On June 29, 1956, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was signed into law. The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams, and all of the other things that got in the way of speedy, safe transcontinental travel. At the same time, highway advocates argued, in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road would permit quick evacuation of target areas. For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was essential to the national interest.
The law authorized the construction of an interstate highway network that would span the nation. It also allocated $26 billion to pay for them. Under the terms of the law, the federal government would pay 90 percent of the cost of expressway construction. The money came from an increased gasoline tax that went into a non-divertible Highway Trust Fund.
The new interstate highways were controlled-access expressways with no at-grade crossings. They had overpasses and underpasses instead of intersections. They were at least four lanes wide and were designed for high-speed driving. They were intended to serve several purposes including the elimination of traffic congestion, replacing what one highway advocate called “undesirable slum areas” with pristine ribbons of concrete, making coast-to-coast transportation more efficient and making it easier to get out of big cities in case of an atomic attack.
When the legislation was first passed, most Americans supported it. Soon however, the unpleasant consequences of all that roadbuilding began to show. Most unpleasant of all was the damage the roads were inflicting on the city neighborhoods in their path. They displaced people from their homes, sliced communities in half, and led to abandonment and decay in city after city.
People began to fight back. The first victory for the anti-road forces took place in San Francisco, where in 1959 the Board of Supervisors stopped the construction of the double-decker Embarcadero Freeway along the waterfront. During the 1960s, activists in New York City, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, and other cities managed to prevent roadbuilders from eviscerating their neighborhoods.
In many cities and suburbs, however, the highways were built as planned. All told, the Interstate Highway System is more than 46,000 miles long.
This cache is near the newest exit in Fort Payne, however, please do not attempt this cache from the Interstate exit ramp. You should park near the cache in the cul de sac at the end of 48th Street.