I hate actually driving on it, especially for long distances, and I hate that it is the practical replacement to an equally comprehensive network of rails that used to carry passengers across the country.
So for today, I wanted to dive into those feelings: what makes the Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System great, and how that greatness masks a weakness in US public infrastructure, especially around cities.
1. So Many Roads, So Little Much Time
I grew up in Seattle, and spent formative years in both Chicago and Rochester. What these cities have in common is that they don't just have I-90 going through them (yes, it's I-90 in my blood, especially when you consider that Boston is also on it) but also other interstates intersecting with it. I-490, I-5, I-405, I-390, I-80, I-55, I-57, I-355, I could literally just keep going on.
Even the Quad Cities, small as it may be and non-I-90 as it is, has not only I-80, but I-280 and I-74 to call its own.
The highway system doesn't just connect like little lines on the big map of the US, in other words; it tentacles outwards so that urban and suburban spaces are continually covered with big, open asphalt.
That's great in the sense that you can use those highways to get into the city, get around the city, get through the city. But it's terrible when you consider just how much of the city turns out to actually be the highway.
And somehow there are still massive backups on these highways (though much less here in the QCA than in the three cities mentioned above).
Somehow I-5 in Seattle's U-District manages to both massively divide two neighborhoods with a giant asphalt pit and also be bumper-to-bumper over the Ship Canal Bridge.
Somehow I-90/94 in Chicago manages to both make it extremely unpleasant to walk across large portions of the city while causing the El to be noisy and windswept as it stops mid-highway and be incredibly dangerous and slow at the same time.
So you have to hurry up and wait, 55-60-65-70 mph signage or not, while you also depress the value of property and the pleasure of walking, and oh by the way the creation of these giant urban freeways wasn't great either.
2. Point to Point, But Not
At the same time, what urban highways don't actually do is the thing that urban railways do do, which is really bring you into downtown directly.
This OuiGo in Paris Gare du Nord is faster and more central than those highways I was talking about above--except maybe the capped I-5 under Seattle, but even that skirts the edge of downtown and is notoriously dangerous to exit there.
Basically, even in the cities where the highway goes "downtown," it doesn't actually go downtown, because if it did then downtown would have to move--because there'd be a freeway there and people and businesses don't actually like to congregate near a freeway (not to mention the space they take up).
A paradox that rail travel does not experience.
Even Boston's Big Dig which goes under the north side of downtown, isn't actually great for getting you to downtown--because of the abovementioned slowness and danger.
As I feel like I mention all the time: cars give the illusion of going point to point more efficiently than trains because you are in the car the whole time, but the actual access for the car and the time in the car are not necessarily all that efficient. Urban highways are a great example of this, because they don't usually go downtown for realz.
And when they do, like in Milwaukee? Well, I'm on the record about how I feel about that too. A good downtown shouldn't make me feel like I need to duck down to walk in it.
That said, I do like that I can get on the interstate and just go. As I said: love/hate relationship. It's great that I can slide onto I-5 and head out of town at the Seattle Convention Center, when I need to. It's just not great the rest of the time.
3. Breathing Free
The stereotypical view of the American highway is the open convertible gunning it down the empty open roads of the American West.
Something like this, but not parked and with the top down and the sun up.
But while that is a lovely vision (see, this is the love part), all too often the highway actually makes it much harder for everyone else to breathe. Gas fumes; tire particulates; a lack of sun and an excess of noise: the urban highway is not an engine of freedom for everyone who isn't on it (this is the hate part).
And again: what speed are you actually making on the way when you're in the city? Would you want your convertible top down if the car next to you has its exhaust pointed at your head (or is a truck with the exhaust above your head)?
On a map, the Interstate Highway System is a marvel, and if it could operate only on the basis of that map I'd be as big a fan as anybody. But when you get down onto it and actually drive? Well, I'd rather have a robust train network any century.
It's a shame we don't, at present, get to make that choice.
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