Concepts for Interstates

[AlexandriaVA]

These are of course 70 years too late, but here we go.

The Interstates are federally-suppported for the purpose of facilitating interstate commerce. Even in its name, Interstates exist for the national benefit.

Many (most) metropolitan areas have also benefited from Interstates on a regional basis, namely by allowing access to land to would have otherwise been less-accessible.

Perhaps when the Interstate system was built, it should have been segregated into LOCAL/THROUGH categories in metropolitan areas. The THROUGH lanes would be built and maintained by federal funds for the purposes of interstate travel and commerce, so higher speeds, fewer exits, etc.

LOCAL lanes would be built and maintained by the states/local governments to serve local commuting/travel/transit interests, and would presumably have lower speeds and more exits.

I know that some metro areas have THROUGH/LOCAL as a basic traffic separation scheme, but I was thinking more radical in terms of parallel roadways on the same right-of-way.

This thought came about because I was reading about commuting traffic on Interstates, and I don't think that's what Eisenhower had in mind with it.

[kphoger]

Sounds a lot like frontage roads.

[AlexandriaVA]

Yeah, I guess that sort of gets at it (we dont have frontage roads out my way so I'm not used to the concept too well). But I was thinking that it could still be a freeway/limited-access road. Just 'owned' by a different political body.

[jeffandnicole]

Isn't this what happens now?  The Interstate acts like the through route...the exits onto the side roads are for local traffic?

If you want to say that it should all be highways, then it would require much wider roads thru higher-density areas, with a minimum of 4 lanes per direction and split roadways.

[coatimundi]

Combined traffic volumes in urban areas rarely warrant an actual parallel roadway. The logistics of such are also pretty daunting, when you consider interchanges and additional ROW acquisition. There are several never-executed concepts out there: 271 in Cleveland and 288 in Houston, just to name a couple of examples. And there's good reason why they were never built out.

[AlexandriaVA]

Think more like express and local tracks on a railbed. All of the rails are on the same right-of-way, but the express tracks have fewer stops and switches, while the local tracks have more stops and switches and such. And in this analogy, the feds would be responsible for providing the land (land-grant concept) and the express tracks (interstate commerce) while the states and municipalities would build and maintain the local tracks.

There would still be opportunities for crossover, but that way commuting traffic and the considerations that come with it would be segregating from the interstate commerece business.

[kphoger]

This could potentially suck when it's time for a bridge replacement and the feds have enough money but the local authority is broke.

[AlexandriaVA]

This could potentially suck when it's time for a bridge replacement and the feds have enough money but the local authority is broke.

I suspect that not all municipalities would build their own local-use expressways for that reason. Let those who benefit from a road pay for it.

[kphoger]

What I'm getting at is this...

Suppose you build such a local/express highway setup, with the feds being responsible for the express lanes and the city being responsible for the local lanes.  It seems like a great idea, so the city is on board.  Then, 35 years later, a bridge over that highway needs to be replaced.  Who foots the bill for that replacement?

[coatimundi]

This could potentially suck when it's time for a bridge replacement and the feds have enough money but the local authority is broke.

I suspect that not all municipalities would build their own local-use expressways for that reason. Let those who benefit from a road pay for it.

This libertarian way of thinking about highway construction I think works mostly only in theory. We did this with the Indiana Tollway & Ohio Turnpike, and the Florida Turnpike. They work, but local traffic uses different roadways entirely in all those cases (except a section of 90 near Cleveland and 95 in Brevard County), and the roadways mostly avoid the medium-sized cities in between their outright destinations.
This is just ignoring the funding nightmare this would create. You would still have to put interchanges at points where these routes intersect one another and, unless a service plaza concept was set up, you'd have to provide at least some local interchanges. It then becomes an issue of fairness: the feds paying for local traffic or the local or state agencies paying for long-distance traffic. And it wouldn't always even out.
There's just good reason why this was never done. I understand the analogy of local and express tracking, but trains aren't driven by random people, the tracks don't need full interchanges, and the passengers have bathrooms and food on board. It's just not really comparable. And this isn't feasible.

