Early superhighway proposals

[briantroutman]

I was looking at some old magazine scans on the Modern Mechanix website and found this 1934 piece about a proposed coast-to-coast superhighway. As with many sketches I've seen from the '30s and '40s, the prevailing attitude seemed to be that grade separation was enough and that left exits, 90° turns, and impossible ramp geometry were not problems.

What was more interesting to me, though, was the inset map showing a two route system–one east-west on a roughly US 66-like corridor, and the other north-south paralleling the Mississippi River. I've never seen this map before. Does anyone know if it has a basis in an actual proposal? The "article"  is painfully short on citations.



On the same site, I also encountered this 1938 article with an expanded system map. The article references a proposal by Senator Bulkley of Ohio–who is also mentioned in the FHWA's Interstate 50 pages as suggesting that the Interstate System be funded by a tax on pensions. But I'd never seen this map before and don't know if it's actually related to the Bulkley proposal–the magazines of the day seemed to play as fast and loose with the facts as clickbait schlockmeisters do today.

Very strange that one of the six N-S transcontinental routes would terminate at Phillipsburg, Montana–current population, 850.

[NE2]

An Interstate through Yellowstone!

Philipsburg is probably there for access to US 10, which I guess they figured didn't need its own freeway.

[kkt]

Love the ruler-straight line from San Francisco to Denver, across the Sierra and Rockies.

And I'm sure Milwaukee and Minneapolis didn't really need interstates anyway.

[theline]

Interesting that the east coast route terminates in Ft. Myers, rather than going to Miami. That Buffalo to Mobile route is odd too.

[iBallasticwolf2]

I think the 1938 proposal isn't as bad as the 1934 proposal. Although why in the name of god are there parking bays proposed in the second proposal? The 1934 proposal actually shows a primitive diamond interchange tho. Although the ramps in the city are INSANE. Also in the 1938 proposal the underpasses are like tunnels. Bus lanes anyone? 8 lanes on a rural highway? Also the 1938 proposal manages to serve Bismark but not Dallas/Fort Worth.

[froggie]

Interesting how the article was predicting computer-assisted driving by 1988.

BTW, it should be noted that the first official Federal study (dated around that same time...1938) resulted in this.

[mgk920]

Interesting that the east coast route terminates in Ft. Myers, rather than going to Miami. That Buffalo to Mobile route is odd too.

Miami was still a smallish backwater kind of a place then.  Remember the size of Las Vegas, NV and Phoenix, AZ then, too (years 'B(a)C" - 'Before (air) Conditioning').

As for designs, geometrics and so forth, remember that these articles are from the mid-1930s, before many of the modern-day standards were even dreamed of by engineers.  OTOH, that 'city' image from the 1934 article already existed in many ways at that time, think of Wacker Drive in Chicago (two-level street originally opened in 1917), what I consider a very early forerunner of the modern urban freeway.

Also, 1988 (50 years into the future in that 1938 article)?  Only a few years off on consumer-grade GPS capability.

Overall, not bad at all for the crystal-ball gazing that those writers and artists did back then.



Mike

[iBallasticwolf2]

And I'm sure Milwaukee and Minneapolis didn't really need interstates anyway.

Neither did Dallas/Fort Worth or Nashville. But Bismark HAD to be served.

[sipes23]

OTOH, that 'city' image from the 1934 article already existed in many ways at that time, think of Wacker Drive in Chicago (two-level street originally opened in 1917), what I consider a very early forerunner of the modern urban freeway.

And that top image looks an awful lot like the configuration of the Kennedy through downtown Chicago.

[nexus73]

Those entrance-exit ramps being proposed in the first pix remind me of the Alaska Way Viaduct.  Boy am I glad we evolved past that point in designing exits and entrances!

100 MPH turned out to be a dream.  We recently got up to 85 in a few places.  I still believe in giving the empty spaces in the western US a neoautobahn treatment and letting the traffic fly along. 

Lights everywhere!  I-5 between north Salem and what was then US 99W was a 4-lane facility with light poles planted thickly along the entire length of this section of the route.  BPA power made it relatively cheap to light the freeway.  When that section of I-5 got upgraded to a 6-lane facility, the lights were removed and it seemed to me to have no impact on my ability to drive along the freeway at night, cloudy days or during rainstorms.  Botts dots became the new lights and I love them!

Watching the evolution of freeway design in SoCal is what fascinates me today.  How much of this will spread and to where?  What happens when autonomous vehicles ("Johnny Cab") come along?  1934 to 2015 is 81 years.  Where will we be in 2096?  Flying cars finally?  Do we wind up looking like Coruscant in "Star Wars"?

Rick

[Bickendan]

Interesting how the article was predicting computer-assisted driving by 1988.

BTW, it should be noted that the first official Federal study (dated around that same time...1938) resulted in this.

I find it very amusing that the I-5 corridor was numbered Corridor 5 in that study. Unintentionally the oldest numbered Interstate.

[Bruce]

Bus lanes anyone?

There's plenty of places that have bus-only lanes on freeways/expressways, like in South Korea:



Not to mention all the HOV lanes we have here, which can get pretty crowded with buses during peak hours:

[iBallasticwolf2]

Bus lanes anyone?

