Building the Interstate Highway System

Evidence that the vice president presents that the state of America's highways is indeed a problem is that the highway net is inadequate locally, and obsolete as a national system. The roads were governed by terrain, existing Indian trails, cattle trails, arbitrary section lines. They were for local movement at low speeds. They were updated some for increased power, but they needed to look at what the future (10 years from then) would need.

The specific problems this plan is intended to solve is to properly articulate systems that solves problems of speedy, safe, transcontinental travel; intercity communication; access highways; and farm-to-market movement; metropolitan area congestion; bottlenecks; and parking. With making the interstate highway system he feels (with cooperation and maximum of state and local initiative and control) they can make a program which will deal with the problems effectively.

Building the Interstate Highway System

Richard Nixon reveals information that it was originally built and used for terrain, Indian trails, cattle trails, and land division lines. Now, the highway system has been transformed to meet metropolitan needs for traffic, transcontinental movement, and increased horsepower. However the highway system has never really transformed physically to meet those demands. He cites statistics of how the horsepower and mileage of transportation vehicles have increased dramatically, yet the roads are not increasing in structure at the same rate. He also discusses the death tolls and casualties, the wasted hours in traffic, and the civil suits that clog up the courts. The plan specifically aims to solve the problems of speedy, safe, transcontinental tavel, intercity communication, access highways, congestion, parking, bottlenecks, and farm-to-market-movement.

Building the interstate highway system

The vice president uses information about the structure of the country's roads to convince his audience that it is a big problem. He discusses how the highway system was originally built with different intentions and for different purposes than what it is used for now, and that these original structure plan is now insufficient. He cites facts about the total number of miles of highway in relation to the number of vehicles that owned, deaths and injuries that occur on the roads, and the waste of time caused by roadways that are insufficient to meet the needs of the people. His plan intends to solve the problems of slow transcontinental traffic, intercity travel, access highways, farm-to-market travel, congestion, bottlenecks, and parking.

Response: Nixon article

1. What evidence does the vice president present that the state of America's highways is indeed a problem? What are the specific problems this plan is intended to solve?

--ejfleitz