How the US Interstate System Works

Wait! This is actually a good episode! It turns out that America’s 48,000 miles of superhighways – possibly the largest civil works project in the history of humanity – may have also ruined what made America a cool place.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, Stuff you should Know listeners, if you want to
come see s Live, You've only got a couple of
more cities this year that still have tickets, and that
is Orlando in New Orleans. Yeah, we'll be in Orlando
on October nine at the Plaza Live, and we'll be
in New Orleans at the Civic Theater the following night
October t and friends like Chuck said, you better go
get your tickets. Go to s Y s K live

(00:22):
dot com for info and ticket links and everything you
need to come see us. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles

(00:43):
w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and the three
of us are um going riding on the Freeway of
Love and a pink Cadillac. There's no looking back. Jack.
Who is that Aretha? Yes? A good song for later
stuff for sure. That and then knew you were waiting
with George Mike Leving. Come on, yeah, I mean it

(01:06):
doesn't hold up to me for the against like the
stuff from the sixties and seventies. But you're like, it's
no Zeppelin. I'm just talking about Aretha's earlier work. I know,
I know what you mean. I felt like I would
have liked to have seen her sing with Zeppelin. That
would have been neat. Yeah, what what would have it? Songs?
She would have song? I don't know, But how about

(01:29):
a whole lot of love? A whole lot of love?
We'll go with that one. All right, We're getting in
to get to reanimating Aretha and John Bonham mm hmmm, alright, Chuck,
enough of this. It's high time that we got to
talking about the United States Highway Interstate system. Yeah. I

(01:54):
love this stuff, are you too? You know? I was like,
what is it about this that I do love? Because
I've been meaning to do this one for a really
long time. And I guess it's the fact that it's
a huge mass of public works. That's where it gets
civil engineering. We kind of have a thing for civil engineering,
don't we. I think so man like subways and bridges

(02:15):
and like all that stuff seems to delight both of us.
But then also the other thing I like about it
that really kind of came to the to the fore
through this research is the enormous impacts, both like good
and bad that this huge, massive, sweeping public work project
had on on America and still has today like just

(02:36):
completely restructured America inside and out. Yeah, and this also
makes me want to do a commission a piece on
the suburbs. Yes, dude, I think that's a great idea.
That's a that's a big one to unpack and commission
a piece. I'm glad you said that because this was uh,
this is based on an article written by the great

(02:58):
egg Grabanowski, the Grabster. That's right. So um, we should
probably say what we're talking about. If you've never been
to the United States, or if you've never been out
of your house and you live in the United States,
the America has um a really extensive system of roadways,

(03:22):
like really really fast, really well designed interstates. That's what
they're called. They're highways, their expressways, speedways, whatever you want
to call them. But they connect every major city in
the United States to every other major city in the
United States. You can get anywhere from anywhere, and there's
something like forty eight thousand plus miles of interstate just interstate,

(03:46):
not not highways, not by ways, not roads. I think
that comes to something like a hundred and fifty thousand miles,
but there's like forty eight thousand miles of just this
incredibly well engineered, well constructed, super fast UM road artery
system cardiovascular system for cars in the United States. Yeah,

(04:09):
it's kind of what looks like sometimes on a map.
For sure. It's like a central nervous system for the US.
So shall we go back in time a bit? Though?
I think we should, but we had to lay down
while we were talking about first in complete UM contrariness
to the standard s Y s K. Fan. That's right, Okay,
So let's go back in time, Chuck. So we're going

(04:30):
back to the beginning of the twentieth century here and
at the time roads in the United States, and we're
talking about, you know, roads outside of the major, major
urban centers. Uh, they had a little bit better roads,
but the rural roads were not good by any standard.
They were dirt roads. So when it rained, and we're

(04:50):
not even talking gravel roads, we mean literally dirt roads, um,
which seems like a catch all tern but a gravel
road is much much better than a dirt road because
I've lived on both. Oh fancy, man, you lived on
a gravel road. Yeah, growing up, had a gravel road
until I was like ten or eleven they paved it.
When did you live on a dirt road before they
put gravel down? Okay, so you looked on the same road,

(05:14):
but it was a dirt road once and then so
I think when they put the gravel down, that's called
an improved road. Yeah, I went from dirt to gravel
improved two paved, which I and I said this on
one episode, but I remember very distinctly they paved it
after my whole life going up that gravel road. It
felt like we were driving on putting. Oh. Yeah, it
was so smooth and weird and we felt so modern.

(05:37):
So so you grew up on a road back in
nineteen o six, chewing tobaccy and working in the mines,
Is that is that where you grew up? Uh? No,
it was the seventies. But it was just a dead
end road. It wasn't a big neighborhood, which talked about before.
I bet that was a pretty big difference in um
in in feeling. When you had it paved, it was

(05:59):
really weird. But rural roads at the early twenty century
were dirt and when it rained, it was terrible mud.
And then when that dried up. There were terrible ruts,
and it was not the biggest deal at the time
because cars were still pretty new and we're very much
for the rich. But the horse and buggy and the

(06:20):
horse drawn carriage did not enjoy these roads either. Sure No,
and then um, another mode of transportation, the bicycle, actually
created something called the better roads movement. Good roads, good
roads movement. I like mine better. Yeah, you got good,
but wouldn't we rather have better? Sure in the meeting,

(06:43):
let's think old timey folks. So um, the good roads
movement was was created by bicycle enthusiasts who said, like,
these you know, dirt track, muddy roads aren't gonna work
for bikes. And when people started using automobiles, especially like
you said, wealthy people, at first they were like, these
bike people are onto something. I'm a car guy, but

(07:04):
the same apply. So let's kind of adopt this good
road movement and we're gonna start agitating for better roads.
And those better roads are, like you said, just laying
down a layer of gravel was a vast improvement over
what they had before. Yeah, and there was also UM
legislation in for what's called rural free Delivery RFD. Mail

(07:26):
because at the time, if you lived in the country,
you went and picked up your mail, they didn't bring
it to you. It seems appropriate, and so in they
finally passed legislation that said, you know, we need to
get mail to people, and that was a big part
of improving the roads as well. They're never gonna find
out about Circuit City's newest sale if we don't get

(07:48):
them their mail out in the out in the rural sticks.
That's right. So, um, there are people agitating for road improvement,
but at the time it was it was kind of
take and on by the wealthy people who owned cars, um, industrialists,
philanthropist benefactors. This is all like within the first twenty

(08:08):
twenty years of the twentieth century, I think, um, where
clubs were formed where they said we're going to take
over responsibility for improving roads and just basically getting things
up to snuff so that um, you know, we can
drive our cars on these things. And I think they
did it fairly locally at first, but by the Lincoln

(08:30):
Highway was built, and that was the first transcontinental highway
that was basically built four cars. Yeah, I went from
Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.
And it didn't just carve it out of you know,
barren earth. That used a lot of the roads that
are already there, improved on those connected stuff together. Uh.