There's plenty of places that have bus-only lanes on freeways/expressways, like in South Korea:



Not to mention all the HOV lanes we have here, which can get pretty crowded with buses during peak hours:

My point was the bus lanes were in a 1934 idea. I don't think the design of bus lanes was implemented until much later.

[tradephoric]

The Detroit Rapid Transit Commission came up with a super-highway proposal in 1924.


http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-widening-of-michigan-avenue.html

[Mergingtraffic]

Yikes could you imagine if that was actually built and then add on today's traffic volumes, we'd be saying we need to overhaul it to fix the outdated designs.  I could see DOTs saying "we want to eliminate the substandard left exits and provide acceleration and deceleration lanes to the surface streets as now traffic must enter from a complete stop."  haha

[hobsini2]

Well let's keep in mind the country census of 1940.
Of the 100 largest cities in the US, 0, that's right, NONE lost population from the 1930 Census.
The following cities gained at least 50% of the previous census with the total pop ranking:

1. New York City 299.0%, 2. Chicago 206.7%, 3. Philadelphia 127.2%,
4. Detroit 137.9%, 5. Los Angeles 448.3%, 6. Cleveland 73.1%,
7. Baltimore 78.7%, 8. St Louis 61.0%, 10. Pittsburgh 52.1%,
11. Washington 61.4%, 15. New Orleans 199.4%, 16. Minneapolis 53.8%,
17. Cincinnati 72.4%, 19. Kansas City MO 58.6%, 20. Indianapolis 53.6%,
21. Houston 72.8%, 22. Seattle 68.5%, 24. Denver 57.9%,
27. Portland OR 63.5%, 29. Oakland 52.8%, 33. St Paul 52.2%,
35. Birmingham 50.2%, 38. Akron 53.7%, 43. San Diego 95.3%,
55. Des Moines 53.8%, 57. Salt Lake City 52.5%, 90. Duluth 62.3%

So of those cities, New Orleans, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Houston, Akron, Des Moines, and Duluth would not have been part of the 1938 proposal corridors. Pretty good for the country's growing needs. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/tab17.txt

[hobsini2]

I made a mistake. The number is square miles and not pop change.

[thenetwork]

The Detroit Rapid Transit Commission came up with a super-highway proposal in 1924.


http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-widening-of-michigan-avenue.html

Didn't Detroit build a similar system in place soon after?  I had thought that the major surface streets (Woodward, 8 Mile, Gratiot, Grand River, Michigan Ave,...) were designed for light rail to run down what today is just a wide center median along most of these roads.  And they did create multi level interchanges between such arterials, like in said picture, so Detroit wasn't too far off in their proposals. 

[GaryV]

Didn't Detroit build a similar system in place soon after?  I had thought that the major surface streets (Woodward, 8 Mile, Gratiot, Grand River, Michigan Ave,...) were designed for light rail to run down what today is just a wide center median along most of these roads.  And they did create multi level interchanges between such arterials, like in said picture, so Detroit wasn't too far off in their proposals.

DSR (Detroit Street Railway) and the Interurban did follow at least some of those arterials, but I'm not sure if that's why they have wide medians.  Part of I-75 (Chrysler Freeway) is in the footprint of Stephenson Highway, which also had rail.  That's why 4th Street in Royal Oak is so wide, because it served as the rail connection between downtown Royal Oak and Stephenson.

As far as the separated intersections, there is one at 8 Mile and Woodward, the only one I can think of at surface streets.  There are others at 8 Mile and I-75, Woodward and I-696, and 8 Mile and Southfield/Lodge - that last one might have been in existence before Southfield and NW Highway were upgraded to freeways.

[tradephoric]

Here is a link to the "Proposed Super-Highway Plan for Greater Detroit" released in 1924 by the Detroit Rapid Transit Commission.  It explains in detail why the major surface streets of Greater Detroit are so wide. 

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b5014895;view=1up;seq=1

[Avalanchez71]

Parking bays are understandble given the automobile of the day.  Remember that services were fewer and more far between in 1938.  Also the vehicles need much more maintance and many folks changed the oil themseleves and made minor roadside repairs with much greater frequency.

[briantroutman]

The proposal below (I believe from the late '20s) isn't a superhighway per se, but it does show another early attempt to add grade separation at a major intersection. Somehow, this seems like something I might have drawn as a child, the geometrics of which would never be practical in the real world.

[kkt]

The proposal below (I believe from the late '20s) isn't a superhighway per se, but it does show another early attempt to add grade separation at a major intersection. Somehow, this seems like something I might have drawn as a child, the geometrics of which would never be practical in the real world.

A neat idea, though.  Wouldn't fit in city streets, but how about using the air rights above urban freeway interchanges?

[iBallasticwolf2]

The proposal below (I believe from the late '20s) isn't a superhighway per se, but it does show another early attempt to add grade separation at a major intersection. Somehow, this seems like something I might have drawn as a child, the geometrics of which would never be practical in the real world.

Well if this is supposed to help intersections then taking out left turns will worsen it. Also those grades are insane.

[Avalanchez71]

That idea is in use in IL on the Oasis.