Let States Build Their Own Highways

Reason ^ | October 6, 2015 | Veronique de Rugy

[Gene Eric]

>> Let States Build Their Own Highways

Says the driver that never suffered New Jersey’s jug-handles.

[BobL]

I suspect that this clown has NEVER traveled on US Interstates. While they are certainly not perfect, he might want to look at the haphazard collections of highways we had prior to Interstates. They made perfect sense, if you lived at either end, or on the route - but NO SENSE AT ALL if you were trying to, say, drive THROUGH a state. Those were truly highways to nowhere.

Anyway, this bunch has been looking to sell off our highways to China FOR DECADES - thankfully they continue to treated like the loonies that they are.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Are you sure you aren’t talking about the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit? That one is private. I don’t think that the Golden Gate Bridge is private.

[This_far]

When Congress left town for the August recess...

It might solve a LOT of problems if we didn't let them go BACK?

Keep them in state, telecommute, gather only when necessary (when or for whatever that might be).

[Fai Mao]

I think that having a freeway across Kansas is probably good for California as the road would speed transit. That said, in the second 1/2 of the 19th century railroads were built by private companies and by 1900 were overbuilt.

[BfloGuy]

the earliest pressure in Washington for Federal transportation funding came all the way back in the very early 1800s

There has always been pressure for more federal spending and there always will be. It should be resisted.

The states can work these things out amongst themselves. The pressure to fund the roads you speak of will come from constituents just as it does now.

The federal government is not wiser or more far-seeing than the state governments.

[Alberta's Child]

The opportunity to address all of that probably came and went with the U.S. Civil War. In any case, oversight of interstate transportation is certainly a Constitutional function of the Federal government.

Interestingly, the strongest need for Federal involvement in transportation isn't on the highway side. It's in the massive infrastructure on the nation's inland waterways. One of the biggest and longest-running transportation projects in the U.S. today is the Olmsted Locks & Dam on the Ohio River.

The states can work these things out amongst themselves.

What happens if one state decides that it won't recognize a driver's license or vehicle registration from another state? How about if Ohio (for example) got up one day and decided that it wanted to construct highways with lanes designed to accommodate Amish buggies, not cars?

[ConorMacNessa]

Quite so, TSR - also on the Ft. McHenry and Harbor Tunnels, the ICC, the Bay Bridge, and several other bridges.

In the years immediately after the opening of I-95 north of Baltimore, the individual exits had toll booths as well. I am of the opinion that out-of-state vehicles should pay more than inmates of the Freak State Gulag.

"I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life.
I am prepared to give my life in their defense."

[hinckley buzzard]

You are right the National Road was conceived and begun by Jefferson to facilitate settlement of the frontier, which at that time was the west side of the Appalachian mountains. Relic segments of the National Road can still be found in Ohio and Indiana, paralleled by federal route 40 and I-70.

The federal government was also involved in building canals connecting the Great lakes and rivers in the Ohio valley and points west. All this was provided for in the Constitution, plainly because they crossed state boundaries. States built their own intrastate roads of course and still do today.