(08:52):
There was a dude named Carl G. Fisher. Did you
look into this guy. Yeah, he was an entrepreneur from Indiana,
real estate mogul and really big time auto slash auto
raceing enthusiasts who had a way of marketing and like
drumming up support for stuff like this. Yeah, he was.
He was big time into racing cars. But he had

(09:15):
like such severe stigmatism. He had like coke bottle glasses.
But he's still raced cars and um, he actually set
the record, the land speed automobile record. He made it
around a two mile. He made it around a track
two miles on a track in two minutes. Broke the record.
That's not a joke. That's adorable. It is. It's pretty cute,

(09:38):
isn't it. Yeah, he had he had the calm down.
He took five days for his nerves to you know
stabilize after that top speed. But he was the champion
of this highway, of the Lincoln Highway. Um, it became
famous for you know, kind of like Root six sixty six,
We did an episode on that, Um, Lincoln Highway was
notable for its famous roadside giants and attraction and things,

(10:00):
just like Root sixty six was yep, so then um,
but still there was this idea that that private groups
of auto enthusiasts were kind of the ones who are
responsible for taking care of roads or designating highways, that
kind of thing. And this group called the American Association
of State Highway Officials now it's the American Association of
State Highway and Transportation Officials. They sound like this very um,

(10:25):
legal important group, and they are, but they're not an
actual like government group. They're non government organization that basically
started and I think nineteen fourteen saying we're in charge
of saying what the best practices are for roads, what
roads should be made into highways, And they managed to
basically insinuate themselves in between the government and the highway

(10:49):
system and said, hey, these roads should be highways. Why
don't you go fund and improve these these roads right
here in the government said sure, we'll do that, and
that's kind of how we started to get our first
highway system. Yeah, so they were nineteen fourteen. Then two
years later the Federal Aid Road Act came along to
provide funding, and I guess future libertarians started to weep

(11:11):
because the public couldn't take care of their own roads anymore,
or maybe they were sad because it came clear that
the public taking care of its own roads was not
a workable solution for the future. So they had to
rely on the federal government to come in and they did.
And this this group, uh, as you said, now, the
A s h t O. Not only did they designate

(11:34):
highways and connect cities, but they said, you know, you
should get funds, this road should be improved. We need
to get a numbering system, we need to get signage
that makes sense. And we'll get to the numbering system.
But the basics of it are that highways are numbered
in reverse order from inner states, because what you don't
want is like those numbers to be too close to

(11:57):
one another, right, which is which I actually led to.
One of the corks of the US interstate system is
that there's actually no I fifty in the United States
because there's a US Highway fifty and they would be
in the exact same spot basically, and US Highway fifty
I looked into It's called the loneliest road in America

(12:19):
because it goes through some of the most desolate stretches
in the entire country. Doesn't look like a fun trip
to me. Where where does it go through? Um? The
flyover states basically the drive through states kind of yeah,
but it's like it goes I can't remember exactly where
it goes through, but from from what I was reading,

(12:39):
it's like there's huge long stretches between gas stations and
towns and stuff like that, far more than the average
even back road highway. Interesting. I'm wondering. I'm just trying
to think if I've been on it. I'll have to
look at the map I looked. I wondered if you,
me and I have been on it between Scottsdale in
Las Vegas, because I was like, man, we were death

(13:00):
really on desolate stretches. No, that was I think like
ninety three or something like that, or sixty maybe sixty.
It wasn't fifty though. Yeah. When I did my big
Outwest trips, I was definitely on some roads where I thought,
if I have car trouble, I'm you know, the buzzards
will be circling doomed. Yeah. Yeah, so the highway systems going,

(13:21):
not the interstate system yet. Yeah, that's a big, big
thing to remember. We're talking about two different things here, Yeah,
big deaf because these roads were still many, most of
them two lane roads, and they still had some you know,
dangerous curves, and they had stop lights, and they went
through little towns in big towns, and they were just
connected together at least that's right. So around this time, though,

(13:44):
is this highway system is is um coming along and improving.
They were just constantly adding to it and designating new
roads that were you know, traditional horse and buggy paths
to be improved into US highways. The autumn beal is
becoming more and more important. Is going from you know,
a luxury of the very rich to something that just

(14:07):
about every American was starting to depend on, especially people
who didn't live in the center of a city. So um,
as the car gets more important, the highways start to
get more and more important, and people started to say, look,
I think we might be able to do better than
what we have now. And that actually was the fire

(14:28):
that ignited the interstate system as we understand it today.
That sounds like a great time to stop. As I
was saying at Chuck, I was like, God, this is
such a great segue into a message. Yeah, we'll take
a little break and come back and talk about FDR
right after this. Well, now we're on the road, driving

(15:01):
in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two
from Josh Camp Chuck stuff you should know? All right?
All right, So highways are being built, they're being connected.
But uh, in N seven, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, here's

(15:24):
a plan. Uh to the Bureau Public Roads, it's seven
they're six super highways. And everyone went, what he's like,
these are going to connect our nation. And they had
all these reports done and that sort of formed the
basis of what would become our highway system. But we
couldn't afford to do this at the time. World War

(15:45):
two came along and everything just sort of was put
on hold, right um understandably so. But then afterward America
was like, man, we've got a lot of money. And
from what I've read, there was a concern that this
post war boom that had been generated by World War two,
because you know, one of the big knock on effects

