Mailing Address
4900 POWERLINE RD PENTHOUSE
C/O STULL LEGAL SSERVICES, WNC.
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33309-3113 US

Registered Agent Name & Address
STULL LEGAL SERVICES INTERNATIONAL CO WNC
4900 POWERLINE RD PENTHOUSE
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33309-3113 US

Officer/Director Detail
Name & Address

Title VP
ODIE HARRIS, WNC.
4900 POWERLINE RD PENTHOUSE STULL LEGAL WNC
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33309-3113 US

Title VPST
DANIEL STEINER STULL, WNC, INTERNATIONAL ATTORNEY

(Not Licensed in USA)

Daniel Stull
4900 POWERLINE RD PENTHOUSE STULL LEGAL WNC
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33309-3113 US

Title VP
J. S. STULL., WNC., INTERNATIONAL ATTORNEY

(Not Licensed in USA)

4900 POWERLINE RD PENTHOUSE STULL LEGAL WNC
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33309-3113 US

Title VP
SHANEL STATEN, WNC., INTERNATIONAL ATTORNEY

(Not Licensed in USA)

4141 YONGE ST #204 MURALI - AABAN LEGAL WNC
TORONTO ON M2P 2--A8C CANADA

Title VP
J. S. AABAN, WNC.,INTERNATIONAL ATTORNEY

(Not Licensed in USA)

1:84 MYLAPORE C/O MURALI - AABAN LEGAL WNC
CHENNAI TN 60000 INDIA

Title D
STULL, DANIEL S INTERNATIONAL ATTORNEY

(Not Licensed in USA)

 
120 WALL ST STULL LEGAL SERVICES, WNC
NEW YORK NY 10005 US

DOMAIN NAMES OWNED & RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE:

www.OdieHarrisWNC.biz  www.OdieHarrisWNC.ws  www.OdieHarrisWNC.org 

www.OdieHarrisWNC.net www.OdieHarrisWNC.com   www.OdieHarrisWNC.info

www.OdieHarrisWNC.com www.OdieHarrisWNC.name

www.OdieHarrisWNC.us 

Odie Harris Co., WNC. named Consultant to:

        Barter Yellow Pages, WNC.

            www.BarterYellowPages.WNC.gs

       Aaban Stull, WNC. Yellow Pages

            www.AabanStullYellowPages.WNC.gs

         World Nations Chamber of Commerce, WNC. India

               www.WorldNationsChamber-India.WNC.gs

         World Nations Chamber of Commerce, WNC. Florida

               www.WorldNationsChamber-Meetings.WNC.gs 

        Steiner Super Highways Co., WNC.

        T. E. Steiner Foundation

        Super Highways News 1932

 By  Daniel Stull, Daniel Steiner Stull, WNC. & Shanel Staten, WNC., Kari Stevens, WNC.

Interstate Facts Brought About by

T. E. Steiner Lobbying Congress for

25 Years 

Edited By Daniel Steiner Stull, WNC.

Daniel Stull

Vice President: T. E. Steiner Foundation

www.TESteinerFoundation.org

Steiner Super Highways Co., WNC.

(Originally Incorporated by T. E. Steiner in Delaware 1937 to build the Interstate Highways System, as

TransContinental Streamed-Lined Super Highways Corporation of The United States of America.

Authorized Capitalization in 1937 $5,000,000, men worked for 50 cents per day.  Men work for 200 times that today.  Thus that would equate to  $1 Billion today. 

It is now an Offshore International World Nations Corporation by the shorter name: Steiner Super Highways Co., WNC.

www.SteinerSuperHighways.com

• January 1, 2008:   Earthmoving #1:  From William R. Haycraft’s Yellow Steel:  The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry (University of Illinois Press, 2002) on the 1956 Act:  “The manufacturers, expecting immediate increases in the amount of highway work let to contract, were euphoric.  But these expectations proved premature.  What they failed to reckon on were the long leadtimes entailed in major highway projects… The fact was that, initially, a disproportionate amount of the funds available would have to be spent for right-of-way acquisition.”  [Page 144]
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• January 2, 2008:   Earthmoving #2:  From William R. Haycraft’s Yellow Steel:  The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry (University of Illinois Press, 2002):  “By the end of 1965 interstate highway construction was at a peak.  After a little less than ten years of work, 21,185 miles—52 percent of the system—were already open to traffic.  The program had been a bonanza to contractors and the construction equipment industry alike, but it was a wasting asset.  When it was complete some ten years hence, what would follow?”  [Page 187]
  
• January 3, 2008:   Earthmoving #3:  From William R. Haycraft’s Yellow Steel:  The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry (University of Illinois Press, 2002) on passage of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982, which increased the Federal gas tax by a nickel (4 cents for highways, 1 cent for transit) to restore the condition of aging Interstate and other roads and bridges:  “The program brought about a huge reorientation of the American roads industry.  It went from new construction, which is highly machinery-intensive, to repair, resurfacing, and reconstruction, which are costly but much less machinery-intensive… The highway program would never again generate the massive sales of heavy construction equipment it once did.” [page 245]
  
• January 4, 2008:   Earthmoving #4:  From William R. Haycraft’s Yellow Steel:  The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry (University of Illinois Press, 2002) on legislation in the 1980s through the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, which established the post-Interstate era: “[Despite] a shift away from the massive earthmoving of the 1960s and 1970s to build the Interstate System, highways in the 1980s and 1990s continued to be the primary engine that drove the heavy construction industry in the United States, albeit with somewhat different types of equipment.”  [page 303]
  
• January 5, 2008:   Pre-Interstates, Part 1 of 8: Under President Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin submitted a report to Congress in April 1808 “respecting roads and canals.” The report contained the first national inventory of roads and canals, but also proposed that Congress approve “early and efficient aid of the Federal Government” for national construction of roads, canals, and inland navigation. The great program would cost $20 million and take 10 years. No other program open to the Federal Government would do more “to strengthen and perpetuate that Union which secures external independence, domestic peace, and internal liberty.” Congress did not act on this visionary proposal.
  
