C060422 Interstate Highways

The federal government's responsibilities should be drastically
reduced in many areas, for many reasons, but primarily because it
does a below average job with most things asked of it. However, the
federal interstate highway system was one of the best ideas of the
20th century: a transportation, travel, and work project that
revolutionalized travel and commerce in our nation. It reduced the
cost of moving goods throughout the nation. The system should be
expanded and it's something that we actually "want" the federal
government to be involved with.

Anyone traveling the interstate highway system (IHS) today longs
for the days when there were sufficient lanes for the traffic. As the
federal highway administration strains to keep from getting even
further behind in upgrading the IHS, I submit that the best way to
improve the system involves doing what was done in the beginning
of the project. Don't add lanes to present crowded highways, many
near large or medium sized cities that involves huge costs in
buying land and demolishing businesses and homes, but build a
second IHS using the same process begun in the 1950's,
consisting of completely new routes.

The old road building axiom that it costs twice as much to widen a
road as it does to build a new one has us wasting billions of
construction dollars each year expanding the current IHS, while still
the average commute time grows longer across the nation and travel
between states gets more congested and slow, wasting billions of
dollars and tens of millions of gallons of gasoline.

We should design and build the second IHS for the 21st century that
can easily answer the upcoming needs for alternative fuels for
automobiles. Include sufficient space for an easy addition of fast rail
services for both goods and commuting. Make the new IHS primarily
for car traffic and let the big trucks use the current interstates.

The second IHS will be easier to build because we don't need as
many miles of roads this time and it will not need to be built to the
more expensive road surface standards necessary for heavy truck
travel. Also, require that the new IHS pay for itself by charging tolls
electronically with the latest technology that doesn't require a
vehicle even to slow down.

A revenue neutral transportation, travel, and work project for the
early 21st century that will reduce the cost of transporting goods
throughout the nation.