ON SELLING THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM: DEFINING ITS PURPOSE AND FUNCTION--JUST WHAT ARE WE BUYING?

In the waning months of the Eisenhower Administration, future Senator Moynihan foresaw the profound impacts of the fledging Interstate system on metropolitan areas and towns. Moynihan found much to be concerned about in the expansion of the system from the 26,700 mile system recommended by the Bureau of Public Roads to the 40,000 mile plus system approved by Congress. Investigation and oversight committees were being formed in the Congress to investigate rampant waste, fraud and abuse in the system. The combination of the lack of integrated planning and the availability of directed federal funding was already creating a system that decimated urban downtowns and neighborhoods while bypassing America's small towns. As we move toward the 1994 and 1995 debate on the Congressional designation of the new National Highway System, it behooves all of us to reflect upon the experiences of the thirty-year Interstate era as we move into the ISTEA era. What are the conditions which will allow the ISTEA era to retain desirable aspects of the Interstate era -- a connected nation which supports interstate commerce, tourism and agriculture -- while ensuring that transportation investment does not result in the destruction of our big cities and small towns and lessen rural access by a focus on a limited set of federal routes? How can we target transportation investment so that it is responsive to the economic needs of the nation while remaining efficient, environmentally sensitive, energy conserving and socially equitable? This challenge faces us as we struggle to reconcile ISTEA's policy dictum for a National Intermodal System which enhances metropolitan and rural American through public accountability with the call for a National Highway System to be designated through a political process. Selling the National Highway System requires a clear definition which focuses upon system preservation, preserving and improving environmental quality, improving efficiency and ensuring a fair return to metro areas and small towns. The National Highway System can be the highway component of an intermodal National Transportation System for the 21st century that is focused on quality of life and environmental goals. STPP, AASHTO and the transportation community should work together to see that this promise is realized and to ensure that the NHS designation does not become just a vehicle for demonstration projects which threaten our ability to maintain and improve the performance of this integrated transportation network.