National Highway System Future

The National Interstate and Defense Highway Act was passed in 1956 by the federal government and it authorized $25 billon dollars to build 41,000 miles of interstate highways over the next ten years. With Henry Ford inventing the assembly line in his automobile factory, they were able to make automobiles cheaper for the public. For the first time Americans were able to own a car and not have to be extremely wealthy. With all these new people driving more they needed to expand and make new roads. Americans weren’t relying on trains for their transportation anymore.

Comparing the financial cost of the interstate with the cost of having to reallocate funding or stopping programs in an effort to decrease traffic congestion will create a greater economic downturn if not done in moderation as well as a decrease in confidence in lawmakers. The lawmakers will feel the decrease in confidence by citizens during elections. Unless the local government can generate and use other sources of revenue to continue highway improvement, the decision to remove the city’s funding is not practical.

To identify a viable solution, the first thing I did was look at proposed solutions that are being discussed and pinpoint why they were not gaining support. These solutions have been disregarded by Congress or the public for a number of reasons. Currently, Congress is as divided as they have been in recent years and due to this divide the proposed fixes for the Highway Trust Fund haven’t gained traction in Congress or widespread public support. On one side of the divide you have a group that would ignore any solution that has a gas tax increase attached to it and on the other side you have a group that doesn’t want to reward corporations that have been evading taxes by keeping their profits overseas. There is also a solution that hasn’t gained enough public support due to the dislike of toll roads, I knew to find a solution that could garner enough support from the public and Congress I had to find the issues that caused these solutions to stall out.

In which the last time this occurred, was during President George W. The Bush administration in 2005 when signed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act. Unfortunately, it was not enough federal assistance for the United States infrastructure. Before President Barack Obama signed off on the FAST Act, the United States infrastructure was in turmoil. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that the country would need to spend $1.6 trillion in the next five years to bring the country's infrastructure to an acceptable minimum standard (Goldhagen,

     Everything is bigger in Texas. That’s what a lot of Texans what Americans and people around the world to know – you don’t mess with Texas. In the 1950’s, when President Eisenhower created the first Interstate plan for the country and implemented new roads in almost every single state, it was the largest engineering feat in the modern world. Now, almost half a century later, Governor Rick Perry is set to break that record, with the costliest, largest, and most incredible-sized proportion Texas Trans-Corridor, dubbed the “Texas Superhighway,” a 4000 mile, $175 billion dollar project that won’t be completely functional for another fifty years (Perry). This project certainly

“The safety of the people shall be the highest law,” (Cicero n.d. p1). Throughout history, the safety of people has been arguably the most important objective of the government. Political leaders have made a force including police, fire-fighters, and etc. to keep the common population safe. Unfortunately the system set up is not the most efficient at locating mistakes that could potentially bring harm to citizens. Within the city of Longview, located in Texas, there is one of these mistakes posing a threat to the population of the city. On the south side of the city there is a three way intersection between the roads Estes Parkway (running north and south) and Highway 281 (running from the west to Estes Parkway). This intersection designed

The Interstate System that was created under the Federal Highway Act of 1956 cost 128.9 billion dollars and currently spans 46,876 miles long (Federal Highway Administration). This system links the North to the South and the East Coast to the West Coast. Today, America does not spend nearly the amount of time nor attention to the betterment of the nation’s infrastructure. For the last four year, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or ASCE for short, has ranked America’s system in the D range (NPR 2013). President of the society, Gregory DiLoreto, stated that:

The term New Frontier was used by liberal, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech. Kennedy entered office with the goal to get rid of Americas poverty, and to raise America’s eyes to the stars through the space program. During the New Frontier, unemployment benefits were expanded, aid was provided to cities to improve housing and transportation, funds were allocated to continue the construction of a national highway system started under Eisenhower, a water pollution control act was passed to protect the country’s rivers and streams, and an agricultural act to raise farmers’ incomes was made law.

NTS operates on seven fixed routes connecting small urban areas and also connects with other transit systems like Greyhound Busline. The use of NTS has increased from 66,000 to 80,000 riders over a two-year period (LRTP II-F2). Due to poor road conditions the safety for NTS has become an issue. The general plans provided background information on the Navajo Nation Indian Reservation Road (IRR) system and this helps to understand how the nation’s road network operates. Since the nation overlaps different boundaries the IRR system administers the various highway programs, these include tribal, state, county, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and other agency roads. Almost half of the nation’s highways are BIA roads and majority is unpaved. The interesting part of this section is how these roads are different agency roads but the nation manages to overlook all these roads through the IRR system.

billion on the rail industry to build, maintain, and grow. Coming out of the era of recession

The role of federal government versus state and local governments is significant in trying to find a solution to America’s problem. In my opinion, the States should assume control over funding and spending for America’s infrastructure by using the Highway Trust Fund at the local levels. I also think the federal government’s role in the issue oversteps what the Constitution has laid out. Maybe if the aspects that I claim were supported by others, then the laws would move towards what I think the laws should

Public safety is one of the big concerns in the United States. American government is doing their best to maintain the safety on the road. The government of the United States is not just focusing road safety on national level but also they are focusing on state wide to ensure the safety on roads. With all their hard work, they are successful for ensuring the safety. Especially now days where the technology is expanding every day, with this fact it is hard for the government to keep up with everyday changing technology. The new technologies that are interfering with the road safety are mobile devices like; cell phones, ipads, and tablets. People are using these

The Oklahoma Department of Transportation says that it uses multiple platforms for the distribution of traffic information such as public meetings, direct mailings, its website, press releases, social media, and email newsletters (“Oklahoma Department of Transportation”). However, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation does not post enough frequent traffic advisories online to inform drivers of changes and short-term lane and ramp closures as the project progresses. For example, the last modification for the list of traffic advisories was on August 21, 2015 (“Oklahoma Department of Transportation”). Frequent necessary updates relating to the West Lindsey Street Project and surrounding impacted areas are necessary to help drivers avoid traffic problems. The current traffic advisories do not mediate activity in relation to the traffic problem.

For my research I will be researching a highway expansion on highway 52 from Ft. Lupton all the way to Keenesburg Colorado, and how the size of the highway affects people in my community. The issue with this highway is that it is very dangerous because it is only two lanes, and the people that drive through this highway at times drive very fast. Since there are hills from Keenesburg, at times the driver cannot see who is coming. This can result in collision crashes. However that is not the only problem with this highway.

The interstate highway system began to be built in 1956, which greatly supported military movement and overall transportation to other states for trade.