas with more accessible highway exits. I think the racial aspect was a component and contributed to some routes choices as these were coupled with the then fashionable "slum removal" and replacement public housing approach - however the decision to route traffic through cities was not always or solely based on racial or class issues but was viewed by some at the time as a way to revitalize the city as access increased - a benefit for all. But in fact, it did the opposite and sped mitigation to cheaper property outside the city and made matters worse for city residents. I would like to see a US vs Canada highway video in the next segment.
Canada's joke of a national highway, the Trans Canada is both dangerous and poorly maintained. Through large sections like northwestern Ontario it is merely a winding two lane road. When gasoline tax was introduced in Canada it was meant to be a way to pay for roads, a toll. But like most things government in Canada most of the revenue was diverted to general revenue. Good roads unite good countries and allow free people to freely move about.
At the time in the 1950s and 1960s, most of the warehouses and factories were located near the downtowns of most cities and towns. Only after the interstates were built circling the cities did the warehouses and factories build near the new interstates circling large cites and bypasses of small towns... The truckers desired better highways to service these warehouses and factories whether near the downtowns or on the outskirts of a city...
@@theschiznit8777 Frankly the last paved mile of the Trans Canada Highway wasn't paved and built along Lake Superior in Ontario until the mid 1960s... People today think paved highways were always a thing...
Wait just minute. Don't you realize this is the YT comments section? No well thought out, informed, clearly expressed and grammatically correct comments are permitted.
If the Interstate Highway System had not been built, travel for Black Americans would still be a very dangerous endeavor. While it is true that the IHS obliterated a lot of thriving Black communities, it did allow for the bypassing of numerous "sundown towns" that existed along the US and state trunklines.
That's actually a very good point. It's rare to see someone mention this.
I heard an interesting fact about the Interstate Hwy system years ago. They said that every fifth mile had to be straight as an arrow. That way you'd have alternate landing strips for aircraft all over the country. Of course that idea was when all planes still had propellers, even the military's. A mile long runway is short by today's commercial standards. But although impractical, I also heard that this concept helped get congressional approval since the idea of killing two birds with one stone was very appealing.
Well done!! Your script and your voice are upbeat and confident. The video is information dense, yet doesn't get bogged down in trivialities. The counterfactual history you give is well-reasoned and persuasive. (And correct.) You've got 510 subscribers now,. but with more content like this (and the algorithm providing visibility of your channel), you'll be climbing high.
That was already a lot to fit in a short video, but I was wondering what long distance transportation of both goods and people would look like. It's obvious from their design that the interstates were built to accommodate short-distance traffic as well as long-distance; you covered the former well, but the latter was missing.
Well, there would still be national highways for long distance travel, however not as connected to the downtowns. Besides that, because of good intracity public transit and higher densities - effects as mentioned in this video -, intercity rail services wouldn't have seen the downfall they saw after WW2. Instead I'd believe they would've become serious competitors to plane travel. That would be because trainstations are located in city-centers, which works incredibly well in combination with good public transit and high density. Cars would take too long and the convenience of the door-to-door option would be limited, since the ''last-mile problem'' is limited when having good local public transit. Planes would be faster, but ultimately more expensive, less comfortable and less convenient than trains, since air ports are a long way from the actual urban areas (which also add travel time) and sitting in an airplane is less relaxed than in a train.
@@stereotype.6377 You pose some interesting alternative theories. But here are three key factors to consider as well. By 1941, it was clear that as car prices came down, gas stations networks were built out, and the good roads movement took hold - more people used cars for not only daily trips but long-distance as well. WW2 put a stop to this trend temporarily as car production decreased, gas increased, and the USA went on a war footing. Basically, WW2 temporarily halted the decline in passenger numbers that started to appear at the end of the 1920s-1930s and reversed the flow until the end of the war. The NY Central and others also tried everything from new streamliners to diesel and other service improvements to get people back on trains but no dice. Also during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s more Greyhound Intercity Service grew taking a bite out of the value customer segment. Furthermore, also consider that in 1946 the federal government passed the Federal Airport Act and provided money for airport construction and that aircraft innovations followed that increased plane capacity and which also drained high & mid-level passengers away from railroads during these years. You could also add in the movement away from coal toward diesel, natural gas, and oil for further undermining the railroads financial backbone. All these forces were pulling on the privately owned & taxed railroads. What is clear is that the Federal Airport Act, IHS, aircraft & energy innovations speed-up generational trends and greatly accelerated railroads slide into bankruptcy. I think that if federal spending had been more limited or restrained, the railroads would have had some more breathing room but they had a whole host of crippling issues thrown at them due in part to federal action. In essence, the federal intervention into what had largely been a state issue like transportation has been complex, transformative, and in many ways destructive in hindsight.