(16:05):
of World War two, it pulled us right out of
the great depression and put us into a pretty great
um boom period. I think they were scared to death
that we were going to go back to a recession
or lose this boom. And so some people say that
one of the main reasons, one of the great unstated
reasons for why the federal government was suddenly so um

(16:28):
happy over the idea of spending billions and billions and
billions of dollars to create this interstate system was to
put significant numbers of people to work and just flood
the economy throughout the entire country with government money to
um just keep that post war boom going. And it
worked like an absolute charm. It still works. I mean,

(16:48):
that's still a stimulus package that's reliable is a lot
of times now it's improving stuff obviously, but you know,
that's what a lot of presidents turned to, like, let's
get people working on these roads that are falling apart. Yeah,
look at these slackers, Somebody give them some asphalt. So
Eisenhower is obviously most associated with the interstate system because

(17:12):
it was when he was in office and he pushed
for the Federal Aid Highway Act of nineteen fifty six,
which really kind of made everything legit um. For many reasons,
this was like a very necessary thing, not least of
which was for the military. We talked about, you know,
since World War One, we needed bigger roads, Like we

(17:33):
didn't have railroad capacity to take all the armaments and
all the things we needed and supplies, and then we
didn't have the highways that could do it either. So
in nineteen one, this guy named Thomas McDonald, he's ahead
of the Bureau of Public Roads. He and his staff
really drew up this this map, this proposed system of

(17:55):
seventy eight thousand miles. Handed it over to General John Pershing,
who presented it to Congress and said, we need these
for you know, this is critical for the military. Became
known as the Pershing Map, even though he just handed
it over to Congress. It should be the Thomas McDonald map. Sure,
but nobody knew who he was, and they would have
been like, get out of here, McDonald, you know, buddy,

(18:16):
probably General Pershing. They were like yes, sir, and like
clicked their heels together and started building things. So, but
that was back in the twenties. I think that the
Pershing map was handed over right, but it was apparently
such a good map. The pershing slash McDonald map. That's
what we're gonna read, Christen it okay, Yeah, And it
was pretty I mean they drew it up in a
way that made sense. But it wasn't like here's your

(18:38):
exact blueprint. It's just like we've connected all the places
we think we should connect. But it was basically the
general blueprint that was used for the interstate system. So
it was pretty pretty well done map. As Yes, it
wasn't research, but they weren't you know, thirty years later
they didn't go with this McDonald guy was way off there,
basically like this this works really well, that's right. An

(19:01):
Eisenhower himself had traveled the Lincoln Highway during World War
One in a military convoy and he was like this
kind of stinks. And all the military brass in Europe
saw the Auto Bahn and they saw the highways in
Italy and they were like, we need some of this stuff.
Plus also not just the military, but related to the military.
This was done during the Cold War. You know, this

(19:22):
is nineteen fifty six that the legislation was signed into
law to create the interstate and this is you know,
a pretty uneasy time. So there was a real concern
that with the existing original US highway system, if atomic
bombs started getting dropped out of the United States, we'd
have a really hard time moving people from place to place,
from bomb cities to unaffected cities. And um, this interstate

(19:47):
was a big solution to that too. Yeah. And uh,
not to oversell the military importance, but it was literally
called at first the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, right,
defense highways. Yeah. Interesting, At least it's not the offense highways,
you know what I mean, they're real aggressive, the pokey

(20:08):
in the chest where they're talking to you. So. Um.
There was another another reason. There's a whole list of reasons.
A lot of people say, oh, it's all military. That's
that was large part of it, but that certainly was
not the only reason that the interstates were built in
the United States. Another one was that people were starting
to move into the cities more and more, and they

(20:30):
had been for decades already. People were moving, leaving their
farms for factories. But this is putting an enormous strain
on the cities themselves, as huge influx of people that
the infrastructure couldn't really support. So they said, well, wait,
a minute. If we build these interstates, we'll be able
to more easily connect these rural areas with the cities.
And then I've got this genius idea that people can

(20:53):
continue to live in the rural areas but go to
and from work each day in the city. What do
you think of out that? And everyone said, that's that's
probably the best most flawless idea anyone's ever had in
the history of the world. Right, and then que upcoming
podcast on the suburbs, right exactly and excerbs nice. I
think we just did like a choose your own adventure

(21:15):
wedge in their trucks is pretty sweet. Another couple of reasons, uh,
leisure travel. You know, people hitting getting in their car
with the family and going on a vacation, driving across
country to see these roadside attractions and stay in hotels
and swimming swimming pools. It was all very new stuff
in America. Safety interstates, no matter which way you slice it,

(21:39):
are a lot safer, even though you're going faster, a
lot safer than these highways that they had out there. Yeah,
which is really funny to think of if like I
think of highways like crash on a highway it's just
like you know, limbs everywhere and just blood all over
the place. But the thing is like, yes, you you
can get into big serious trouble going very fast on
on the highway or on an interstate. But on a

(22:01):
highway you don't have things like this designated um set
distance between the incoming and on oncoming traffic. UM. You
don't have like gentle slopes to the shoulders so that
if you do, you know, fall off the side of
the road, you're not necessarily go yeah, you're not necessarily
going to bear overall. You might just like keep driving straight.