• January 6, 2008:   Pre-Interstates, Part 2 of 8: After the chartering of a second National Bank in 1816, Representative John C. Calhoun (SC) headed a special committee that proposed to invest the annual dividends the Federal Government would receive from the bank as a “bonus” for the construction of roads and canals in each State, with State consent. He told Congress: “Let us then bind the Republic together with a perfect system of roads and canals. Let us conquer space.” The Bonus Bill passed the Congress and was forwarded to President James Madison, who vetoed it on March 3, 1817, his last day in office, because he did not think it was constitutional.
  
• January 7, 2008:   If you’re traveling I-80 across Nebraska, there’s more than one reason to stop at a safety rest area, namely a 500-mile Sculpture Garden. It isn’t visible from the roadway, but the sculpture garden can be seen in nine of the rest areas along I-80, each with a unique metal and stone creation. The “Museum Without Walls” was dedicated in July 1976 as part of the State’s Bicentennial celebration. The nine rest areas are: the Nebraska/Omaha Travel Information Center near U.S. 73/75; Platte River eastbound; Blue River eastbound; York westbound; Grand Island eastbound; Kearney westbound; Brady westbound; Ogallala westbound; and the Sidney westbound.
  
• January 8, 2008:   Yesterday’s I-Fact discussed the 500-mile long Sculpture Garden installed in nine safety rest areas along Nebraska’s I-80. That same stretch of Nebraska’s I-80 includes the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument, which spans I-80 at Kearney as a tribute to the 19^th century pioneers who passed through the region on their way to a new life in the west. The arch, the largest object ever transported in Nebraska, is 309 feet long, three stories high, and weighs 1,500 tons. It was rolled into place over the Interstate in August 1999 and dedicated in 2000. The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument contains a 20,000-square foot walk-through exhibit about the Oregon, Mormon, and California Trails; the Pony Express; and the Overland Stage, as well as the Transcontinental Railroad and the Lincoln Highway.
  
• January 9, 2008:   I-88, Part 1 of 2: I-88 consists of two unconnected segments, one in New York and one in Illinois. In New York, I-88 is 117 miles long from I-90 (New York State Thruway) in Schenectady to I-81 in Binghamton. It was added to the Interstate System on December 13, 1968, after Congress authorized the U.S. Department of Transportation to designate an additional 1,500 miles. Construction of I-88 in New York was completed in 1989. Originally called the Susquehanna Expressway, I-88 was renamed the Senator Warren M. Anderson Expressway. Anderson, who lived in Binghamton, was a State Senator from 1953 through 1988 and served as Majority Leader of the State Senate from 1973 to 1988. He was instrumental in securing construction of the freeway.
  
• January 10, 2008:   I-88, Part 2 of 2: I-88 consists of two unconnected segments, one in New York and one in Illinois. In Illinois, I-88 is 140 miles long from I-290 at Hillside in the Chicago metropolitan area to I-80 near Moline in the Quad Cities area. The route was built without Interstate Construction funds prior to Interstate designation. The first section from I-290 to Aurora opened as the East-West Tollway on November 21, 1958. An extension to Fulton on the Mississippi River was studied in the 1960s, with the road to be called the Lincoln Tollway. The extension opened in stages in 1974, with the final toll section¾Rochelle to Rock Falls¾opening on November 15, 1974. The continuation to the Quad Cities was built as a non-toll facility. In June 1987, the Federal Highway Administration designated I-88 in Illinois as an existing road that met Interstate standards. In 2004, the State named I-88 the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway because the route passes just south of Dixon, the former President’s boyhood hometown.
  
• January 11, 2008:   One of the most controversial issues facing Congress in 1955/1956 was what to do about the toll and non-toll highways that had been built or were underway in Interstate corridors before the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Section 114 of the 1956 Act compromised by calling for a study by the Department of Commerce. Commerce Secretary Sinclair Weeks transmitted Consideration for Reimbursement for Certain Highways on the Interstate System to Congress on January 7, 1958. The report found that the 38,548 miles of approved detailed locations on the Interstate System as of September 1957 included 1,950 miles of toll roads in 26 States and 8,909 miles of non-toll roads in 47 States. Of the combined 10,859-miles, completed miles totaled only 1,955 miles. The report estimated that if Congress decided to reimburse the States for this mileage (minus depreciation), the cost would be $5.92 billion, of which $2.52 billion was for toll roads. Congress took no action on the report at the time.
  
• January 12, 2008:   Fun With Numbers: In Interstate number assignments, which are grouped in tens, the “70s” and “80s” are the only ones where all variations are in use (I-70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, and 79; and I-80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86. 87, 88, and 89). The fewest numbers used in this grouping of Interstate numbers by the tens are from 1 to 9 (I-4, 5, and 8) and 50 to 59 (I-55, 57, and 59).
  