We would have a lot of HSR lines just as many Interstates we have in this country. Have an Extensive Transit systems in every city. We would’ve been like Europe & Japan but better.
I suspect that the interstate system, like freeway systems in all industrialized countries, was built with the efficient transportation of freight in mind as much as the transportation of people.
It was built for the military.
My masters thesis was about the impact of freeways on urban neighborhoods. Thanks !
Your points beginning at 4:00 was my masters focus in geography
Then trains and plane usage would be much bigger today to get products shipped cross country.
Trains are already the backbone of US shipping. It would just mean that there'd be no option for affordable, medium speed shipping.
Passenger train would have been better than it was since art deco
I don't think the Interstate highway system should have never been built, but built a bit smarter. It is essential for the movement of commerce and goods today. It has been a change for the best in that way. The US highway system was not capable of handling today's traffic. Where they had the problem was routing them through the cities. They would have been better off bypassing the cities with ring roads rather than cutting through them, and using arterial roads through the cities, and public transit.
If you build out a smart system were goods and people get around primary by rail there isnt much need for big divided highways in the first place.
So a lot of today highways could just be normal roads
Pretty good video. Yeah, I often want the connector (I75 I85) in Atlanta to be put underground or removed to reclaim the land. The highway divides the city in half.
it’s disgusting how planners wanted highways to cut through urban centers just to get drivers there faster
It would have to be put underground. Just removing it would be a nightmare.
@@blitzir I don't find anything disgusting about it at all.
@@DTD110865 You may not but I do. Freeway construction displaced and split communities (specifically those who where poorer or not affluent and white). Freeways in cities like that increase noise, traffic, and contribute to pollution in those areas.
@@blitzir And you think there isn't noise and pollution on surface streets? You think railroads don't divide neighborhoods? Did you ever think that if more of the freeways in Atlanta that we're supposed to have been built had been built there wouldn't be n overlap of I-75 and I-85?
Great video. To add, I read that the IHS idea actually was birthed during the mid 1940s while Eisenhower was still Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. Once stateside, he was all in. His election in 1952 really got it going, resulting in his signature on the appropriations bill in '56. The idea was not as simple as the Pentagon, literally drawn up on a paper napkin.
Yeah Vancouver BC does not have a “interstate” going through downtown so it has great rail transit system instead. It can take a long time to get into downtown during rush hour. Manu cities in the world don’t have a direct highway into the city either. I do wish we had more rail transit system in the USA than what we have now. I wouldn’t depend on the car too much. :)
There was once a thing called a intermodal railway... One of the first federal anti-trust breakups was a intermodal railway company...
It would be kind of nice if we could have all those street cars and interurbans and inner-city trains and all those bus routes that we had back in the day. I think that'd be kind of neat.
Looking at Washington, DC and Madrid (I studied in Madrid the first half of the year, but both are capitals so it makes sense) from the air it really makes sense. For the few times I was on Spain's highways (notable to historical sites outside of the city). The radial routes often just terminate at various beltways (with M30 being the closest in with the loop line of Metro, Line 6 being a few yards further in. If it were like the US, the A-2 and A-6 would be a single road bisecting from Ciudad Univrsitaria and paralleling Line 7 to Avda de America. Excluding DC's red line, I think if you altered Madrid's line 6 to fit DC (interestingly, the stations for the universities would be roughly in the same location, Georgetown is probably closer to Principio than Moncloa). Ignoring Metro Sur and the 7/10/TFM branches (but including the Line 3 El Cesar extension). The original borders of DC and Madrid's Core/A-Zone (although 2 stops on Line 10 and the Southern Termini of Line 11 and 3 are in B1)-and that includes its only airport with two stations, with a town in the middle. DC does want to build a Loop line and I think they will look a lot alike...in each metro's respective style
Thanks for the great point about rail and mass transit!