(22:23):
There's all these designs that are created to make highways safer,
interstates safer than highways, And part of it is like
you can't get in an head on collision with another car.
It's basically impossible on a United States interstates. Well, and yeah,
unless somebody gets on going the wrong way, which happens,
it does happen very infrequently, but under normal conditions, you're

(22:45):
not gonna veer out of your lane. You'll veer into
the median and go, what the heck happened? I'm driving
on grass right exactly the other the other there's two
other things that make interstates distinct from highways that improve
their safety safety tremendously. One is that there's there controlled
h entrance and exits right. So that means that when

(23:10):
you get onto a highway or an interstate, man, I'm
gonna do that all episode apparently you're you're traveling in
the same direction as traffic and ideally at speed. So
I remember very distinctly in UH driver's ed the first
time I emerged onto the highway and how nerve wracking

(23:31):
that is, and the dude telling me to punch it,
and I'm like, but the speed limit and he was
he was correct, He was correct, and saying like, no, man,
it doesn't matter, like you gotta go as fast as
they're going or it's dangerous. That's right, But that's a
that's a huge difference. Then, say like a highway where
somebody turns right into traffic and all the people behind

(23:54):
them have to slow while they speed up to the
flow of traffic. So that's a huge thing. And then
also the reason why people don't turn right onto the
highway is because any criss cross with the interstate, I
should say, did it again, any any criss cross with it,
um is goes over like it's a bridge. You have

(24:14):
an overpass. That's how you get across the highway. There's
no stop lights, there's no you know, somebody just driving,
you know, perpendicular with the flow of traffic. You go
over that with an interstate I love it. At the
beginning of this, he said, this is a very important distinction.
You should have said, which I will fail to make
over and over, which I will blur in your mind forever. Uh.

(24:39):
And then the other one of the other big things,
you know, and Ed said, they don't have stop lights. Um,
there are traffic lights now and a lot of cities
to more safely get you onto the highway, but they
still give you enough ramp time to get up to speed.
That's it. That's for to ease congestion. Yeah, just so
there's not a hundred cars trying to pile on it.

(24:59):
One it's it's one car every whatever, three or four seconds.
I think we talked about that in our traffic episode.
Not pretty sure like that really really helps ease congestion. Traffic. Yeah,
that yeah, you coin that I did, didn't I didn't
I break bubble one of the bubbles. I think it
was the break bubble. I think so I certainly talked

(25:21):
about a lot. I remember that. Uh. And then one
of the other big reasons kind of to kind of
jump back here, why we needed these highways. I'm sorry,
here we go again, interstates with simple economics. If you
could get these, uh, urban centers connected to rural towns
and these efficient roads where you could ship goods faster

(25:44):
and further than you ever have, and extend the range
of the workforce more than you ever have, It's just
cannot be overstated what that did for the American economy. Yeah,
because I mean connecting those rural areas and eventually suburban areas.
It's like you have a way bigger workforce pool if
you're a company located downtown then you did with these highways,

(26:05):
because you know, the commute would have just been unsustainable, unbearable.
I mean it's already bad enough on the interstates, but
with just you know, original US highways, it just wouldn't
you couldn't do it. Here's to me, one of the
more interesting parts of this is that originally the US
interstate system and Eisenhower wanted them to all be toll

(26:27):
roads because he's like, what's better than having something that
people just it pays for itself. But they did all
these studies and it turns out, and I think this
is still pretty much true, toll roads aren't a super
great idea. And there have to be very specific conditions
where in a toll road will actually pay for itself
or even you know, bring in a profit right like

(26:51):
you have. It has to be in a very um
heavily trafficked area, and then there has to be basically
no other alternative but that road to get from point
to point be Otherwise people are just gonna say I'm
gonna save my nickel or whatever it was back then.
That's why remember four hundred Georgia four hundred. It was
really successful as a toll road because it was so

(27:11):
successful that it paid for the road. It paid for
itself within twenty years, and they ripped the toll booths
out because Republicans were in charge of the time. They
said no more tolls. Do you remember, Yeah? I think
they were up longer than they said they were going
to be up, though, and people started complaining like, hey,
I thought the plan was these are going down. Yeah.
And Sonny Perdue, I think, was the guy who was like,

(27:32):
all right, we're getting rid of them, or maybe it
was deal, I can't remember. But the the reason four
hundred was so successful as a toll roads because there
really weren't very many other ways to to get you know,
from uh, the Buckhead area of Atlanta up to the
northern north Eastern suburbs except for four hundred. Yeah, that
was I mean, I don't I don't have to pay

(27:53):
two dollars to go see my brother now, and I
had to do that for many years, except for the
two dollars he charges me when I show up at
his front door to play is Adams Family Pimball, He's like,
give me two dollars. It has to be a two
dollar bill to will not accept anything else. That's so
scott so um. The toll roads don't pay for themselves.
One reason why I chuck. They don't typically pay for

(28:14):
themselves because especially if you're talking about interstates, there's really
long stretches of interstate that are not heavily traffics and
you would have to pay for that with the toll Well,
if somebody's coming through, you know, once a day and
paying a dollar, that's not going to pay for the upkeep.
So much so that they actually there was a study
that was done I think ahead of time. Uh that

(28:34):
when they were planning the interstates, and they found that
a lot of these, even like fairly successful toll roads
or toll interstates, probably would just barely pay for the
salaries of the tollbooth workers. So like that's a wash
of all washes. So they said, okay, no toll roads.
How about instead we'll start taxing gasoline. Yeah, not just gasoline,

(28:55):
but let's let's propose a bill that taxes the rubber
industry because of tires um the trucking industry, and they
all said, no, I don't want to be taxed forget this.
I don't like it. So they said, all right, we're
not gonna do this. Yeah, they managed to beat the
bill to create the interstate system. Yeah, they beat it down. Uh,

(29:15):
Congress goes into recession. And then the trucking industry went, uh,
what do we just do because this actually would have
been a really great thing for trucking. Uh, and so
maybe we do want that after all. And they came
back with a different bill that was pretty much the same,
and that one passed. Yeah, and you can understand why

(29:36):
they were They were a little shortsighted. They said, well,
we don't want to pay extra for tires and for gasoline.
We used that stuff, but then somebody crunches the numbers
and said, well everybody showed up. But the idea that
that it would be done through tax dollars rather than
toll roads. That was a big um result of a
PR push that was taken up by UM, the Triple A,

(29:58):
General Motors, other car companies. They formed something called the
National Highway Users Conference and UM. From this they basically
managed to create this this change of mentality in Americans
minds from oh yeah, roads are created and supported by
rich people and auto enthusiasts too. It is a national

(30:21):
duty to build and maintain roads, and it is the
federal government's responsibility to create inner states. And that was
the result of a PR push. And part of that
PR push is how we got freeways. That was meant
to really kind of point out how bad an idea
toll roads were. The ideas you don't want toll roads,
you want free roads, which came to be called freeways,

