more on Interstate Highways

1920s in Iowa

Later in Los Angeles, Californ

Big Road  Not long ago I wrote about HOT TEA's installation over I-35 and the allusion it makes to highways as rivers.  Now, a link, to a story about a book about the highways themselves.  The review suggests a rather up-beat treatment with the realistic assessment that the system would not be built today.  The interview also mentions the Lincoln Highway as a precursor of the mid-20th century system. 

I've lived in several towns that "old" Hwy 30 passes through and I once determined to drive it from NW Indiana where I lived to a town west of Chicago to visit friends.  Even 25 years ago Hwy30 was not a super-highway!  On the way home I used the Interstate and Tollways. 

Even in retrospect the experiment is a reminder of the interconnection of time and space/distance.  How far a place is from where I am is not only a matter of miles, but also of minutes.  And how far I'm willing to go is much influenced by how long the journey will take.

As we prepare for our 201/fall semester focus on "Remaking America," we will give some minor attention to the model-T and the ways that transportation technology (e.g. automobiles and roads, to be followed by air travel) remade Americans perceptions of their nation and their experience of it.