In Tucson we have a Bikeway system called the Huckleberry Loop that loops around the whole city, but the reason it's so stretched is because planners needed to find a way to get it through I-10 on each side of the city. They had no choice but to have the bikeway go all the way out there like Cape Horn before the opening of the Panama Canal to go under some Interstate bridges. Interstates in cities are just annoying.
Wow, I did not expect to meet another Tucsonan in the comments section. I agree, I share a disdain for Interstates that bulldoze through cities. I'm thankful the I-10 doesn't bulldoze entirely through Tucson like Houston's. As far as I am aware, Tucson is the only place that has a Bike Loop. It is a nice change of scenery in a city full of Car-Dependent infrastructure, but cycling anywhere besides the loop sucks. Are you part of Tucson's cycling community? Would love to meet up if you're open to it.
@@mrbeandip2356 Most of the Tucson bike loop is boring, flat and often ugly. lts big plus is that while on it you're not likely to become memorialized by one of those all too frequent ghost bikes, like the one on West lna or Orange Grove.
The interstate highway system spawned the greatest misallication of resources in our country's history. It created the building of vast suburbs that literally cannot function without everyone over 18 owning an automobile
I hate the suburbs. They are filled with the worst humanoid scum to ever live (read as entitled idiots who know nothing, i.e. Karen). But, we need those highways. I like the highways.
It utterly destroys the walkability and bike-ability of the large cities as well. It's basically like having a barrier between neighborhoods that is only passable at a select few points.(overpasses or underpasses)
Insane crime, shitty schools and municipal services drove people out of the cities. There's no point in having a subway if people use it to do heroin and as a homeless shelter
I think the commissioners were thinking more people would use them to go between cities instead of go from suburbs to city
Wrong, it allowed people to drive freely without being forced to hop on a train or bus, not being able to stop to watch nature and depart again and many many other things. The interstate highway was a blessing, while Europe and Asia fell back in the past with those inconvenient and useless trains and buses.
The term smog was common long before the Eighties and Nineties.
Yup it was used in LA IN THE 40’s
And London in 1952 & 1962 .
A complicated issue is how much the Cold War affected the development of highways. Undoubtedly it was the primary reason for much or most of the development of the system. And that system was good and bad. On the bad side, it's poor planning was catastrophic for some urban centers like my hometown of Boston, where one of the most historic pieces of America was sliced and diced to death by masses of concrete. Pretty grim
Nice video. I can't imagine a more devastating misstep in human ecology than the urban highway. The thinking was so short-sighted and classist that it borders on psychotic. Those people don't deserve an anonymous legacy.
It’s fine to have highways. But if it’s the main source of transport, it’s a problem.
Unfortunately the cities failed to build proper rail transit systems... Don't blame the federal government for the failure of local governments...
@@ronclark9724 Well the federal government would only give cities money if they built highways. So they were kinda forced to.
What a bizarre comment. Efficient transport helps the environment, not harms it.
you must be from a place VERY car dependent
If it weren't for the US interstate highway system, the primary highway system would be the US Numbered Highway System (i.e. US Routes or US Highways), and that system would have a variety of highway standards, from fully limited access and divided freeways all the way down to two-lane roads. (Even as it is, it's kind of the case, just that the fully limited access highways are mostly covered by the interstates.) Such is very much the case in many other countries, both developed and less developed.
good. We could have had so many good railway.
So you're saying the country would be better today if we had no interstate highway system, I tend to agree.
Great video! I think your conclusion explains why I find Europe much more appealing than North America.
Exactly. lt's more "civilized," in the best sense of the word.
Our train system would be a lot better ...
@@Bobspineable True. @Empire State needs to respect our roads. I certainly do.
Great video. I personally feel blessed to have been born and raised in NYC the most walkable city in the us and I'm thankful for ppl who've protested the construction of highways through the heart of any city. Too bad the auto industry got the majority of us cities. But videos like these and mindsets changing we can probably see cars becoming less predominant in us culture
Small towns would have more business. The then existing passenger rail system would probably still be around. Manufacturing would have remained more decentralized as truck transportation on a cross country basis would be more difficult and costly.
When the USPS chose to fly and truck the mail, the days of passenger trains died quickly.... Even UPS and FedEx choose to fly and truck... No longer are there a dozen or more mail cars on a passenger trains consists...
I believe we would have high speed rail by now.
Just got this recommended 🙂
Me too, and glad I clicked to watch.
Thank you so much! I'm stoked you enjoyed the video!
