I'm always on the lookout for facts that make me rethink my preconceived notions. I think I might have found one regarding highways.
More than once, I've
written about the "fact" that the Interstate Highway System was not originally intended to cut through cities. My thinking was influenced by articles such as one by Eric Jaffe in
The Atlantic.
Eisenhower himself didn't realize the Interstate Highway System would cut through American cities until a few years after construction began. Ike had wanted a national road network like the one he'd seen in Germany during World War II. But he'd also wanted these roads to stop at the doorsteps of cities, not push right past.
The conventional wisdom is that in order to get the interstate highway system built, Ike had to get the votes of urban congressmen, and to get those votes, he had to direct some of the construction their way, in the form of freeways in their urban districts. The argument has a certain logic.
After the jump, a contrarian opinion that deserves consideration.