🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2oi2dd$bg2@news.hal.com>,
Anthony Wong (or LM) <awong@hal.COM> wrote:
>In article <1994Apr13.162801.11279@ccc.amdahl.com>, csc80@cd.amdahl.com (Carol C. Kankelborg) writes:
>
>|> Interstate - A highway crossing many state borders.  (Also interesting, in
>|>              Philadelphia, I-95 is called "I-95", in Florida, it's simply
>|>              "95".
>
>	An more interesting, a lot of interstate highways do not even go
>beyond the limits of one city.  Apparently they are called interstate
>because they are funded by the federal government, which is an "interstate"
>agency.
>
>	Those in the San Francisco Bay Area, look at 380 (San Bruno) and 
>980 (Oakland), both of which is shorter than 1 mile.

As originally conceived, the Interstate Highways would be just that:
interstate. As defense highways, they had little need to enter cities.
There was some sentiment to route them the way most states were routing
their toll roads, passing near, but not into, cities, thereby saving
megabucks on constructin and land acquisiton costs. Where short loops
and spurs were to be built, they were given three-digit numbers derived
from the main highway they branched from.

At about the same time (the late 1950s), urban areas were suffering
huge traffic jams and began planning urban expressways and freeways.
There was also the movement toward Urban Renewal, which would demolish
the bad parts of cities and convert them into nice upscale areas (known
as Urban Removal by the poor people who became displaced).

The three movements converged, with politicians manouevering to get
their urban highways made part of the Interstate system so that the
feds would pick up 90% of the costs, and pay to get rid of the slums.
By the mid-1960s, the Interstate Highway program was being used to rip
the heart out of central cities, taking with them a lot of neat old
bars and restaurants as well as inexpensive, if rundown, housing.


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