As non-American, i say this could even affect much of the entire world. During the Cold War many countries looked forward to American style development. Had the US never built the interstate, the same most likely would happen in many other developing countries.
As a white man who now lives in Charleston, it is totally visible and it's sad. You can see I26 split the peninsula in half. But the other half is on the up and up.
Just look at Canada for how non formalized the US Highway system would be
the mountains of horse poo would cover most of every state in the union
the only thing interstate did wrong was building roads thru downtowns. Other than that it's great system of transportation
Ike wanted them to bypass the cities, but as there was no money available for transit, urban politicians wanted a piece of the action and got urban highways like I-78 and I-280 in New Jersey built. Those highways turned Newark into a wasteland.
Route 20 ... the King of Roads !
Which one, US 20 or I-20?
@@stevenmaginnis1965 I believe they were referring to US 20.
It would be crazy and
Small backroads would be packed trying to get to different destinations
No interstates means every road in the country will be like RT 30 in eastern PA or RT 1 around Washington DC.
I am impressed that you include Moscow as part of the United States Highway system?
😂😂😂😂
Connecting the QMT to the Lincoln tunnel would be a sick idea. Especially for Long Islanders trying to escape New York.
So basically I gather that life would've been better for everyone.
At 3:36 , I wouldn't consider that "normal street". That looks like a city street catering to cars and not the residents that live nearby. But I understand your point.
After hearing all this…I’m so thankful we have the interstate system today.
If the interstate highway system never existed, then we’d probably still use the federal highways system of 1926 which still exist today.
I think eventually there would be upgraded US route #’s to freeways.
I'm not sure much would've changed, as the country's roadways were going to need a massive overhaul at some point anyway. Regardless of the prevalence of rail, highways of some type were coming across the world. Think about Europe where public transit is a lot better & railways are used often for public transport, large roadways were still growing as the freight & shipping industries steadily moved towards trucks as the primary tool for hauling.
Despite the use of rail, shipping by truck has increased dramatically over Europe, even with projects intended to curb & deter that from happening. In Germany, 71% of freight is shipped by truck, while only 18% is done by rail. France is even worse, with rail declining each year until now only 8% is by rail & 86% by truck. In the US, only 36% is shipped by truck compared to 28% by rail... and considering the massive amount of goods being shipped overall, that's a HUGE amount dedicated towards rail freight.
Point being large highways of some kind were coming one way or another everywhere.
Not disagreeing but I’m skeptical of plain stats about modes like that. Does X% by truck mean X% goes by truck at some point in the journey or does Y% by rail mean it only traveled by rail at all?
The US is huge and as you increase trip lengths the number falls by the log. The longer the trip or the heavier your cargo the more you can justify rail and barge. Naturally for a country like Germany a larger proportion of end to end truck trips can cross the entire country without any need for rail. But even then Germany has incredible canal and rail freight access.
The US should still be really proud of its freight network though and that it didn’t treat it’s freight like passenger networks.
The economic boom following WWII would not have come about, because--while not formally stated as such--
The interstate highway system permits 'just in time," goods production, that is, the Smithville Ohio Welding Shop can weld-up three farm combines a day, and these could have been then put on trucks and sent immediatey to the Orrville Ohio Tractor Factory, five miles away.
Under a freight rail system, Smithville would have to build large warehouses, and store up enough combines to be carried by five flatcars.
Railroads do not like to haul less than ten cars at a time between one point and another.
It is wasteful in many ways.
Orrville would have to build warehouses to store combines for orderly finishing work.
All of this costs money and takes up space.
In the period from roughly 1900 to 1970 there actually were large numbers of warehouses built in the United States because the railroad system was inadequate in carrying all the goods made.
This problem was very common in the post WWII era to the point where Fortune magazine ran several articles on the hidden costs.
It was a major reason as to why a number of firms left big cities.
What then happened is that city officials would bother other manufacturers around the country about the "old Wlson Worsted Mills Complex," only to be told that no one would take the mills, even if offered free, because the railroad access was poor.
Then, there also is the fact that people have the right to live out in the country in single-family houses.
Country life is less stressful than city life.
And, in the 1950s the large cities had far worse air quality than they do, today.
As a boy, I could walk across the Detroit Superior Bridge in Cleveland, stand in the middle, and not be able to see either end of the bridge, due to the air pollution.
