5 ms·

Freeways were designed in part to help the US army traverse the county in times of war. Before freeways, the US did a transcontinental trip with all kinds of ve

Freeways were designed in part to help the US army traverse the county in times of war. Before freeways, the US did a transcontinental trip with all kinds of vehicles including a young Eisenhower who saw the importance of fast transit. They were essential in the event on an invasion. I guess they could've been made federal and not usable by civilians.

_delirium 7y ago
That was the motivation for the interstate system at a national level, but not the reason access freeways were put directly through the center of a number of cities. There's not much military usefulness in something like the I-345 spur that cuts through downtown Dallas, or the now-demolished Cypress Street Viaduct through Oakland. If you just wanted a national road network, it would've been cheaper to bypass dense urban areas. Those kinds of urban freeways had more to do with postwar planners' ideas about the future of housing/working/commuting.
- afarrell 7y ago
  We're discussing the decision-making of people in the US in the 1950s, correct? If communists take control of a dense urban area and throw up barricades to block the more narrow streets, there is military usefulness in having a freeway passing through that urban area. It is also theoretically useful in case of a railway strike.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    This was the 1950s. If it was even slightly conceivable that Communists would take a city somehow, after an amphibious landing across a distance the world had never seen, and the city had not already been reduced to rubble by incoming ICBMs or strategic bombing, it would have been destroyed by a stay-behind nuclear mine.
    - panzagl 7y ago
      The communists would have been internal- beatniks and what not.
    - emiliobumachar 7y ago
      The Communists were big on revolution. As in, from the inside, done by the workers of the target country themselves, usually with a lot of foreign help but no full-blown foreign invasion. It may seem implausible now, but many countries had already fallen to revolutions, and it was not unreasonable at the time to think it might happen in the U.S.
euroclydon 7y ago
How’d that work out for the Romans?
- xeromal 7y ago
  It helped make them one of the largest, most-efficient empires the world had ever seen. All empires come to an end. The duration is what makes one special. Rome didn't completely collapse until the 1500s when Constantinople was lost. Ceasar was around 0AD and there was roman history before way before him too. Not sure what your comment was getting at lol. Roads were fantastic for Rome.
  - euroclydon 7y ago
    The US projects power all over the globe, with 11 aircraft carriers, over 300 more ships, Hawaii, Guam, bases in Okinawa, Kuwait, Germany, etc. Yet, the interstate system was designed to make the 48 states easier to defend in an invasion? If we're ever humbled to to point of a North American invasion, the parallels to Rome will be rich. It was only when Rome's empire faded, and they could not maintain control of their colonies, that the Germanic tribes finally sacked the Eternal City, and they were aided greatly in their invasion by an extensive road system stretching from the frontier straight back to Rome. If a humbled and bankrupt nation wants to make an invasion difficult, then it needs all the mountains and swamps it can get.
    - xeromal 7y ago
      I agree with you on that. Roads help the enemy too. I grew up in rural northern Georgia and hope I can make it home to live in the woods if shit ever goes down.
cylinder 7y ago
Eisenhower was vehemently against freeways going through urban areas. Freeways are supposed to bypass cities. He was overruled by the bureaucracy.

_delirium 7y ago

That was the motivation for the interstate system at a national level, but not the reason access freeways were put directly through the center of a number of cities. There's not much military usefulness in something like the I-345 spur that cuts through downtown Dallas, or the now-demolished Cypress Street Viaduct through Oakland. If you just wanted a national road network, it would've been cheaper to bypass dense urban areas. Those kinds of urban freeways had more to do with postwar planners' ideas about the future of housing/working/commuting.

afarrell 7y ago
We're discussing the decision-making of people in the US in the 1950s, correct? If communists take control of a dense urban area and throw up barricades to block the more narrow streets, there is military usefulness in having a freeway passing through that urban area. It is also theoretically useful in case of a railway strike.
- pjc50 7y ago
  This was the 1950s. If it was even slightly conceivable that Communists would take a city somehow, after an amphibious landing across a distance the world had never seen, and the city had not already been reduced to rubble by incoming ICBMs or strategic bombing, it would have been destroyed by a stay-behind nuclear mine.
  - panzagl 7y ago
    The communists would have been internal- beatniks and what not.
  - emiliobumachar 7y ago
    The Communists were big on revolution. As in, from the inside, done by the workers of the target country themselves, usually with a lot of foreign help but no full-blown foreign invasion. It may seem implausible now, but many countries had already fallen to revolutions, and it was not unreasonable at the time to think it might happen in the U.S.

euroclydon 7y ago

How’d that work out for the Romans?

xeromal 7y ago
It helped make them one of the largest, most-efficient empires the world had ever seen. All empires come to an end. The duration is what makes one special. Rome didn't completely collapse until the 1500s when Constantinople was lost. Ceasar was around 0AD and there was roman history before way before him too. Not sure what your comment was getting at lol. Roads were fantastic for Rome.
- euroclydon 7y ago
  The US projects power all over the globe, with 11 aircraft carriers, over 300 more ships, Hawaii, Guam, bases in Okinawa, Kuwait, Germany, etc. Yet, the interstate system was designed to make the 48 states easier to defend in an invasion? If we're ever humbled to to point of a North American invasion, the parallels to Rome will be rich. It was only when Rome's empire faded, and they could not maintain control of their colonies, that the Germanic tribes finally sacked the Eternal City, and they were aided greatly in their invasion by an extensive road system stretching from the frontier straight back to Rome. If a humbled and bankrupt nation wants to make an invasion difficult, then it needs all the mountains and swamps it can get.
  - xeromal 7y ago
    I agree with you on that. Roads help the enemy too. I grew up in rural northern Georgia and hope I can make it home to live in the woods if shit ever goes down.

cylinder 7y ago

Eisenhower was vehemently against freeways going through urban areas. Freeways are supposed to bypass cities. He was overruled by the bureaucracy.