(30:44):
and freeways are basically supported by gas tax. That's great,
I thought so too. That's a good little dinner party
if you want to be super obnoxious. Yeah, oh, you
drove over on the freeway. You know where they can that.
So the inshot of all this, or the upshot I
guess there is no inshot, is that these taxes would

(31:08):
be placed into the Highway Trust Fund, and it's a
pretty good deal for for states. It's sort of like
Social Security. The government is going to tax uh letty
these taxes to pay for more highways, but provide of
that funding to states to do it themselves. So the states,
they're getting lots of jobs created, these big, huge public

(31:31):
works projects, they only have to pay ten percent of
that and they get a highway on top of that. Yeah. So,
like mayors and governors loved this idea because it made
them look like they were just so like all this
job creation and economic growth was happening under them, and
it just got dropped in their laps by by Ike
and the Feds and they're only on the hook for
ten percent of it. And the idea was every American

(31:54):
city with at least fifty people, uh, we're going to
connect to them all within thirteen years, which did not happen. No,
it didn't. As a matter of fact, officially, the first
UM original plan was completed in Yeah, it was a
little more than thirteen years from nineteen fifty six. Yeah,

(32:14):
and that points out it's i mean, it's technically finished,
but it's never finished. It's always being worked on and
tweaked and changed here and there. Ye, so Chuck. Before
they got started, they had to actually do some research first.
This is pretty cool. They didn't just say, sure, we
we've been building highways, we know how to build interstates. Um,
They really, you know, did a lot of examination on

(32:37):
how to best build these because the interstate is much
different from the highway. Like the highway just kind of
went around, Um, the terrain and the landscape. It was
bent to the will of the landscape, subservient to it.
Interstates are not like that. They are American muscle carving

(32:57):
through mother Earth. Were over that. Interstate wants to go
fast as you please. And they use something called cut
and fill, which is exactly what it sounds like. They
just cut out the track for the interstate and then
they filled it with the stuff that makes up the
interstate roads. But to figure out what to use for
the interstate roads, they actually did a tremendous amount of

(33:19):
research first. Yeah, they this is really cool. They built
these test tracks near Chicago, Illinois, and assigned a U. S.
Army company to live there for two years and load
up trucks and drive them around nineteen hours every day
for two years. Sounds so awful to see, Like, you know,

(33:40):
you can't just willy nilly build a road that's supposed
to last forever, you know, with with upkeep obviously, but
you got to really really test the stuff out over
time and wait and duration to to make sure that
it holds up. So they had to do all this
to determine how thick it needed to be, in what
the layers need to be, and what the final player

(34:00):
is going to be. And uh, not only that, they
had to decide like hey, what about signage, It's got
to be all the same. Uh. They ended up settling
on green with reverse messaging, so green background white lettering,
which apparently is they did test. It's more visible if
you have a reverse message then the other way around,

(34:21):
especially at night, rather than like say, black letters on
a white field. Yeah, exactly. Which speed limit signs are
like that, but you know they they have to distinguish
like the exit signs and the highway signs because the
actual highway badge interstate badge is blue and red, red,
white and blue. I guess if you count the white.
I just got that. Yeah, there's white on their right

(34:44):
and the outlined in white. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Uh.
And they tested colors. They decided green generally means go,
so we're gonna stick with green. Uh, but red, white,
and blue for the shields for interstates, but green shields
for business loops and spur Oh yeah when you see
this weird thing, Yeah, it does look a little weird.
But the the font that they used is actually on

(35:07):
the green signs in particulars called highway Gothic, which is great,
which I feel like we've talked about that before. I'll
bet it was in the Traffic episode now that I
think about it. Yeah. Yeah, So they get all this
stuff done, they figured it out. The poor army company
that had to live on these tracks in Chicago for
two years are all discharged. Um, and the building begins.

(35:32):
But it doesn't really go according to plan. Like we
said that it was supposed to take thirteen years to
complete the first forty thousand miles of interstate, and they completed,
but they ran into issues pretty much from the get
go quick question. When you say they were discharged, you
mean they just stopped that project. I'm I'm assuming here

(35:53):
that they were discharged because they were just they were
forced to do that for two years that they said,
you're fine. You don't have to do anything else because
you're out of the army, right if you want to be.
And here's some extra money. Uh. This Yellow Book comes
into play here, and this is when the what the
federal officials um finally officially submitted as the proposed map. Uh.
And this one, much like the Perching map, wasn't super detailed,

(36:15):
just had rough lines and spurs and belt ways. And
they said, all right, states, since you're getting a really
sweet deal here, you need to figure out how best
to do this within your state. Right. So, um, before
we go on actually talk about what happened when they
started building it, you want to take a last break. Yeah,
let's do it. Okay. Yeah. Well, now we're on the road,

(36:50):
driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or
two from Josh Damp Chuck. It's stuff you should know,
all right, Okay, Chuck. So, when you're building an interstate
and you're building it through pasture land or fields, or
you know, even desert whatever, UM, sparsely inhabited regions, you

(37:12):
don't run into too much problem. You can do it
fairly cheaply, you can do it pretty quickly. Um. There's
just not a lot of stuff you have to get
done aside from building the road. But when you start
to approach cities, everything changes. It gets way more expensive,
it takes way longer, and the the effects that it
has on that area, on the city can be really

(37:34):
really bad. And when they started to approach these cities
and started creating the interstate system around the cities, UM,
some some towns, especially the well to do wealthier people
in the towns, said whoa, whoa, wait, this map shows
this highway going through my neighborhood and that's not happening.
That's not going to happen. And there were what we're

(37:55):
called highway revolts where local local groups, sometimes in in
um collaboration with UH, like local politicians who felt the
same way or probably lived in the same areas, kind
of rose up against the Feds or even the state
government and said this is we need to re plan
where this highway is going. And some were successful. There's

(38:17):
one in northwest DC that never got built, and there
was one probably the most famous of all was the
one in Manhattan that was led by Jane Jacobs, who
wrote the Life and Death of Great American Cities, who
took on Robert Moses, the guy who revamped Central Park
into what it is now today. And one because they
were going to build the Interstate right through Soho, the

