Transformation by Road

The nation's highways, spreading inexorably across the U.S., are not only transforming American life but having deep effects on business. Last week in Manhattan, Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton announced that the vast program to build 41,000 miles of interstate highway has just about reached the halfway mark: 19,950 miles opened, another 6,100 miles under construction. There is nothing halfway, though, about the economic impact that the $46.8 billion program has already made on dozens of areas across the U.S.

Since 1956, when Congress authorized the program, federal and state agencies have poured $23.3 billion into the economy for land, labor, construction materials and equipment. Real estate prices along the roads have risen as much as thirtyfold, putting adjoining land among the nation's most expensive property. Around expressway interchanges and exits, new motels, restaurants, gas stations, shopping centers and even office buildings have sprung up.

Many isolated, drowsy communities --placed within commuting time of cities by the new roads--have suddenly come alive and prospered. To take advantage of the expanded labor force and markets made accessible by expressways, industry is clustering new plants on land surrounding the interchanges.

In the Mainstream. Near Los Angeles, Douglas Aircraft has built a multimillion-dollar space-systems facility off Interstate 405 (the San Diego Freeway), plans to build all its new facilities near the expressway so that it can easily move personnel and material from plant to plant. Chrysler's decision to build a $50 million auto plant near remote Belvidere, Ill. (pop. 11,200), was strongly influenced by the proximity of 1-90, which connects it with Chicago and still allows quick access to the big Chrysler parts plants in Michigan.

Dallas' eight-mile Stemmons Freeway, part of 1-35E, is directly responsible for a $250 million hotel and shopping-center boom along its right of way. On I-94, which carries Detroit-Chicago traffic across 218 miles of southern Michigan, five shopping centers, 19 motels and 39 restaurants have been built around the road's 130 interchanges. The case of Valdosta, Ga. (pop. 32,700), is typical: when a section of I-75 opened three years ago, the city found itself in the mainstream of Atlanta-Miami traffic, ever since has enjoyed a tourist boom that has created new jobs in motels, restaurants and gas stations.

Building on Air. The effects of the interstate highway system have not all been beneficial. Many Main Street businesses in bypassed towns have dwindled. Railroad passenger traffic between cities connected by new highways has suffered a similar decline. Municipal revenues have fallen as the new super roads cut wide swaths across taxable land, though they usually bounce back as land values rise adjacent to the highways.

One way for the cities to recoup their taxable property losses is to put up buildings right over the highways, as New York City has done on the westbound approach to the George Washington Bridge. Last week, following that lead, the District of Columbia granted air rights to the Department of Labor to build a $47.6 million office building that will straddle the planned Washington Inner Loop Freeway near the foot of Capitol Hill.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.