[Duke87]

Combined traffic volumes in urban areas rarely warrant an actual parallel roadway. The logistics of such are also pretty daunting, when you consider interchanges and additional ROW acquisition. There are several never-executed concepts out there: 271 in Cleveland and 288 in Houston, just to name a couple of examples. And there's good reason why they were never built out.

Think more like express and local tracks on a railbed. All of the rails are on the same right-of-way, but the express tracks have fewer stops and switches, while the local tracks have more stops and switches and such.

It is very apt to compare a rail line with four tracks to a freeway with four roadways. I will point out, however, that while plenty of examples of both already exist, they represent only a small tiny fraction of the mileage out there, even looking strictly within urbanized areas. For the same basic reason: having four tracks isn't really worth it unless there is demand over a large portion of the day for more trains than can be run on two, and having four roadways isn't really worth it unless there is more traffic over a large portion of the day than can fit on two.

[jwolfer]

Sort of like 295 and NJTP in South Jersey.. there is 6 exits on NJTP and many more on 295

[kphoger]

I imagine this looking like federal highway 57, approaching México City from the north.  The inner two roadways make up a divided freeway.  The outer two roadways make up a divided four-lane highway with RIRO access to/from businesses and side streets but no stoplights.  Interchanges are all accessed by way of the outer roadways, with slip ramps every so often between the inner and outer roadways.  In the setup you describe, then, the inner roadways would be built and maintained as a highway, while the outer roadways would be built and maintained by the state of México and/or the municipal districts of Tepotzotlán, Cuautitlán Izcalli.

It becomes obvious looking at this setup that one would need to plan ahead for widening the inner highway as the need arises.  Highway 57 north of México City is grossly over capacity but there's no room for expansion.  If all roadways are funded by the same money, then a major overhaul is easier to pull off than if they are not.

[froggie]

As a corollary of this, one concept that should have been studied further in the urban areas is having the Feds pay for the main "Interstate commerce and travel" route...namely the beltways, with fewer exits, and leave the routes into the cities and local-access interchanges along the Beltway to the states and local authorities.

That would have helped preserve the beltways for Interstate travel (instead of the suburban slogs that many beltways turned into), and likely would have resulted in far less city destruction, but probably would not have had the political buy-in to make it happen.

[vdeane]

That's how it was envisioned by Eisenhower... then Congress added a bunch of commuter routes to essentially buy the votes needed to get it passed.

[kkt]

I dunno, a lot of the beltways were out in the country when they were built.  Exits five miles apart probably seemed like wide spacing in the 1950s, but they became islands of commercial districts, spaced with housing in between, the suburban sprawl we see today.  I'm not sure how they could have built beltways that would not turn into sprawl.  No exits at all?  More teeth to land use regulation than anyone seems prepared to continue to enforce decade after decade in the face of commercial pressure?

[froggie]

That's how it was envisioned by Eisenhower... then Congress added a bunch of commuter routes to essentially buy the votes needed to get it passed.

This may have been how Ike envisioned it, but most of the through-route "commuter routes" (basically today's 2di's through the cities) were already added to the system long before Ike became president.  Discovered this in doing my research on a theoretical 48.3K mile system (which was one of the system sizes studied in the early 1940s).

I dunno, a lot of the beltways were out in the country when they were built.  Exits five miles apart probably seemed like wide spacing in the 1950s, but they became islands of commercial districts, spaced with housing in between, the suburban sprawl we see today.  I'm not sure how they could have built beltways that would not turn into sprawl.

Most beltways have far more frequent spacing than 5 miles...as little as a half-mile in some regions, and rarely more than 3 miles except for some of the most rural examples.  The exit frequency contributes far more to sprawl than the "islands of commercial districts" you alluded to.