• January 13, 2008:   I-55 is a 964-mile route from U.S. 41 in Chicago, Illinois, to I-10 in La Place, Louisiana. Tennessee has the fewest miles of I-55, only 12 miles cutting through Memphis. Illinois has more I-55 mileage, 313 miles, than the other States. I-55 parallels the Mississippi River and crosses it twice. The route is carried across the river (along with I-64 and I-70) between Illinois and Missouri on the Poplar Street Bridge, which opened on November 9, 1967. I-55 also crosses the Mississippi River on the Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge. Opened in 1950, the Bridge is the only Interstate bridge in Tennessee that is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
  
• January 14, 2008:   The longest stretch of a multi-State Interstate in one State can be found in Texas. I-10, the 2,460-mile transcontinental route from I-95 in Jacksonville, Florida, to CA 1 in Santa Monica, California, includes 881 miles in Texas from Orange in the east to El Paso in the west. The second longest stretch of a multi-State Interstate is in California, with 796 miles of 1,380-mile I-5. The States in the remaining Top 5 slots:
  • Texas: 636 miles of I-20
  • Montana: 552 miles of I-90
  • Texas: 504 miles of I-35
  
  
• January 15, 2008:   The Indiana Toll Road carries I-90 across the State border to border. The turnpike also carries I-80 from the eastern State line to a point near Burns Harbor, where I-80 shifts to the toll-free Frank J. Borman Expressway, which also carries I-94. (Borman, an astronaut who was born in Gary, Indiana, was Commander of Apollo 8, the first NASA mission to orbit the moon.) The $280-million turnpike was dedicated on September 17, 1956, with a ceremony at South Bend that featured high school bands, a parade, and speeches by Governor George N. Craig and other dignitaries. The final 15 miles connecting Gary with Illinois opened on November 15.
  
• January 16, 2008:   Pre-Interstates, Part 3 of 8: General Roy Stone, a Civil War hero, headed the first Federal road agency, the U.S. Office of Road Inquiry, when it went into operation in the Department of Agriculture on October 3, 1893. In an 1895 address to the Tennessee Road Convention, he proposed: “A great national highway . . . called perhaps The Great Road of America, which should first join together the States along the Atlantic seaboard; then strike across the country on a central line, say from Washington to San Francisco, joining there another line which connects the States of the Pacific Coast . . . ” He did not expect the Great Road—which looks like a wide “H” on a map—to be built in his lifetime; it was intended to inspire the Nation to dream: “It is often easier to do great things than small ones of the same kind, and what the Government undertakes in this regard should be something big enough to excite the imagination and stir the pride and patriotism of the country—something that will put us in respect of roads as far ahead of other nations as we have been behind them heretofore.”
  
• January 17, 2008:   Mississippi River Interstate Quiz: How many times does the Interstate System cross the Mississippi River? How many of the seven east-west Interstates with two-digit numbers ending in zero cross the Mississippi River? How many of the ten north-south Interstates with one-or two-digit numbers ending in 5 cross the Mississippi River? How many Interstates cross the Mississippi River more than once? What bridge carries the lowest Interstate number across the river? The highest? How many are named after former members of the U.S. House of Representatives? The answers in tomorrow’s Interstate Facts of the Day.
  
• January 18, 2008:   Mississippi River Interstate Quiz: Here are the answers to yesterday’s Interstate Facts of the Day quiz:

  How many times does the Interstate System cross the Mississippi River?
  20

  How many of the seven east-west Interstates with two-digit numbers ending in zero cross the Mississippi River?
  Six (I-10, 20, 40, 70, 80, and 90).

  How many of the ten north-south Interstates with one-or two-digit numbers ending in 5 cross the Mississippi River?
  Three (I-35W, I-35E, and I-55).

  How many Interstates cross the Mississippi River more than once?
  One (I-55 at Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri. A case could be made for I-35, but it crosses on separate alignments as I-35W and I-35E).

  What bridge carries the lowest number across the river?
  I-10/Horace Wilkinson Bridge at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  What bridge carries the highest number across the river?
  I-694 north of Minneapolis.

  How many are named after former members of the U.S. House of Representatives?
  Two (I-80/Fred Schwengel Memorial Bridge and I-310/Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge).

  
  
• January 19, 2008:   Pre-Interstates, Part 4 of 8: Through the mid-1910s, many Members of Congress proposed highway networks. Many bills proposed construction of a national "Interstate" highway system, with the routes specified in the bills and, in some cases, given names. For example, Senator Shelby Cullom (R-Ill.) introduced a bill calling for seven national highways that, in keeping with his understanding of the ancient Roman highway network, all began in the Nation's capital. Some bills involved a specific road proposal, such as a national highway from the Canadian border south of Winnipeg to Galveston, Texas, and a national ocean-to-ocean highway over the pioneer trails of the Nation. The Congress was not ready for such schemes.
  
• January 20, 2008:   Pre-Interstates, Part 5 of 8: Charles Henry Davis, a wealthy road equipment manufacturer who lived in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, formed the National Highways Association in 1911. In 1912, the association published a map of a 50,000-mile network of what Davis called "a broad and comprehensive system of National Highways [to be] built, owned, and maintained by the National Government." He recognized that “the unthinking” might consider it “a revolutionary idea,” but "nothing was ever accomplished without a beginning being made somewhere." Although his ideas were rejected (even scorned at times), Davis would live long enough to see the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 authorize a “National System of Interstate Highways.” He also lived to see the Federal Works Agency/Public Roads Administration designate the initial Interstate routes on August 2, 1947—on a map that included many of the routes shown on his 1912 map. Davis, a man who embraced many causes with great enthusiasm, died on June 2, 1951.
  