Further, if you look at home movies made in Cleveland back in the period of 1915 to 1960, and compare the scenes to modern videos of the same locations, today, you become impressed by the fact that house lots back then had two or three houses where one house sits today, a lot of today's lots are empty, and a more careful examination indicates that the bulk of housing had two large families per floor, and that there were two floors per house, with more people in finished attics.
In WWII there was a special census in Cleveland to examine such issues so as to avoid a repeat of the Detroit race riots over housing for war workers.
Cleveland had about 950,000 people in the 1940 and 1950 censuses, but 1,250,000 in 1943.
Another point: Juvenile delinquency was very serious in the big cities during the war years.
This came about because men were drafted, and mothers were working.
No one really watched over the kids.
The houses were lightly built, and had been neglected for decades.
They could not be easily rebuilt or replaced because the streets were lightly built and narrow, so delivery of lumber and bricks would have been costly.
Also, demolition debris removal would have been a problem.
So, they were not replaced.
Eventually, in Cleveland, the city cleared off 1,000 acres of urban prarie, rich in trees, few in houses, and has used a boulevard to open access to the University Circle area of Cleveland for access by suburbanites.
The bulk of the 1,000 acres seems to be reserved for speculative deployment of high-end chip-making factories, and medical production plants.
The inputs and oiutputs of such plants cannot be realistically restricted to rail carriage.
if this never happened we would've had high speed rail, & great Intercity, Regional & rapid transit, We would have beautiful walkable cites. We could've been better than Europe if it wasn't for highways tearing through our cites. We would have HSR all over the country. & if y'all the US without highways is bad look at Europe they have highways but most of the people don't use them because most of them have HSR. & Our intercity, Long Distance & High speed rail would've been the interstate railway system.
Just got back to the us from Amsterdam, and every massive parking lot I see makes me sad
So moral of the story, highways seemed good, but they had nasty consequences and if they hadn’t been built we’d probably be better off
3:56 that right there at the bottom of the screen is where I-30 and I-35 East merge. It is a nightmare to get through.
Great video! Nice to see a stretch of highway I take every day in the first 10 seconds of the video! Hwy 417 through Ottawa, ON eastbound.
Also the cars themselves may look vastly different as the cars back in the late Fifties were actually designed for the new interstate highways. The popularity of today's SUV's may have occurred thirty years sooner.
Maybe more animations less face cam? Or maybe all animation with a side cam
I am sad that we have a freeway, because ironically, it makes life expensive.
Things would be local, which is better pf course.
A lot of the existing passenger railroad companies at the time would probably still be around too, negating the need for Amtrak.
Yet most cities were building their own freeway systems before the interstate highway system was founded.
The fact it took 30 years to get this done makes me both sad and hopeful
I live in a city in Virginia where we are blessed with no interstate highway.
Without interstates, it would have been without Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Roosevelt had a plan for the interstate system before Eisenhower.
@@highway2heaven91 But Ike got it passed...
"Smog" has been used at least since the 1960s if not before~
We just need a high speed rail system in conjunction with good public transportation to cover major and minor cities. No one will take it from NYC to LA. But people will take it from NYC to Philly. Someone in Philly will take it to Pittsburgh. Someone in Pitt will take it to Cleveland and so on. The interstate shouldn’t be used for commutes or inter city travel, just makes for too much traffic and trouble. People need subways and buses. Rural areas will always dependent on cars.
I drove cross country one time completely using the “blue highways” (William least heat moon “blue highways”) and it was a wonderful experience.if you are time crunched, the interstates are the best, but if you have time, I highly recommend the slow way.
Same here, in the late 80s. Sadly, much of the US is just plain ugly, not necessarily geographically, but in the architecture, industrial structures and the attitudes of the people. Whether and how it might be different or better without the interstates is difficult or impossible say with any assurance. One thing is certain, as the US currently exists, whatever their many, obvious negatives, interstate highways allow us to get through areas we don't like much more quickly and safely than would be possible otherwise. There are parts of the country where l prefer to keep my interaction with the residents and their "territory" to a minimum and interstates make that much easier.
@@frankmiller95 I look like the people in these smaller towns and I can find common ground with them
It's not hard. Dont know how the "attutudes" thing would even come up with the usual small talk when passing thru these places
@@Fireneedsair Really? To me, you look exactly like John Belushi. Seriously, my appearance provides the same "cover." lt's easy enough to carry on a friendly, casual and superficial conversation with the people l'm referring to, just keep it to guns, cars and sports, all of which l'm familiar with. My problem is with how most of these people seem to think.....and vote. That's what l cannot relate to.