And yes, more teeth to land use regulation would have helped, but given the politics and situation at the time of Interstate development, that was far from decision makers minds.  But the transportation infrastructure (in this case, the Interstates and their beltways) became the catalyst that accelerated it beyond even the streetcar era.

[Thunderbyrd316]

   I believe what the OP had in mind was something like the 4 carriageway segment of the MacDonald Cartier Freeway near Toronto with the inside "express" carriageways being the "Interstate" and the outer carriageways being under local control. (4 carriageway freeways do exist in a few places, examples in Michigan and New Jersey come to mind, but not that many. The only example I can think of in the western U.S. is the brief segment of I-15 south of downtown Salt Lake City.)

   I for one would like to see more freeways built like this though I recognize that they would be VERY expensive and would require the dislocation of a LOT of homes and businesses.

[sparker]

Both kkt's and vdeane's comments are valid, but a major factor regarding the addition of miles of urban connectors & loops by the time the Interstate system "yellow book" was published in 1957 was the culmination of the postwar shift in Congressional power from rural to urban/suburban districts, prompted by the wholesale population moves in a similar fashion during and after WWII.  The Interstate system as originally planned was intended to encircle or skirt cities (a la Eisenhower's revered Autobahn network); local access was to remain localized in terms of planning and financing.  Of course, this was when the system was envisioned as largely a "farm-to-market" network -- with the original legislative support emanating primarily from rural areas.  With congressional power shifting to urbanized areas, those areas didn't hesitate to take full advantage; the concept of using urban Interstates as not only access to central cities but also as the "centerpieces" of "urban renewal" (read slum clearance to obviate the artifacts of "white flight" to suburbs & exurbs, endemic in the '50's) was subsequently implemented.  Thus, the proliferation of urban "inner loops" (like Boston's I-695, D.C.'s I-266, and Chicago's I-494 "Lake Shore" routing) -- designed to take suburban residents (and their cash flow!) to the central cities for work & recreation, providing ready access to the plethora of downtown parking garages.  While these "renewal" plans were tinged with more than a little racism, what really troubled downtown merchants and other interests was the loss of disposable income that previously had largely been concentrated within the central city; urban Interstates were seen as a means to reverse that loss.  Of course, the concept of the suburban mall/shopping center had yet to manifest itself on a substantial scale at the time the Yellow Book was formulated; by the late 60's, it had become clear that regardless of the efficiency of egress from the suburbs to the central cities, much of the commerce had permanently departed.

Rather than central cities annexing the areas around suburban Interstate (or otherwise) loops, the outlying jurisdictions, usually at the county level, often resisted such annexation, preferring to keep the proceeds from sales/usage taxes to themselves -- primarily to offset the increasing costs of dealing with more and more housing in the suburban perimeter (schools, utility districts, etc.).  It inevitably turned into a never-ending cycle:  developers plan a housing tract; the suburban jurisdiction, needing to obtain more income for support services, approves that tract in order to reap the increase in property taxes from enhanced land usage.  When that is insufficient to meet needs, another tract (more housing or even commercial property) is proposed and approved to generate more funds to pay for more services....ad almost infinitum!  Only in recent years has the concept of regulating growth through stricter land-use zoning, often involving the maintenance of "greenbelts" between developed tracts, been put into practice.  But the pressure is ongoing -- more development poses the potential for greater public-funds cash flow, while lack of development, regardless of any conceptual nobility or appropriateness, provides no income -- and often some level of expenditure.  Local officials are more often than not caught between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" -- damned if they do and broke if they don't!       

[AlexandriaVA]

Wow...a lot of good and informed replies. This thread got more traction than I thought it would.

Fundamentally, I think it's just a matter of the fact that Interstates mean different things to different people, and like with everything else, it's important when discussing the topic that you don't let someone else's "common knowledge" supplant someone else's (i.e. the benefits of Interstates to urban and coastal regions are different than that of rural regions).

