Interstate Highway System at a Crossroads; A Crumbling Legacy

DONNERS PASS, Calif., June 29, 2006 — -- A stretch of Interstate 80 between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe, Calif., has been identified as the worst section of the nation's 46,000-mile superhighway system.

"The Interstate is an antique like this car is an antique," Dan McNichol pointed out as he navigated his 1951 Hudson Pacemaker Coup over Donners Pass. "I chose this section of highway because it's the worst in the country. This has shaken my car. This challenges the car in every way. It pains me every time I hear this 55-year-old car bounce, shake and rattle."

McNichol is an expert on the Interstate system -- all 62 super highways, 261 beltways and spurs and 14,000 interchanges. He's the author of a couple of books that trace the history of the system, including "The Roads That Built America: The Incredible Story of the U.S. Interstate System." He thought it would be great fun on this 50th anniversary of the system to travel across the country.

We joined him in Sacramento and headed for Tahoe.

The road was steep but curved gently and was a pleasure until we arrived at the pass. There, abuse from semi-truck trailers that beat up the highway with required chains during the winter made the road uneven and "washboardlike. "I think this section is symptomatic of the entire Interstate system," he told me. "It's underfunded and overused."

McNichol says the Interstate system was designed for "our parents and grandparents." No one imagined the automotive boom that would follow.

Since 1956, when President Eisenhower authorized the building of the Interstate, the number of drivers has increased 164 percent. The number of miles traveled has soared 400 percent. Traffic jams, which annually cost the nation $200 billion in lost productivity, suggest that repairs and expansion of the system are long overdue.

"We're facing a capacity crisis right now," said Pete Ruane, president and CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. "We're really at a choke point, where there are huge bottlenecks across the country that must be addressed immediately."

It will take more than just another layer of asphalt to fix the decaying Interstate system. A major overhaul would require hundreds of billions of dollars, plus the public and political will to make it happen.

McNichol said that will require drivers to say "enough is enough" and lean on lawmakers. "The Interstate is the most important piece of infrastructure in our country," he said as we bumped our way over the Sierra Nevada Mountain range.

"This is the largest piece of infrastructure in the world, and more and more traffic is heaped upon it every year." McNichol added, "Unfortunately, in Washington, there's not the political will to fund the system like it needs to be funded."

We caught up with outgoing Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta in San Francisco, where he was taking part in the 50th anniversary celebration of the Interstate system. Mineta said he favored both an increase in the federal gasoline tax -- now 18.4 cents a gallon -- and selling or leasing some of the best-known and most-traveled routes across the nation.

In three years, the national Highway Trust Fund will no longer keep up with repair costs. "That's one of the reasons why I think this is a good approach," Mineta said. "The fact is, we have only limited financial resources and we have to bring more players to the table."

Some of those players are foreign. In Indiana, known as the crossroads of America, the entire toll road is being turned over to two companies from Australia and Spain for the next 75 years.

The Chicago Skyway has been leased for 99 years to a Spanish-Australian conglomerate. As a result, motorists pay more to drive through those sections because they are required to pay tolls.

Not everyone thinks that's a good idea. "This should be a federal effort. This really shouldn't be left up to the states to sell rights to the private sector," said McNichol. "When you do 'tolling,' you're saying to the public you're losing control of some of your most valuable infrastructure."

When President Eisenhower came up with the idea to build an Interstate system, he recalled how difficult and dangerous America's roads were in 1919 when he accompanied a military convoy across the country. His defeat of the German military in World War II using Germany's autobahn convinced him the U.S. should build its own super highway system.

Today it is known as the greatest public works project in history.

The question is how to preserve its legacy. As Eisenhower said, the "Interstate system should be a journey, not a destination."