@@frankmiller95 these stereotypical midwest ppl u refer to are everywhere. I lived in the western usa for 20 years. Believe me > know. I can relate to them because I understand them. I'm a student of psychology and neuroscience . I just feel bad so Many people cannot step back and see where their beliefs originate from and what purpose they serve. I do constantly.
Maybe Iowa is not vibrant but chicago sure is, as is pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cleveland, columbus and more. My vibrant means culture, energy, open minds ,all present in the midwest
@@Fireneedsair No doubt there are people you describe to be found almost anywhere in US. My problem is at my stage in life, l don't have the emotional time and energy necessary to find them.
the interstate was a direct response to the countries need for rapid response for military vehicles carrying air defense missiles of the era,that is also the reason that the minimum clearance for over passes was fourteen feet,the reason being that was the lowest they could transport the air defense weapons without damaging the fins that would guide the missiles after being launched defending the air space over cities.in boston Massachusetts,barry's ridge in was one such launch site.urban area's where grinding to a halt because of the transportation of cargo by trucks and the failure to modernize railroads for the transport of goods,also the advent of a large portion's city dweller's shifting from public transportation to private ownership of cars for commuting to work demanded the construction of interstate highways
Ok, the Light rail in Portland came decades after the cancling of the MT Hood Freeway so the impelying cause/correlation is worng and misleading
My first thought was that without interstate highways, traffic would be hell but at the same time cities all across the United States would be much more densely built.
much less urban sprawl
Probably not hell as way less people would be owning a car. The interstates flood cars into cities that can’t support all of them
You're about 20 years off on the use of the term "smog". It became common in the late 60's. By the 90's we were saying "air pollution".
I'm here after being gobsmacked by the differences in aerial images from 1947 and now of Minneapolis. Everything was clearly done by rail and so many homes, buildings, industries, apartments are just gone.
It has made me ask the question proposed in the title.
I have decades of driving experience, but I never drive on the highway. Not only do the high speed limits of highways scare me, but also there is a soul sucking, emptiness about them that upset me. I don't know how commuters handle such monotony every day.
Smog was common in 1960s and 1970s. (LA for example)
Great video. Once again I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers
I see the highways as as they where first called: Defense routes. In my mind, the highways are only for commercial, industrial, & military use. Also you left out some key details, see further comments for details.
I agree. We should've severely limited who could use the interstates.
One of the more interesting outcomes to think about would be that we'd likely would have had an interstate system of sorts - only mostly toll roads instead of the freeways we have today. I know that Pennsylvania had a systematic plan for toll roads that pretty much echoes the combined toll road and freeway system within the state today, plus Ohio and Indiana had plans to toll roads going north-south, connecting major urban areas (Louisville-Indianapolis-Chicago for Indiana, Cincinnati-Columbus-Cleveland(-Erie) with a spur from Columbus to Toledo for Ohio).
My guess is that there would have been plenty of toll roads built east of the Mississippi (though likely not as dense a system as the Interstate system eventually became), fewer toll roads west of it with certain states building anyway (Oklahoma had success with the Will Rogers and Turner Turnpikes, would have likely built out 35 and further built out 44 had the Federal-Aid Highways Act of 1956 not passed.) The long interstates out west would likely never had been built, since much of that was with a focus on national traffic. Also, each state would have built out their Toll Roads first and THEN connected to each other's roads - fewer intentionally cooperative efforts as the Indiana/Ohio/Pennsylvania Toll Road system (and Kansas-Oklahoma, as I-35 was originally going to be tolled in Oklahoma) and, more connections developed as the systems knitted themselves together.
I remember a two lane dirt road through Glenwood Colorado. Now it is much nicer
One can dream. But unfortunately when we awake it’s to a car dependent nightmare.
Love the way you use a 125 in Devon UK for a video on Interstates in US
What part is that?
@@stevenmaginnis1965 Dawlish area
The interstate highway system was built to move people and goods as fast as possible (shows congestion)
I humbly submit the train as the most efficient way of moving people and cargo
Simple: people would actually have to remember that "flyover country" exists, as it would not be so flyover.
On the flipside, more people would probably die in hurricanes due to evacuations being made more difficult.