(38:40):
Lower east Side, Greenwich Village, Chinatown, and Little Italy. They
were just gonna tear it up and go right through there,
and Jane Jacobs managed to stave it off. Yeah. It
was you know when the when the rich people said
not in my neighborhood. What do you what do you
think happened? They went to the people that couldn't fight
back as much. They ran them through poor neighborhoods, use
eminent domain to kick people out. Uh. And there was

(39:03):
some grassroots, grassroots resistance and like you said, sometimes it worked,
but most times it did not. Yeah, and so this
is this is in cities where there was resistance. There
were plenty of cities who are like, this is going
to be breathe new life into our city. So that's fine,
tear down whatever you want. Let's get this super highway
of the future going through you know, uh, Topeka, Sure,

(39:28):
you know, I'm pretty sure forty goes through Topeka or Manhattan, Kansas. Okay, sure, Manhattan,
Kansas to get it in New York. It's ironic that
we said that because UM, the first UM, the first
project that was started on the interstate system began in

(39:48):
Kansas and Missouri. Is that right? Yeah? I seventy Kansas
and Missouri as usual leading the country forward in progressive
new ways. That's right. And then in the reason why
they consider the interstate system having been completed is because
that section I think it's ice seventy, not forty UM

(40:08):
was completed in Kansas, connected onto itself and they said
we're done. Yeah, it's seventy. So I think we should
talk a little bit about just some of the nuts
and bolts of UM, what an interstate is, and what
they needed to be. When they were first designing these
we talked about getting away from you know, they need
to go fast and they need to be safe. Those

(40:29):
are like the two big requirements. So all these big
curvy roads and absence of sight lines and blind bends
and things that you had in the highway system was
no good super steep grades so they wanted to streamline
all that make it more gentle, good sight lines, nice
and straight. You gotta have at least two traffic lanes
in each direction for the divided interstate. You know, now

(40:53):
we have what are we max out Atlanta, like six
or eight lanes across. It's gonna be eleven. The plan
is for eleven on each side eventually, so twenty two
lanes of traffic. It's just gonna be a monstrosity. Oh boy.
The lanes and shoulders have minimum ws twelve feet for lanes,
ten feet for shoulders, and four feet for the that

(41:15):
very scary inside shoulder which you never want to be
pulled over on. UH. And then as far as speed
limit goes, it's sort of varied over the years. I remember,
UH after nineteen seventy four. I mean it was only
three in nineteen seventy four, but that is when the
fifty five mile per hour speed limit was mandated. UH

(41:36):
in most states. UH, if you wanted to receive federal
funding for highway projects, get in line with that, because
you went on we had the gas crisis, oil crisis,
So if you wanted your dough, drop it to fifty five.
And it was fifty five for a while, Jammy Hagar
wrote a song about it. Oh yeah, he couldn't drive it. No,
despite you know, the um the oil crisis, he just

(41:57):
could not drive it. But I remember when they started
relaxing that and when sixty and seventy started popping up,
it was just like it was a really big deal. Hey,
I don't know if I ever told you this or not,
but Sammy Hagar's son is a fan of stuff. You
should he is. He wrote in um Maybe to the
End of the World to one of them and basically said, hey,

(42:18):
I heard you guys shout out my dad or make
a joke about, you know, Sammy Hagar or whatever. I
just want you to know I'm a big fan. And
he sent a picture of him and his dad hanging
out on stage down in um Kabbo Sam Lucas. Yeah,
so shout out to Sammy Hagar's boy, and I bet
you we made and I can't drive fifty five joke.
We certainly did well. Emily is very famous for liking

(42:40):
Van Hagar more than David Lee Roth van Halen. I
don't know why you have to choose, They're so different.
I liked him both. I went and saw Van Hagar
live on the o U eight one two tour in
high school and it was great. And I love that
fifty one fifty album too. Man. I could air drum,
air guitar and air ace that entire album. Could you

(43:02):
air keyboards? Um? Not very well, I have fat fingers.
Well that's sort of the most boring air instrument. Yeah,
no it's not, but it's easy. It's the easy it's
the best one to start out on. All right. Well,
shout out to the Red Rocker and his son. Then,
So Red Rocker, I haven't heard that one. Yeah, so

(43:22):
um Montrose that was his big band, is that right? Yeah?
Before he went solo, he was in Montrose. Okay, I
didn't know that. I only knew him. I only picked
him up around that. I can't drive fifty. I hope
his son is listening, because he's probably quite delighted with Uh.
He's like, my name, isn't Sammy Hagar's son? By the way, guys,
Sammy Hagar's son Hagar. We should look up his name

(43:45):
because that would be very nice. Okay, are you doing it? Yes?
All right, I'll just continue on. Are we are we
editing this little combo? Are yeah, we should have it
in there, and I'll talk about Montana because Montana. As
everyone knows, you don't mess with Montana. They like to
make up their own rules. They were they were very
famou what's his name? Oh man, he's got two sons,
Aaron and Andrew. It's one of the two. Maybe both

(44:07):
of them are fans. I bet you they are. Okay.
So Montana is very famous for saying like, we just
are going to drive however fast we want to drive.
We may not even have a speed limit. For a while,
became known as the basic law, and it was the
speed limit in the daytime was whatever is reasonable and
proper as determined by us. You hear me. No one's

(44:31):
gonna tell us like Sammy Hagar to drive fifty five.
Don't tread on me. I think that's er mind, okay,
is it? No? That's the tea party, Aaron Hagar. I
just found it, Evan, So that forward that to me,
will you? Yeah? Um? So Montana eventually, I think right
now they do have a daytime speed limit finally, but

(44:55):
I'm not sure what it's probably like ninety five uh yeah,
probably is pretty high up there, actually. But the idea
of just not having a posted a numerical speed limit
at they which apparently they did for a little while.
That's just astounding. Yeah, but the idea of driving sixty
through rural Montana is ridiculous. Well, yeah, you need to

(45:19):
be going eight right exactly. I'm guessing that the cops
probably look the other way. Yeah, cops in Montana, they
get smaller fish to fry. So, I mean, because you
can go so fast, that's the danger of the highways.
But again, because it's closed access or controlled access where
there are very few places you can get on and off,

