Highways: Economic Boost, Cultural Bust

The Interstate Highway system, the seeds of which were planted in 1944, blossomed in 1956 with the passage of the Federal Highway Act. The bill was lobbied for heavily by a coalition of vehicle, oil, tire, cement, steel, and union interests and ironically, given its carbon footprint, championed by the elder Senator Albert Gore (Lewis 1997). This national system included over 46,000 miles of limited access highway - the largest and most expensive public works project ever undertaken (Kunstler 1993; Kaszynski 2000). The construction process was greatly expedited by the use of standardized designs and advance condemnation of properties along the Interstate right of way (Rose 1979; Kaszynski 2000). Although states participated in the construction of these roads, coordination, oversight, and funding were largely Federal (Vale and Vale 1983). The first sections of the Interstate Highway system were opened less than a year after the bill's passage. The target date for finishing the system was 1969 (Kaszynski 2000) but it took a more than a decade longer before the entire Interstate Highway system was complete. In Vermont, Interstate Highway construction spanned four decades, the late '50s, '60s, '70s and early '80s.