4 ms·

> crisis relocation (which, in an earlier form, was a major motivation for the Eisenhower freeway system, to the extent that it's probably fair to say that it w

by js2 6y ago

> crisis relocation (which, in an earlier form, was a major motivation for the Eisenhower freeway system, to the extent that it's probably fair to say that it was the main motivation with materiel movement as a second) I've heard that before, but the DOT claims evacuation was a minor factor. From https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm#question3 https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/interstatemyths.cfm#ques... President Eisenhower supported the Interstate System because he wanted a way of evacuating cities if the United States was attacked by an atomic bomb. President Eisenhower’s support was based largely on civilian needs—support for economic development, improved highway safety, and congestion relief, as well as reduction of motor vehicle-related lawsuits. He understood the military value of the Interstate System, as well as its use in evacuations, but they were only part of the reason for his support. Defense was the primary reason for the Interstate System. The primary justifications for the Interstate System were civilian in nature. In the midst of the Cold War, the Department of Defense supported the Interstate System and Congress added the words “and Defense” to its official name in 1956 (“National System of Interstate and Defense Highways”). However, the program was so popular for its civilian benefits that the legislation would have passed even if defense had not been a factor.

jcrawfordor 6y ago
Yeah, I'm really not sure about this - stories of the strange history of the Eisenhower freeway system are extremely common and there's just a surprising amount of myth around them, like the airplane landing thing that we've seen elsewhere in the thread. It's probably unnecessarily conspiratorial to think that the motivations were anything other than what was officially said (e.g. economic advantages), but I give a certain weight to evacuation as a motive because the vast majority of the efforts made towards survivability were remarkably secretive and it was common, at the time, for the government to use cover stories as justification for survivability efforts. Consider, for example, how FEMA used the FBI as a "front" for the crisis relocation program in order to deny their involvement. It's the kind of secret-keeping that seems really pointless and strange now (how much does it even matter to anyone if it's the FBI or FEMA inventorying relocation sites?), but is an artifact of the ultra-paranoid and minimally accountable atmosphere of the time. Most of these things remain pretty secretive today, not necessarily because there's some ongoing push to keep it a secret, but through the more boring mechanism of once secret, now obscure documents being hard to get declassified. So I sort of suspect that evacuation was a bigger factor than the government admits, but that's purely speculative. Just like suburbanization there are definitely a lot of reasons the interstates happened.
- pfraze 6y ago
  It’s really common for decisions to be made for more than one reason, even if some of those reasons are just advantages brought up during the planning discussions. I can easily see the defense motives as being one of the many factors involved in the freeway development.
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    Right, and if my borderline conspiracy theory that evacuation was a bigger factor than we know today is at all true, I'm not saying that the federal DOT is lying to us today or anything. If there was a considerable FEMA influence in the motivation and design of the system, staff today probably just don't know about it. A lot of this stuff happened in face-to-face conversations, a lot of the documentation was classified and by the time it hit the DECL ON it was moldering in a bankers box somewhere... the same reasons that a lot of stuff about the relocation program isn't very well known today despite it being declassified. One of the consequences of secrecy is that the whole thing is more likely to just be forgotten as decades go by and the people who were in the know cycle out. And FEMA and its precursors seemed to have a particularly weird and insular inner culture that makes them hard to talk about from a historical perspective today.
sbierwagen 6y ago
I mean, you can just read the original text. Section 108(a): >It is hereby declared to be essential to the national interest to provide for the early completion of the "National System of Interstate Highways", as authorized and designated in accordance with section 7 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. It is the intent of the Congress that the Interstate System be completed as nearly as practicable over a thirteen-year period and that the entire System in all the States be brought to simultaneous completion. Because of its primary importance to the national defense, the name of such system is hereby changed to the "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". Such National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is hereinafter in this Act referred to as the "Interstate System". https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-70-Pg374.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-7...

by js2 6y ago

jcrawfordor 6y ago

Yeah, I'm really not sure about this - stories of the strange history of the Eisenhower freeway system are extremely common and there's just a surprising amount of myth around them, like the airplane landing thing that we've seen elsewhere in the thread. It's probably unnecessarily conspiratorial to think that the motivations were anything other than what was officially said (e.g. economic advantages), but I give a certain weight to evacuation as a motive because the vast majority of the efforts made towards survivability were remarkably secretive and it was common, at the time, for the government to use cover stories as justification for survivability efforts. Consider, for example, how FEMA used the FBI as a "front" for the crisis relocation program in order to deny their involvement. It's the kind of secret-keeping that seems really pointless and strange now (how much does it even matter to anyone if it's the FBI or FEMA inventorying relocation sites?), but is an artifact of the ultra-paranoid and minimally accountable atmosphere of the time. Most of these things remain pretty secretive today, not necessarily because there's some ongoing push to keep it a secret, but through the more boring mechanism of once secret, now obscure documents being hard to get declassified. So I sort of suspect that evacuation was a bigger factor than the government admits, but that's purely speculative. Just like suburbanization there are definitely a lot of reasons the interstates happened.

pfraze 6y ago
It’s really common for decisions to be made for more than one reason, even if some of those reasons are just advantages brought up during the planning discussions. I can easily see the defense motives as being one of the many factors involved in the freeway development.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  Right, and if my borderline conspiracy theory that evacuation was a bigger factor than we know today is at all true, I'm not saying that the federal DOT is lying to us today or anything. If there was a considerable FEMA influence in the motivation and design of the system, staff today probably just don't know about it. A lot of this stuff happened in face-to-face conversations, a lot of the documentation was classified and by the time it hit the DECL ON it was moldering in a bankers box somewhere... the same reasons that a lot of stuff about the relocation program isn't very well known today despite it being declassified. One of the consequences of secrecy is that the whole thing is more likely to just be forgotten as decades go by and the people who were in the know cycle out. And FEMA and its precursors seemed to have a particularly weird and insular inner culture that makes them hard to talk about from a historical perspective today.

sbierwagen 6y ago

I mean, you can just read the original text. Section 108(a): >It is hereby declared to be essential to the national interest to provide for the early completion of the "National System of Interstate Highways", as authorized and designated in accordance with section 7 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944. It is the intent of the Congress that the Interstate System be completed as nearly as practicable over a thirteen-year period and that the entire System in all the States be brought to simultaneous completion. Because of its primary importance to the national defense, the name of such system is hereby changed to the "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways". Such National System of Interstate and Defense Highways is hereinafter in this Act referred to as the "Interstate System". https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-70-Pg374.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-70/pdf/STATUTE-7...