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December 19, 2011 in City
Then & Now: Interstate 90 transformed a region
Traffic flows into and out of Spokane last month on Interstate 90.
(Full-size photo)(All photos)
The interstate highway is something baby boomers and younger people take for granted. And though President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation to fund an interstate highway system June 29, 1956, some places didn’t see the results until the early 1960s. Before that, a road trip to Moses Lake or Seattle meant driving up the two-lane Sunset Highway and crossing the state on a mismatched series of two-lane roads that wound through small towns and past dusty rural gas stations. The interstate, with limited on- and offramps and higher speed limits, shaved time from long trips, but travelers now speed past towns that once were important wayside stops for motorists.
- Jesse Tinsley
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greyhound2 on December 19 at 7:50 a.m.
Eisenhower was the last US President who ever did anything for the benefit of the American people by pushing through the Inter-state system for the benefit of citizens. All who have followed have spend taxpayer money on some overseas operation which have had no actual useful benefit to those paying the bills.
Teseract on December 19 at 12:18 p.m.
All it cost us was the East Cantral neighborhood and one of our nicest parks, Liberty Park. Now we have a nice ugly cloverleaf for the Hamilton offramp/onramp sitting where a beautiful, Kirtland Cutter designed park used to be. Photos of it used to be sold on postcards next to those of Manito. There was a pond where everyone ice-skated in the winter.
It was 22 acres of rolling hills. Now it’s 3 acres of meth-head infested grass. There’s the ruins of one of the nice basalt picnic structures at third and Aurthur covered in weeds
The 60’s were a time of massive destruction of properties that contributed to the quality of life in Spokane.
Gotta love progress.
RedCedar on December 19 at 2:47 p.m.
I’m not sure how the writer knows that gas station used to be “dusty”, but I’m pretty sure that the most popular route to Seattle or Moses lake from Spokane was via US 10 (now I-90) , not US 2 (the “Sunset highway”).
Legend has it that Eisenhower became convinced of the need for good interstate highways when he was in the Army on a convoy to California in the 1920s and saw how lousy the roads were. By the time he became president, he also wanted an alternative to the railroads, which were going on strike way too often. Then as now the best way to get conservatives to vote to spend money was to give it a military tie-in. The original bill was nicknamed the Defense Highways Act.
Part of the justification of the freeway system was that it would encourage what we now call “suburban sprawl”. In the 1950s that was seen as a good thing because it would make it harder for the Ruskies to destroy both the factories and the workers with one atomic bomb. Intentional suburban sprawl was a deliberate cold-war survival strategy. It probably didn’t hurt that it had the backing of the real estate industry as well. So, here we are today, for better or worse. I’m sure we’re better off not being dependent on railroads, but I’m also pretty sure suburban sprawl was a net negative for our society in many ways.