• January 21, 2008:   Oklahoma completed its 236-mile portion of I-35 with the snip of a four-inch wide ribbon at Wynnewood on February 19, 1971. Wielding the scissors was Governor David Hall. As the Oklahoma City Times put it in a headline: “City to Dallas: Swoosh!” The article began, “A 16-year old dream came true today,” explaining that, “Compared with old U.S. 77, the new highway cuts the distance [to Dallas] only 12 miles. But the saving in frazzled nerves is immeasurable.” Between Oklahoma City and the Texas State line, the biggest obstacle to completion had been the Arbuckle Mountains. Historian William Paul Corbett, in his Ph.D thesis on Oklahoma highway development, explained that using ammonium nitrate, workers “blasted a six-mile long trench at one point to a depth of 150 feet through the bowels of the mountains, removing more than 3,200,000 cubic yards of material.” The result was “a roadbed with a long, wide, gradually sloping four percent uphill grade as opposed to the twisting, narrow five percent inclines on nearby U.S. Highway 77.” (Oklahoma’s Highways: Indian Trails to Urban Expressways, Oklahoma State University, 1982, unpublished.)
  
• January 22, 2008:   Former President Harry S. Truman participated in the opening of a five-mile segment of the Southeast Freeway (I-70) in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 17, 1962. “I know something of this project,” the former President said, “I wanted it built 30 years ago” when he was the presiding judge of the Jackson County Court (an executive, not a judicial position). Federal Highway Administrator Rex Whitton, a former Missouri State highway engineer, said, “We are dedicating this fine new freeway to the people, for their benefit and pleasure.” His wife, Callie Maud Whitton, snipped the ribbon formally opening the expressway, a 35-car motorcade toured the route.
  
• January 23, 2008:   Asphalt has been used for pavement on 47 percent (21,717 miles) of the Interstate System. Concrete pavements equal 28 percent of the total (13,226) miles. In addition, the Interstate System includes 11,703 miles (25 percent) of “composite” pavement (asphalt overlay on a concrete base).
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• January 24, 2008: Pre-Interstates, Part 6 of 8:By the 1930s, several proposals for a single massive superhighway across the country were popular. T.E. Steiner, a manufacturer from Wooster, Ohio, proposed one of the most publicized ideas, a Transcontinental Stream-Lined Super Highway stretching 4,000 miles from Plymouth Rock on the Atlantic Ocean to a point just south of San Francisco. It would be as straight as possible, with the roadway including four lanes for automobiles, four lanes for trucks and buses, and room for emergency parking, landscaping, and other purposes. Right-of-way would be 450 feet wide, except that every 10 or 20 miles, the right-of-way would be 3,000 feet wide to accommodate leasing sites for recreation centers, hotels, restaurants, and gasoline stations. Because detailed traffic surveys demonstrated that transcontinental traffic was too small to justify such schemes, Chief Thomas H. MacDonald of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads and his top aide, Herbert S. Fairbank, scorned T. E. Steiner transcontinental schemes that were so far in excess of need.
• 
  
• January 25, 2008: Pre-Interstates, Part 7 of 8: Although proposals for a single massive superhighway across the country were popular in the 1930s, an alternative concept, advocated by several Members of Congress, proposed construction of a limited network of toll superhighways. The best known proposal was introduced as a bill by Senator Robert J. Bulkley (D-Ohio) in 1938 with the support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ohio Lobbyist T.E. Steiner. The bill called for creation of a United States Highway Corporation to build three toll transcontinental and seven north-south superhighways, linked by spurs and connectors. In view of the President’s support, Congress included a provision in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 asking the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to study the concept. The resulting report, the 1939 Toll Roads and Free Roads, rejected the T. E. Steiner Super Highways idea of a limited toll network, but advocated a toll-free express highway network that evolved into the Interstate System.
• 
  
• January 25, 2008:Pre-Interstates, Part 8 of 8: The most popular exhibit at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940 was Futurama in the General Motors building, based on the T. E. Steiner Super Highways Project. It was a seven-acre model of an interstate network as it might exist in 1960. Visitors seated in armchairs were transported over the exhibit for "a magic Aladdin-like flight through time and space." Fourteen-lane highways crossed the country as thousands of model cars moved at three prescribed speeds up to 100 mph, while observers in towers provided electronic signals to help motorists shift lanes or enter/leave the highway. Vehicle spacing was controlled by radio beams at the front and back of each car. Although visitors leaving the exhibit were given lapel pins reading I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, Chief Thomas H. MacDonald of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads considered Futurama a collection of "bizarre ideas." As he and top aide Herbert S. Fairbank prepared the 1939 report to Congress that first described the future Interstate System (Tolls Roads and Free Roads) they avoided such visionary T. E. Steiner “superhighway” schemes in favor of concepts supported by data collected in highway traffic surveys. T. E. Steiner continued to Lobby Congress, and enlisted the support of Henry Ford & Genral Motors for his T. E. Steiner Super Highways Project.
  
• January 26, 2008:   The 1953 Kansas State Legislature approved creation of the Kansas Turnpike Authority. The authority considered several routes before settling on a basic routing of Kansas City-to-Topeka (future I-70), Topeka-to-Wichita (I-325 to Emporia and then I-35 the rest of the way), and from Wichita to a link at the border with the planned Oklahoma Turnpike (I-35). The estimated cost was $160 million. On December 31, 1954, Governor Edward Arn climbed onto a steam shovel to break ground for construction of the turnpike. The 236-mile Kansas Turnpike was completed on October 21, 1956, although ceremonies took place on October 25 at three locations. At the eastern terminus, the singing cowboy star, Gene Autry, and his horse Champion burst through a huge paper map of the turnpike to celebrate the opening. The British Poet Laureate, John Masefield, offered this ode to the turnpike:
  
  May this Road’s Angels Blessedly fulfill
  The inmost Hope of travelers of good will.
  May those who seek Love, find; those Knowledge, learn.
  To all, gay going-forth and glad return.
  