I briefly looked at some of the examples and I think from an engineering standpoint they're pretty much spot-on. I guess what it comes down to is I wonder how much the federal government tried to keep the Interstate system oriented to its original purpose. Based on some of the responses, it seems like it was just politically much more expedient to allow local interests to co-opt "their" slice of the system.

The relevance in today's debate is, I believe, that when talking about highway funding, many people assume that whatever their benefit is (e.g. movement of goods, commuting, retail access), then that's how funding and spending should be aligned.

Condensed version: When push comes to shove with scarce dollars, how much federal funding should to towards "fixing" congestion on Interstates due to regional use as a commuter system?

[froggie]

Rather than central cities annexing the areas around suburban Interstate (or otherwise) loops, the outlying jurisdictions, usually at the county level, often resisted such annexation, preferring to keep the proceeds from sales/usage taxes to themselves -- primarily to offset the increasing costs of dealing with more and more housing in the suburban perimeter (schools, utility districts, etc.).  It inevitably turned into a never-ending cycle:  developers plan a housing tract; the suburban jurisdiction, needing to obtain more income for support services, approves that tract in order to reap the increase in property taxes from enhanced land usage.  When that is insufficient to meet needs, another tract (more housing or even commercial property) is proposed and approved to generate more funds to pay for more services....ad almost infinitum!  Only in recent years has the concept of regulating growth through stricter land-use zoning, often involving the maintenance of "greenbelts" between developed tracts, been put into practice.  But the pressure is ongoing -- more development poses the potential for greater public-funds cash flow, while lack of development, regardless of any conceptual nobility or appropriateness, provides no income -- and often some level of expenditure.  Local officials are more often than not caught between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" -- damned if they do and broke if they don't!       

By definition, a Ponzi scheme.

[AlexandriaVA]

Rather than central cities annexing the areas around suburban Interstate (or otherwise) loops, the outlying jurisdictions, usually at the county level, often resisted such annexation, preferring to keep the proceeds from sales/usage taxes to themselves -- primarily to offset the increasing costs of dealing with more and more housing in the suburban perimeter (schools, utility districts, etc.).  It inevitably turned into a never-ending cycle:  developers plan a housing tract; the suburban jurisdiction, needing to obtain more income for support services, approves that tract in order to reap the increase in property taxes from enhanced land usage.  When that is insufficient to meet needs, another tract (more housing or even commercial property) is proposed and approved to generate more funds to pay for more services....ad almost infinitum!  Only in recent years has the concept of regulating growth through stricter land-use zoning, often involving the maintenance of "greenbelts" between developed tracts, been put into practice.  But the pressure is ongoing -- more development poses the potential for greater public-funds cash flow, while lack of development, regardless of any conceptual nobility or appropriateness, provides no income -- and often some level of expenditure.  Local officials are more often than not caught between the proverbial "rock and a hard place" -- damned if they do and broke if they don't!       

By definition, a Ponzi scheme.

Loudoun County discovered this recently. Emphasis mine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/digger/wp/2015/07/05/why-one-number-has-homebuilders-furious-with-loudoun-county/

Since the recession, developers and landowners in Loudoun County – sometimes dubbed America's wealthiest county – have repeatedly asked for approval to add hundreds of additional residential units to their properties, only to be turned away.

The oft-cited reason is that for every new home Loudoun adds, it commits to paying $1.62 in services for every dollar in revenue it receives, according to a 2011 study.

[vdeane]

Honestly, I think human society itself is structured as one giant ponzi scheme.  It would explain the worshiping of growth.

[AlexandriaVA]

Honestly, I think human society itself is structured as one giant ponzi scheme.  It would explain the worshiping of growth.

You're starting to get into exisentialist discussions here. 

Arugably Japan has shown that you can have a little/no-growth society and still have a high living standard. Who is to say what the long-term implications of their low birth rates are, but as for now they seem to be fine with it.