"Drive a Ford and Feel the Difference"

In all the fanfare accompanying the Interstate system's birthday I have heard plenty of stories on the effect interstates have had on our culture (city depopulation, the decline of smaller cities, the birth of "edge cities", and many more), but I have heard few mentions of the effects of punching major arteries through city centers.

St. Louis is diced up by three major interstates. The engineer's calipers and the surveyor's transit divided neighborhoods and split communities. Some even argue that their creation fueled the decline of the adjacent areas, some of which are only now seeing their fortunes change for the better. If you head East along I-44 from Hampton to I-55 then South through Soulard, 40 West from Vandeventer, or along 70 West from Grand you can see where the highways separated neighbor from neighbor.

Eisenhower's dream successfully linked up the nation's major cities providing faster transit for people, goods and tanks (fortunately the only major military deployments utilizing the interstate has been for disaster relief). Its legacy is written in our physical and cultural landscape.

The system has brought numerous benefits and, as others have documented in detail, its car-centric nature has also brought negatives. Yet as the nation stood in the 1950's the car was a symbol of a rebirth in American manifest destiny. There was little chance continental transit would take any other form. And, remember, Communists took the train.