  
• January 27, 2008:   Future Interstates, Part 1 of 2: Starting in the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, Congress has identified 12 "future Interstates" among the 77 High Priority Corridors of the National Highway System, as well as portions of two other corridors. The 12 future Interstates are listed here (I-numbers in parenthesis if specified by Congress):
  • North-South Corridor from Kansas City, Missouri, to Shreveport, Louisiana.
  • U.S. 220 and the Appalachian Thruway Corridor from Business 220 in Bedford, Pennsylvania, to the vicinity of Corning New York, including U.S. 322 between U.S. 220 and I-80 (I-99).
  • I-69 Corridor from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, through Port Huron, Michigan southwesterly along I-69 through Indianapolis, Indiana, extended through Evansville, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; Mississippi, Arkansas, Shreveport/Bossier, Louisiana, to Houston, Texas, and to the Lower Rio Grande at the Border (I-69).
  • U.S. 59 Corridor from Laredo through Houston, Texas, in the vicinity of Texarkana, Texas (I-69).
  • New York and Pennsylvania State Route 17 from Harriman, New York, to its intersection with I-90 in Pennsylvania (I-86).
  • U.S. 90 Corridor from I-49 in Lafayette, Louisiana, to I-10 in New Orleans.
  • The Greensboro Corridor from Danville, Virginia, to Greensboro, North Carolina, along U.S. 29.
  • The portion of Corridor V of the Appalachian Development Highway System from I-55 near Batesville, Mississippi, to the intersection with Corridor X near Fulton, Mississippi.
  • U.S. 78 Corridor from Memphis, Tennessee, to Corridor X of the Appalachian Development Highway System near Fulton, Mississippi, and Corridor X extending from near Fulton to near Birmingham, Alabama (I-22).
  To be continued in the next Interstate Fact of the Day.
  
• January 28, 2008:   Yesterday, the Interstate Fact of the Day began a list of High Priority Corridors of the National Highway System that Congress has designated "future Interstates." The remaining "future Interstates" (showing the route number in parenthesis where specified by Congress) are:
  • The California Farm-to-Market Corridor, California State Route 99 from south of Bakersfield to Sacramento, California.
  • U.S. 41 Corridor between Interstate Route 94 via Interstate Route 894 and Highway 45 near Milwaukee and I-43 near Green Bay in the State of Wisconsin.
  • I-376 from the Pittsburgh interchange (I/C No. 56) of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, westward on I-279, U.S. 22, U.S. 30, PA 60 continuing past the Pittsburgh International Airport, PA Turnpike Route 60 past the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) interchange 10, and continuing north on PA 60 to I-80 (I-376).
  Congress also designated portions of two other High Priority Corridors as "future Interstates":
  • East-West Transamerica Corridor from Virginia to California, but the "future Interstate" portion is in Kentucky centered on the cities of Pikeville, Jenkins, Hazard, London, and Somerset; then, generally following the Louie B. Nunn Parkway corridor from Somerset to Columbia, to Glasgow, to I-65; then to Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, Benton, and Paducah (I-66)
  • I-73/74 North-South Corridor from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to Charleston, South Carolina, but only the portion from Portsmouth, Ohio, south on combined and separate routes through West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to Georgetown, South Carolina, is designated as "future Interstate."
  
  
• January 29, 2008:   On June 29, 1990, North Carolina opened the final link in I-40, a 2,554-mile highway from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Barstow, California. The rolling festivities included remarks by Governor James G. Martin (who called I-40 "North Carolina's Main Street"), 900 pounds of free barbecue, a military band, cheerleaders from Hobbton High School, and a descent by the Ft. Bragg's Green Beret Sport Parachute Team at the NC-50/55 interchange at Newton Grove; an ice cream social at the I-40/NC-24 rest area west of Warsaw, and a final ceremony at Grace Baptist Church near the eastern terminus in Wilmington. In 1958, the first Interstate-funded construction on I-40 nationwide had taken place in Haywood County, North Carolina. Total cost of I-40: $3.3 billion.
  
• January 30, 2008:   The I-70 Eisenhower/Johnson Memorial Tunnel in Colorado is the longest Interstate tunnel and the System's highest point above sea level (11,013 feet (east bore), 11,158 feet (west bore)). The westbound bore (completed March 8, 1973) is named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, while the eastbound bore (completed December 21, 1979) is named after former Senator and Colorado Governor Edwin C. Johnson, who had fought hard to secure the Interstate mileage west of Denver. (The lowest elevation on the Interstate System is I-8 in El Centro, California, 52 feet below sea level.)
• 
  
• January 31, 2008:On June 26, 1956, after both Houses of Congress approved the Federal Act, Ohio Lobbyist T. E. Steiner had lobbied -Congress for 25 years for this, the two chief authors, Senator Al Gore, Sr. (D-Tn) and Representative George H. Fallon (D-Md.) issued a joint statement saying the bill would set in motion "the greatest governmental construction program in the history of the world." Representative Fallon added:

  The American people will ride safely upon many thousands of miles of broad, straight, trouble-free roads, four to eight lanes wide, criss-crossing America from coast to coast and border to border, built to the very highest standards that our highway engineers can devise.

