As part of its effort to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Interstate Highway System, TRB has produced this specially themed issue of the TR News, which examines the history, legacy, lessons, and prospects of the Interstate system.
Celebrating the Interstate’s Anniversary
Celebrating the Interstate calls for a review of the conceptualization, the engineering feats, the funding, and the realization of a dream by many professionals working together for their entire careers—and for an assessment of our own accomplishments and challenges in extending the legacy of this great work.
How the Interstate System Came to Be: Tracing the Historical Process
The 1956 legislation that launched the Interstate Highway System was the product of choices made by many individuals and organizations over a span of almost 20 years, involving engineers, politicians, economists, visionaries, presidential panels, and more. A transportation historian traces out the formative theories, studies, models, initiatives, and debates.
The Exceptional Interstate Highway System: Will a Compelling New Vision Emerge?
The Interstate system is exceptional in American history because of the federal government’s extensive role in the system’s planning, financing, organizational structure, and research and development. But the consensus vision of the Interstate is eroding, this author notes—and the nation’s transportation future will be an ongoing contest among strongly held views and values.
China’s Central Planners and the History of the Interstate
The Social Impacts of the Interstate Highway System: What Are the Repercussions?
Industries on the Interstates: What Is the Best Location?
Edge City, Just off the Interstate: Boon or Bane?
The Engineering of the Interstate Highway System: A 50-Year Retrospective of Advances and Contributions
The 42,500-mile Interstate Highway System was a complex engineering effort without precedent in the history of transportation. Many advances and techniques developed as the project progressed, particularly in asphalt and concrete pavements, drainage, bridge design, soil mechanics, and traffic forecasting, as well as design standards to assure safety and efficient operations.
Paving the Way with Research and Innovation: The Kansas Interstate Example
Retroreflections and Future Directions
Distinguished leaders, scholars, and participants offer insights into the history, legacy, lessons, and prospects of the Interstate Highway System.
Vision, Inspiration, and Perseverance: Concluding Thoughts
The Interstate did not have to be, this author observes—it required a genius for inspiring people to do great things, for organizing and setting challenges and then achieving them. Its advocates had to work continuously to make their vision part of the national vision, to come back from setbacks and defeats and try again and succeed.
Research Pays Off: Assessing the Condition and Estimating the Longevity of Rock Reinforcement Systems
Profiles
TRB Highlights, News Briefs, Calendar, and Bookshelf
The TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practice in all modes of transportation. It also includes brief news items of interest to the transportation community, research pays off articles, profiles of transportation professionals, workshop and conference announcements, new book notices, and news of TRB activities. Submissions of manuscripts for possible publication are accepted at any time.
Copies of the TR News may be purchased individually or ordered on an annual subscription basis.
This Summary Last Modified On: 11/2/2016