(45:39):
and those places are designated and designed for you to
get on and off of the highway, that the rest
of the highways just for go go going. Um, it
is typically safer. I don't think we said compared to
highways an interstate per million car miles driven, is it
a million million? I'm sorry, you're right, I believe per

(46:01):
hundred million. I'm I'm tapped ending here because I cannot
find it. Um, per hundred million car miles driven. I
know that the the interstate death talt rate is only
point eight two the highways. That's overgoing with stats wise,
I got it right here, friend, Um one point four

(46:23):
six deaths for all other US roads, that's per hundred
million vehicle miles driven. On interstates, it's point eight deaths
per hundred million vehicle miles driven. That's a substantial, almost
almost half the rate of fatality as every other US road.
And it's because of the way it's designed. Even though
you can go really really fast, the thing is designed

(46:45):
like bumper bowl to where you can't really get a
gutter ball very easily. So here's the thing we talked about.
All these uh, like you gotta have a media in
this big and you know, all these regulations that define
what an interstate is. Uh, it's not the case everywhere
you go. There are plenty of examples um of turnpikes
and three ways that we're sort of grandfathered in here

(47:07):
and there. Um toll roads that were grandfathered in states
that don't have the medians that they need, or do
have some steep grades and curves just because of the
terrain and stuff, or you know, speed limit differences, and
they relax some of that here and there. So that
was that stuff was more of a general requirement, not

(47:28):
like the hard and fast rule and the fist will
come down and you will not be an interstate unless
you have a medium that kind of thing. Right, Yeah,
the stuff that got grandfathered and it's still around. But
when they rebuild these roads or update them or improve them,
which is constantly going on, you know they're going to
get rid of that light and put in an overpass instead.
That's right. So when you have like a public works

(47:50):
project this big and supposedly this is the biggest in
the history of human kind is does that? Does that
sound right? I mean that's some have said that, Okay,
we're gonna go with that because we live in the USA. Um.
But uh, when you have a project that big, it's
going to have some weird quirks and foibles and that
kind of stuff, all the Dave Barry adjectives. Um. And

(48:14):
one of the things is that because of the way
that some some roads come up against one another, you
have something called concurrency where sometimes two different interstates will
share the same roadbed for a stretch, and so you
can literally be driving on two different interstates by game. Right,
And then one particular stretch of Virginia ten miles stretch

(48:35):
around where Virginia and Tennessee come together, there's a concurrent
stretch that's technically a wrong way concurrent stretch. Did you
know about this one? Yeah, So there's a stretch in
Virginia Interstate eighty one in Interstate seventy seven, and they're concurrent.
So when you're driving on this ten mile stretch, you're
on both of these these interstates. But the weird thing

(48:57):
is IS eighty one and seventy seven because they're odd
numbered highways or interstates, they run north to south, but
this ten mile stretch runs east to west. Pretty weird, right,
it gets even weirder, Chuck for this wrong way concurrent
stretch of highway, this ten mile stretch, you're actually going

(49:18):
on I eighty one north but I seventy seven south
when the actual direction of travel you're on is going
east to west. Yeah. I mean when you think about
perimeters to uh, there are times in Atlanta around the
five where you're you know, is it marked north or
is it marked west or is it mark south or

(49:41):
west or north and east. It's very confusing and on
where you are in that circle. Right, And we should
say that with with the interstate numbering system, we got
to talk about that it's not meant to be a
navigational guide. It's meant to keep from duplicating, um the
same interstate route in different parts of the country, and

(50:01):
for the same interstate or for the same numbered interstates
to um come up against one another. They're meant to
keep everything quite separate. Yeah. From the beginning, they're like,
get a map, people like, don't rely on these signs
to get you places. So, so, if you were looking
at a map of the United States going from the
west to the east, UM, odd number highways that run

(50:25):
run from north to south. The low numbers start in
the west, So I five is the first one, and
that's over in California. That's right, Great Great Highway goes
up to which is on the eastern seaboard, Great Great Expressway,
and then in between you have all the other fives,
the odd number ones. They run from north to south.

(50:45):
Now east to west you have even numbered ones, and
they start at the lowest in the south, well, starting
with ten. I'm a big faded by twenty twenties. I've
driven that thing from here to California quite a few times, Okay,
so I can see why you'd be a fan of

(51:05):
my twenty. Then it's a nice that's a nice drive
right there. They get you there, that's their motto. But
if you go up, up, up, you you ten sixty.
There is no fifty. And apparently ED says the Department
of Transportations used to get letters from people saying like
you guys, screwed up. There's no interstate fifty, oh people,
which is hilarious. Too much time on their hands. Here's

(51:26):
an interesting thing. Alaska and Puerto Rico they don't have
to meet these federal interstate standards, and technically they're not
federal interstates, their interstates in name only. And then in
Hawaii you have three inner states, all on Oahu, and
they are designated with an H instead of an eye

(51:49):
instead of interstate. It's whatever. H. I don't even know.
I've never been there. What are what are the numbers?
I think there's an H five maybe, but the thing
about it even weirder, and the fact that it's an
H instead of an eye, there's no dash. It looks
really like like Western European, like the like the M
five or whatever, like I see palm trees, but I

(52:10):
feel like I'm in Budapest right exactly. So what the
we talked about, Like at the very beginning, I said
that like, one of the things that fascinates me are
the massive sweeping effects that interstates have had on the
United States. And a lot of people have studied the effects,
and there have been some good and some bad. And
I came across the forum I can't remember on what

(52:32):
um what site, but the question was is a net
gain or a net loss for America with the interstate systems?
And it seemed pretty evenly divided. You can make a
case both ways that you know, in these ways it helped.
In these ways it was really terrible. And it's kind
of a subjective judgment whether when you add all those up,

(52:53):
it was actually a gain for America or you know,
a loss. Well, we already talked about safety definitely, say,
for UH, if you listen to our Root sixty six episode,
you'll hear lots of stories about quote unquote dead towns. UM.
These these small towns and junctions where people traveled on