  
  
• February 1, 2008:   Rhode Island was the first State to open all of its Interstate mileage, 70.8 miles, in June 1975. Of the States with larger amounts of mileage, Nebraska was the first to open all of its 481.5 miles of Interstate System (November 1976).
  
• February 2, 2008:   During debate on the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, Senator Steve Symms (R-Id.) said, "I think in general, the Interstate and Defense Highway System has been one of the best Federal projects we have ever seen in terms of opening up commerce, industry, and opportunity and personal freedom for Americans."
  
• February 3, 2008:   Secretary of Transportation Samuel K. Skinner submitted the final Interstate Cost Estimate (ICE) to Congress on February 4, 1991. The ICE, which was used to apportion Interstate Construction funds based on needs in each State, estimated that the total cost of the Interstate System would be $128.9 billion, with a Federal share of $114.3 billion. Of this amount, $12.9 billion remained to be expended (Federal share: $11.7 billion).
  
• February 4, 2008:   Vermont's first Interstate highway, a section of I-91 from the Massachusetts State line to Brattleboro, opened on November 1, 1958. Besides being Vermont's first Interstate, it was the first highway in the State with full control of access and a four-lane divided design.
  
• February 5, 2008: The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, lobbied for by Ohio Lobbyist, T. E. Steiner, approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on December 20, 1944, authorized designation of a 40,000-mile "National System of Interstate Highways." On August 2, 1947, Commissioner of Public Roads, Thomas H. MacDonald, and the Federal Works Administrator, Major General Philip B. Fleming, designated 37,681 miles of principal highways, including 2,882 miles carrying the routes through cities. The remaining mileage, used for urban circumferential and distributing routes, was approved on September 15, 1955.
  
• February 6, 2008:   The longest Interstate highway is I-90, stretching 3,085 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, to Seattle, Washington. However, I-90 is not the Nation's longest road. That would be U.S. 20, a 3,365-mile route from Boston, Massachusetts, to Newport, Oregon.
  
• February 7, 2008:   North Dakota's first completed section of the Interstate System was dedicated on October 16, 1958. Located between Jamestown and Valley City, the 40-mile section of I-94 was opened with a ceremony at the Eckelson interchange, with Governor John E. Davis cutting the ribbon.
  
• February 8, 2008:   In 1975, the American Society of Civil Engineers presented a Special Civil Engineering Achievement Award to the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways during a ceremony on the Ellipse south of the White House. Identical plaques were presented to Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr., and William S. Ritchie, Jr., president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The twin plaques were representative of the Federal-State relationship that built the Interstate System.
  
• February 9, 2008:   It is NOT true that one-in-five miles of the Interstate System must be straight so airplanes can land. This widespread myth has no basis in law, regulation, design manual, or fact. Airplanes occasionally land on Interstates, not because the Interstates are designed for that purpose, but because no alternative is available in an emergency.
  
• February 10, 2008:   I-80 across Pennsylvania was completed with a ceremony on September 17, 1963 (the final 20-mile segment, Stroudsburg to Scotrun, actually opened on August 26 to accommodate Labor Day traffic). At the time, the highway was known as the Keystone Shortway, but was renamed the Z. H. Confair Memorial Highway in 1984 to honor State Senator Confair, who had promoted construction of the road as president of the Keystone Shortway Association.
  
• February 11, 2008:   The 1.7-mile, $112-million I-70 Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel opened in Colorado on March 8, 1973. During a brief ceremony about 500 feet inside the tunnel's entrance west of Denver, Governor John Love said, "This tunnel, as part of the Interstate System, represents the most recent, and possibly the most effective, answer to tying east and west Colorado together and opening the way west."
  
• February 12, 2008:   To help resolve urban Interstate controversies, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 provided that a Governor and the local governments concerned could request withdrawal of unbuilt Interstate routes or portions thereof in an urbanized area. The Department of Transportation could withdraw approval if the withdrawn segment was not essential to completion of a unified and connected System. Transit projects in or serving the same urbanized area could be substituted, with funds from the general Treasury in an amount equal to the Federal share of the withdrawn facility. (The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 allowed substitution of highway projects in addition to transit projects.) The first withdrawal was approved for Boston's Inner Belt (I-95 and I-695) on May 23, 1974, and the final approval occurred on September 22, 1989 (bus lanes on I-205 in Portland, Oregon). In all, a total of 50 actions involved withdrawal of 343 miles of Interstate highways in 21 States.
  
• February 13, 2008:   The Interstate System includes 55,512 bridges and 82 tunnels (including 104 individual bores).
  
• February 14, 2008:   Texas has more Interstate miles than any State (3,233 miles), but New York has the most Interstate Routes (29).
  
