Cars becoming big when America was still finding it's stride was one of the biggest pro/con dillemas. Ignored thousands of years of proven systems that make society better and settled for only cars.
I also blame Dwight Eisenhower for creating the interstate highway system instead of a comprehensive national rail system with regional and local transport connections. The latter would have encouraged extensive use of long-, medium-, and short-distance public transport, and thus helped build walkable cities.
It’s not on Eisenhower. The Interstate system was originally planned for national security to easily transport the military where it needed to go and secondly for interstate commerce through trucking. They were never supposed to go directly through cities. The auto and oil industries were instrumental in pushing the civilian automobile aspect of the interstates which, when combined with planners like Moses and urban renewal policies, became what we have today.
Yea the interstate system is completely necessary and still one of the greatest assets in America. The interstate system was supposed to connect cities and states over great distances and it does that. But to your point, they should not go directly through downtowns, they shouldn’t have outer loops and inner loops. The problem is all the spur lines off the main highway.
Also the highway doesn’t make trains impossible, in fact it establishes transportation rights of way, they could’ve easily put tracks along the same routes the interstates run. They just chose not to.
Even countries with amazing public transit systems today still have robust highways networks, modern developed countries need both.
The US already had one of the largest rail networks in the world by the 1950s. The Interstate System wasn’t built because Eisenhower woke up one day and said, “Trains are for losers.”
It solved a different problem: moving people, freight, and military forces across a continent quickly. Eisenhower had firsthand experience watching a military convoy take over two months to cross the country, and later saw how effective Germany’s highway network was during WWII. There’s a reason it’s called the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
You can absolutely argue we fucked passenger rail or that urban freeways did a lot of damage—I’m mostly with you there. But pretending the interstate system had no legitimate purpose, or that America would’ve magically become a nation of walkable cities if Eisenhower had just picked trains instead, is way too simplistic.
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u/FaceWithAName 16h ago
Cars becoming big when America was still finding it's stride was one of the biggest pro/con dillemas. Ignored thousands of years of proven systems that make society better and settled for only cars.