Interstate’s 60th comes at crossroads for Houston
Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of the Federal Highway Act of 1956. While that sounds mundane, it’s a big reason why most people in Houston commute the way they do, and why we can drive to Los Angeles on a single road from Beaumont.
The act created the interstate highway system, marking a national effort for a more robust highway network. Some spots of the interstate system date to the 1930s, but the 1956 bill dramatically expanded that, pushed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose legacy to a large degree is tied to the nation’s interstate highways.
For the 60th, here’s six things to consider about where the interstates came from, and where they might be going. Critics called it socialism: These days in Texas and a lot of other places, not spending money on roads and using it on public transit is considered by some the revival of Lenin. Opponents of Eisenhower’s plan said the same thing, calling it “another ascent into the stratosphere of New Deal jitterbug economics,” according
to a 1996 history of the highway act, written by the Federal Highway Administration. Texas put its stamp on
them: Dewitt Greer, who led the Texas Highway Department and later was chairman of the commission that oversees it, led the national committee responsible for choosing the interstate signs. The blue and red shield with white letters and a prominent center number was chosen as a hybrid of submissions made by Texas and Missouri officials. Houston had a head start: As noted in a 115 Houston Chronicle anniversary story on Sunday, Houston’s first stretch of freeway opened in 1948, long before the Eisenhower highway system was established. At that time, getting out of Texas by freeway wasn’t the goal — getting to Galveston was. Officials finally finished Interstate 45 from Houston to Galveston in 1976. We have a new interstate: No, nothing got built. U.S. 59 through the Houston area is now Interstate 69, part of a Mexicoto-Canada interstate through the Midwest dubbed the “NAFTA Superhighway.” The beginnings of I-69 started in 1956 with the highway bill, but it is still far from complete as many states — including Texas — have dragged on designating and improving the route to interstate standards. Gov. Rick Perry made it a priority during his term, and since then 155 miles of I-69 have been established. Houston is a freeway town: Transit and pedestrian projects can help some avoid automobile travel, but skeptics say they will never really work for most residents. “If I am going into Houston and going to the medical center to get a treatment and coming back that’s fine, transit might work,” Pearland Mayor Tom Reid said. “But that’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to go somewhere else, too. Even now, there is no way to get a trip into Houston and to the Galleria and then I want to go someplace else easily.”
Declining benefit: As more people move to Houston and its population density increases, freeways are going to have less benefit, and widening them is not an option. Widening Interstate 10 in most spots is unlikely because the value of land makes it prohibitive. In other words, you’ve got what you’ve got, and only minor configurations are likely. The same goes for Interstate 45, which when it is widened in the coming years is likely at its peak size. That won’t, however, stop people from considering more freeways and bigger freeways, even transit supporters agree. “It is always easiest to build highways and that is not just a Houston thing,” Rice University researcher Kyle Shelton said.