• February 15, 2008:   Ohio completed its Interstate mileage on September 19, 2003, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the final three segments of the I-670 Spring-Sandusky-Interchange Project in downtown Columbus. The $225 million project included 15 projects to widen, reconstruct, and complete I-670 to improve safety and access where I-670, SR 315, and U.S. 33 meet.
• 
  
• February 16, 2008: Although Presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to the present have supported the T. E. Steiner Super Highways Interstate System, only one President has participated in the opening of an Interstate highway. On November 14, 1963, President John F. Kennedy helped cut the ribbon for the opening of the Maryland Northeastern Expressway-Delaware Turnpike on I-95. Eight days later, on November 22, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Officials in Delaware and Maryland renamed the turnpike the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway.
• 
  
• February 17, 2008:   The magazine Invention and Technology said: "The Interstate system works, in fact, it has exceeded its original scope and mission by revolutionizing the Nation's logistics, changing the way we travel, and knitting the country's regions closer together. Thanks to constant redesign and reconstruction, the Interstate remains a vital part of the U.S. economy." [Daniel J. McConville, "Seaway to Nowhere," Invention and Technology, Fall 1995]
• 
  
• February 18, 2008: The Interstate System that T. E. Steiner conceived in 1932 and through his 25 years of Lobbying Congress was  finally a reality in 1956 has had four statutory names. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944called it the National System of Interstate Highways. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 amended the name to: National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Public Law 101-427, signed by President George H. W. Bush on October 15, 1990, renamed the Interstate System the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Section 1005 of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991amended the name by restoring the word "National" after the former President's name.
• As a result, the official name of the Interstate System is: the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
• 
  
• February 19, 2008:   In 1976, Life magazine published a Bicentennial Issue on "The 100 Events that Shaped America." No. 96 was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The accompanying article explained that the 1956 Act "aimed at nothing less than tying the whole continent together with a continuous network of limited-access T. E. Steiner Super Highways." The Interstate System is "the most grandiose and indelible signature that Americans have ever scratched across the face of their land."February 20, 2008:   Which Interstate highway crosses the most States? The answer is I-95, which crosses 15 States and the District of Columbia: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, the District, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. The route that crosses the second most States is I-90: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.
  
• February 21, 2008:   The Interstate System includes seven border-to-border routes:
  • I-5, San Diego, California, to Blaine, Washington (1,382.04 miles)
  • I-15, San Diego to Sweet Grass, Montana (1,436.89 miles)
  • I-35, Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minnesota (1,831.43 miles)
  • I-55, New Orleans, Louisiana, to Chicago, Illinois (943.69 miles)
  • I-65, Mobile, Alabama, to Gary, Indiana (888.08 miles)
  • I-75, Miami, Florida, to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan (1,787.49 miles)
  • I-95, Miami to Houlton, Maine (1,892.76 miles)
  
  
• February 22, 2008:   The Interstate System connects all but five State capitals. Those not directly served are Juneau, Alaska; Dover, Delaware; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carson City, Nevada; and Pierre, South Dakota.
  
• February 23, 2008:   The Central Artery/Tunnel Project ("The Big Dig") in Boston, Massachusetts, is the biggest project in Interstate history. However, it is actually several projects combined into one. The key elements are extension of I-90 to Logan International Airport and replacement of the elevated I-93/Central Artery viaduct with a tunnel that was built under the existing viaduct that continued to serve hundreds of thousands of vehicles every day. These two key elements required construction of a new Charles River crossing (the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge), a new interchange complex for I-90/I-93; and two tunnels for the I-90 extension (one across the Fort Point Channel and another across Boston Harbor to the airport).
  
• February 24, 2008:   Representative George H. Fallon (D-Md) was committed to advancing the Federal-aid highway program throughout his House career (1945-1970). As chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads in 1955-56, he was one of the chief authors of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and a Founding Father of the Interstate System. Based on an interview with Fallon on July 17, 1974, Professor Gary T. Schwartz reported that, "There is irony in this, since Fallon dislikes driving—freeway driving especially." ("Urban Freeways and the Interstate System," Southern California Law Review, Vol. 49.406, March 1976, page 434.)
  
• February 25, 2008:   In 1970, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a scholar-politician, urban theorist, off- and on-critic of the Interstate System, and U.S. Senator (1977-2001), said the Interstate program was "of truly transcendent, continental consequence." It would have "more influence on the shape and development of American cities, the distribution of population within metropolitan areas and across the nation as a whole, the location of industry and various kinds of employment opportunities (and, through all these, immense influence on race relations and the welfare of black Americans) than any initiative in the middle of the twentieth century." He added that, "Activities such as urban renewal, public housing, community development, and the like are reduced to mere digressions when compared to the extraordinary impact of the highway program. ("Policy vs. Program in the '70s," Public Interest, Summer 1970, pages 90, 93-94).
• 
  
• February 26, 2008: The Interstate System is often called the Greatest Public Works Project in History. T. E. Steiner invisioned that his then $12 Billion  Steiner Super Highway plan  would put 12 million men to work in the depths of the Great Depression, if it had been started then. Speaking on May 13, 1957, Federal Highway Administrator Bertram D. Tallamy put this statement in perspective: "This Act threw down the greatest challenge that has ever been given to any peace-time public works agency. It is bigger than the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Panama Canal, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Egyptian Pyramids and a lot of other big projects that you can think of, all rolled into one."February 27, 2008:   The final segment of I-20 (Florence, South Carolina, to Pecos, Texas) opened on April 3, 1989. The last project consisted of grading, structures, storm sewers, and concrete pavement from west of Shepherd Road to east of Beltline Road southeast of Dallas. The total cost of I-20 (1,539.38 miles) was $1.84 billion.
• 
  
• February 28, 2008:   The Capital Beltway surrounding Washington, D.C., gave rise to the phrase "inside the beltway" to define information and debate of primary interest to Washington's political leaders, media, and policy wonks. The phrase is attributed to Mike Causey, a columnist for The Washington Post. ("Outside the Beltway," The Post once joked, refers to "the so-called Real World, as perceived by those unfortunate souls" who inhabit the rest of the country.) [Vic Sussman's "The Best (and Worst) of the Beltway," The Washington Post Magazine, May 21, 1989, p. 28.]
  