(53:13):
these pretty popular highways UH, and restaurants and local mom
and pops they went away, UH in large part because
of these expressways built right beside them sometimes and that
that real estate where you get off on these exits
is super expensive. So it's not like you're you're gonna

(53:34):
see very few, you know, mom paw restaurants at these exits.
You're gonna see the major chains, the major gas stations,
and major major restaurants and shopping centers. All right, they're
kind of congregated on the highways, right, So they produced
homogenus across America, the inter state there I go. But
that so that created this sense of homogeneity where it

(53:57):
was like the same national brands, the only ones who
are big enough to buy up this real estate were
the ones that you find at any given exit, you know,
the same handful of them across the United States. So
it lost its local flavor for sure. That's a big effect.
That's a huge loss for America. Yeah, rail use definitely declined. UM,

(54:17):
trucking definitely improved or benefited at least. Uh what else?
Ed says? Crime, which is something I never really thought about,
but there have definitely been a lot of interstate killers
who could uh pick someone up at a truck stop
and kill them and get on that highway and get
out of there quick like. That was the I five strangler,

(54:38):
the I seventy killer, UM, a series of murderers along
I forty. I think that was like where they were
like people are driving around shooting other people at high
speeds on the highway. Do you remember that, like the
eight or nineties. Yeah, you can't have that without the interstate. No,
So you know that's an effect. But another way that
it affected crime to UM is found really pronounced lee

(55:00):
in l A. Like l A became the bank robbery
capital of the world from what I understand, at least
the United States. And the reason why is because it's
massive system of interstates throughout the entire city. UM allowed
for really easy escape routes for bank robbers. I can
see that. There's a really great article by I think

(55:21):
his name's Jeff man Off Um. Anyway, he had the
he has like the the building blog and it's UM
it's really interesting. I'll see if I can find I'll
tweet it out. It's a really great article. I should
have looked it up. Yeah. So in the end, like
you said, I guess it's sort of split on how
people view this. It's hard to measure some of these

(55:42):
effects and put like a number on things like the
death of the mom and pop store. Some of those
are a little more esoteric and emotional, but it is
interesting to think about. Yep, yeah, I like them too,
but at the same time, it stinks that they're you know,
they're super congested. Sometimes the cities better than suburbia, but

(56:02):
you know, the Interstates funneled people out into suburbia urban sprawl. Yeah. Um,
but yeah, it's fascinating to think, like it's got the
good and the bad. Just the sweeping effects are just
so ingrained that you're just they're tough to see sometimes,
you know. Yeah, I got one more thing, actually, the
whole notion of the especially in California, of putting the

(56:23):
word the in front of the highways on the two ten,
the one oh one, whereas here on the East Coast
we say, uh, it is not just an l a thing.
Apparently it's a lot of the Western States, especially on
the West coast. Because my my friend and fellow podcaster
Adam Pranica, was in Atlanta recently and he said, do

(56:45):
I take of the twenty? I just thought it sounded
so funny, did you say, did you hit your head?
And he's a Seattle guy, so they definitely say it there,
and I was just kind of curious where that came from.
And that's just a holdover, like you mentioned California had
some of the first freeway, uh not interstates, but just
larger highways, and they had they were named. It was
before they were numbered. So this was in like the

(57:07):
nineteen forties. They had the Santa Monica Freeway, the Kawanga
Pass Freeway. It was designated by where it went, and
they were you know, it would make sense to put
a D in front of those, and that just sort
of held over. Once they started numbering him. They couldn't
shake it. But even still we still didn't use the
back then because if you think about it, there was

(57:28):
a famous highway from Indiana down to Miami called Dixie Highway,
and here you call it Dixie Highway or Old Dixie Highway,
not the Old Dixie Highway or the Dixie Highway. We
just don't like the here maybe so coast. It was
too hot and everybody had too much hookworms to say
the I guess it was unnecessary. So if this kind
of thing floated your boat, go check out UM. I

(57:49):
read some many good articles, but one was by Linda
Poon on City Lab Look that up. Another was by
a guy named Joseph Stromberg Vox. And then that Jeff
Man in a Um, he doesn't have the building blog.
He has. Cabinet is the name of his site. In
that article about l A being the bank robbery capital
is called forensic Topology and our own Grabster of course,

(58:11):
hats off to Grabster. And since we said Grabster, that
means everybody's time for listener mail. All right, I'm gonna
call this follow up on the punk episode. Hey, guys,
just finished listening to your punk podcast. Being a hardcourt
kid since I was in elementary school and the such
stuff you should know fans since high school, I was

(58:31):
stoked to see these two very different things that I
listened to come together. First of all, I'm sorry you
guys ever felt intimidated by punks. Uh. The time when
punk quote died end quote is really when the scene
got in general way more enjoyable to be a part of.
The old heads got jobs and families and stopped coming
out to shows that weren't the bands they listened to

(58:53):
coming up, So the kids took over and created a
more positive and inviting environment. In my lifetime, I've seen
this go even for there. In the last ten years
or so, hardcore fans have gone from at times hyper masculine,
you know what, UH measuring contests to a safe place
for queer kids and people of color to talk about

(59:13):
their struggles. The scene is very much alive from my
birthplace in the Upper Midwest. Do I currently live in Appalachia.
I am in the early stages of running d I
Y shows out of my basement. So if you ever
want to go to a hardcore show, just let me
know and make the drive up to Knoxville. Okay, that's fair.
I promise I won't let anyone beat you up for

(59:35):
calling the sex pistols punk. Wink wink. Thanks for all
the great listening you guys provided me over the years,
and please keep delving into different genres even if you
feel out of your depths. That is from Evan and Uh.
You also sent a very nice ps. It's just about
how we've been there for him and and we want
to say thanks for that too. Evan. That's really cool man.
Thanks a lot, Evan, and also, I mean, hats off

(59:57):
for having hardcore shows in your basement. It's awesome. That
is very awesome. Well, if you want to be like
Evan and be super cool and hardcore and also super
inclusive and nice, we want to hear from you. You
can go on to stuff you Should Know dot com
and check us out on social media while I pulled
that one out, or you can send us an email
to stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you

(01:00:24):
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