One could reasonably argue that but for the Nixonian notion cobbled up back in '72-'73 (before Watergate watered down that administration's clout) to disperse initiative for any public-sector projects to the states rather than an inception at the federal level (in other words, making sure LBJ's "Great Society" measures wouldn't be repeated any time soon), there would be regular planned additions to the Interstate System, primarily driven by changing population distribution and demographics. The first -- and to date only -- example of the "national" planned approach was the 1500-mile batch of additions in 1968, during LBJ's last full presidential year. And that was cut back from 4500 original miles of additions by discretionary funds being shifted to DOD as a result of the Tet offensive in Vietnam that winter. The 1965 population estimates were used as a basis for the initial route selection, which included such gems as current I-49 (but terminating in Baton Rouge), the Houston-Shreveport section now part of the I-69 corridor, I-22, and an I-40 extension to I-5 via Bakersfield -- among others. All submitted, vetted, and approved until the funding issue came up, at which point the whittling away began. But at least there was an expansion plan deployed on a national level back then. If not for Nixon's machinations, there's a good chance that every ten years -- at least through the 1990's -- there would have been regularized additions, with legislated mileage varying with the national and political mood -- somewhere around 1978, 1988, and 1998 (the 2007-10 recession may well have interrupted the process). I won't venture speculation about specific routes planned during those periods, but suffice it to say a number of current corridors would likely be included due to regional population growth. But we might have been spared the phenomenon of long corridors being planned by invested parties along the path with mandated connecting segments of questionable value, which has certainly occurred under the present methodology surrounding "future" Interstate corridors; those might not have survived a vetting process that now is bypassed by legislative language.
The Interstate system, in its initial stages from wartime preliminary concept to the 1958 original system finalization, was based largely on historical demographics that saw population concentration in the Northeast and Great Lakes region, which is why the initial system included closely-spaced corridors intended to address what was then the nation's central industrial area. The '68 batch was originally intended to address both nationwide discrepancies as well as demographic shifting since '58; its truncation (which included a deletion of I-27 from Lubbock down to I-20 at Big Spring) only accomplished a fraction of the original intent.
Now I suppose whether any of this is germane comes down to how one views the Interstate system -- as a one-shot program that has now expanded beyond its original brief, or an organic concept intended to provide maximal national automotive/commercial mobility that can and will expand according to need. But under the current system, it doesn't really correspond to either idiom -- but with expansion relegated to what comes down to political whim combined with political clout. The closest thing we've got right now is an amalgam of the NHS and the various high-priority corridors enacted over the last 30 years, with regional backers and legislators pouncing as needed on those corridors to add Interstate designations that may (or may not, for that matter) provide regional benefit if deployed. But the difference is chargeability; the original system and the '68 additions all received 90% federal funding from a pool not dependent on year-to-year legislative will. The reason many corridors are in effect "lying fallow" is a combination of that additional 10% of the total bill that needs to be amassed at the state and/or local level as well as short attention spans of those tasked with actually planning and building the facilities -- for some (particularly in the legislative arena) just getting a new Interstate corridor, built or not, on their resume' is sufficient; follow-through, unless it means a massive uptick in district employment for the various projects, is hardly guaranteed.
The P2P/I-27 corridor concept, which started life in 1995 as HPC #38 -- and later modified with the Midland and Raton "branches" -- pretty much exemplifies the current modus operandi. Lying dormant since late '90's studies threw cold water on even the Lubbock-to-I-20 segment, other corridor hubbub (particularly nearby I-14) breathed life into it; the substantial uptick in cross-border traffic at Laredo provoked a renewed interest here. San Angelo and M/O boosters have climbed aboard, as this longer-lived corridor would do essentially the same in terms of overall regional connectivity as the I-14 proposal absent an additional eastern connection -- and it ties together a string of N-S regional commerce centers from Del Rio to Dumas, which I-14 doesn't do. What the P2P has going for it is a substantial number of places to put things, a good portion of which have enough population to supply a decent initial labor force for those "things", which include warehousing, distribution, and conveyance between locations along the "string". As an aside, if the regularized Interstate additions discussed earlier had actually come about, it's likely that the P2P would at a minimum have been extended south to Sonora or Junction along I-10, forming the "thickest part" of that string as an extended I-27. North of Dumas, not so much; from there north to I-70 the corridor should be considered much like I-90 or I-94 across the Dakotas -- a means to get from region "A" to region "B". As iterated before in the P2P thread, anything north of I-70 is likely to see at best divided expressway development (a la NE 71 between I-80 and Scottsbluff or SD 79 up to Rapid City); a bit too far out to attract the commercial facilities that would be more appropriately deployed in west Texas, so the prospective traffic levels would be lessened accordingly. The P2P -- within its HPC #38 bounds -- is, IMO, a viable and potentially useful corridor, even though parts of it don't have specific localized value outside of a place to plop down roadside services.
Thinking about it -- the P2P would make a pretty damn ideal test bed for electric-vehicle charging facility deployment -- since a decent amount of it goes through largely unpopulated territory, spacing out such outlets in order to minimize the chance that one's car would power down out in the middle of the desert or plains would be an informative exercise for DOT's as well as car and battery manufacturers. Since most of the outlying sections are currently 2-lane rural highway, some such (re)charging facilities could be built from scratch without drawing the ire of current facilities in the more settled sections which would expect such stations to be added to their current layout regardless of whether the location makes sense vis-a-vis optimal intervals.
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Topic: In preparation for I-27 extension, expect bypass and/or 4-lane upgrades... (Read 22979 times)