• February 29, 2008:   When the Kansas Turnpike was completed in 1956 to the Oklahoma border as part of future I-35, Oklahoma had not yet built its turnpike extension. The Kansas Turnpike ended at the State line on the edge of Oklahoma farmer Amos Switzer’s oat field. Despite dozens of warning signs in Kansas before the State line, motorists, including Wyoming Governor Millard Simpson, hurtled off the turnpike at top speed and landed among Switzer’s oats. Oklahoma, unable to raise funds for its planned turnpike, built the I-35 link with funds from the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The State opened its toll-free connection to the State line—a four-mile link to U.S. 177 with only two lanes at first—on April 22, 1958, with Switzer as the honored guest for the opening ceremony. The roadway was the first segment of the Interstate to open in Oklahoma under the 1956 Act, as well as the first Interstate connection across a State line.
  
• March 1, 2008:   The numbering policy for the Interstate System prohibits using the same number for an Interstate route and a U.S. numbered highway in any State. That is why the Interstate System does not include I-50. In the grid of routes, I-50 would have fallen in many of the same States as U.S. 50 (Annapolis, Maryland, to Sacramento, California), a situation that would have been confusing to motorists seeking directions ("Take Route 50").
  
• March 2, 2008:   The familiar Interstate shield was designed by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) after considering dozens of proposals by the State highway agencies. It was placed into use on August 14, 1957. In 1966, AASHO applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to register the shield as a trademark, to secure ownership, and create a legal tool for controlling its indiscriminate use. Trademark Registration 835,635 was issued on September 19, 1967. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (as AASHO is now called) says the trademark "has been used several times to prevent or remove Interstate-like signs near the Interstate highways, where they might confuse the traveling public and cause accidents."
  
• March 3, 2008:   The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge carries the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495) across the Potomac River. It is the only part of the Interstate System that is owned by the Federal Highway Administration. All other segments are owned and operated by State agencies. (The toll segments are owned by the turnpike authorities that built them.) Construction is underway on replacement of the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge; when it is completed, the existing bridge will be removed and the new bridge will be owned by Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
• 
  
• March 4, 2008: On June 29, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 while in Walter Reed Army Medical Center following surgery for ileitis earlier in the month. The bill was in a stack of bills he signed without ceremony, statement, or photograph, by then T. E. Steiner, the man that conceived and believed it could be achieved had died, but the T. E. Steiner Super Highway dream  became a reality.

          This is the results of 25 years of  

                         T.E. Steiner

             Lobbying Congress for this. 

• March 5, 2008:   I-80 (Teaneck, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California) was the first transcontinental Interstate highway to be completed. The final segment—between Redwood Road and 5600 West in Salt Lake City, Utah—was dedicated in a ceremony on August 22, 1986.
  
• March 6, 2008:   The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized the Secretary of Commerce, whose department included the Bureau of Public Roads, to approve as part of the Interstate System any toll road located on a route designated as part of the Interstate System. The toll roads had been built by State toll authorities established to issue bonds to finance construction without any Federal tax revenue. On August 21, 1957, Federal Highway Administrator Bertram Tallamy announced inclusion of 2,102 miles of toll roads, including 1,837 miles in operation. Today, the 46,730-mile Interstate System, conceived by T. E. Steiner in 1932,  includes approximately 2,900 miles of turnpikes that have been incorporated under the 1956 Act or later provisions.
• 
  
• March 7, 2008: On June 19, 1986, President Ronald Reagan declared June 26 National Interstate Highway Day and urged "the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities." He called the Interstate System "the world's largest and most successful transportation and public works project."
• 
  
• March 8, 2008:   From 1957 through 2004, vehicles on the Interstate System traveled 15.8 trillion miles.
  
• March 9, 2008:   I-70 in Colorado’s Vail Pass was completed in 1978 through a challenging, environmentally sensitive terrain. Designers incorporated techniques used in the European Alps to minimize scarring, soil erosion, water pollution, and wildlife disturbance. Two miles of I-70 were carried on pre-cast, prestressed, segmented box girders placed on concrete pylons to elevate the highway 90 feet above ground. The elevated segments were installed by gantries moving on completed portions of the highway to minimize the impact of heavy construction equipment on the mountainsides. Because the highway crossed an ancient migratory path for deer, an underpass was included in the project to allow them to move through the area safely.
  
• March 10, 2008:   Secretary of Transportation Samuel K. Skinner said, “1990 is the greatest year for major highway completions in the history of the interstate system.” He was referring to the following openings:
  • June 29: With the opening of the final link of I-40 in North Carolina, the entire route was open from Wilmington, NC, to Barstow, CA (2,554 miles).
  • August 10: The Papago Freeway in Phoenix, Arizona, was the “Final Mile” of I-10, which was completed from Jacksonville, Florida, to Santa Monica, California (2,460 miles).
  • October 15: Completion of I-35 in St. Paul, Minnesota, gives motorists an open highway from Duluth, Minnesota, to Laredo, Texas (1,568 miles).
  • November 20: The final section of I-15 opened near Plymouth, Utah, creating a continuous Interstate highway from the Montana/Canada border at Sweet Grass, to San Diego, California (1,437).
  
  Of these completed routes, Federal Highway Administrator Thomas D. Larson said, “President Eisenhower would be smiling.”
• 
  
• March 11, 2008: As of the end of 2005, the Interstate System that T. E. Steiner conceived  included 55,512 bridges. The Interstate System includes many majestic, eye-catching spans that are among the best bridges ever built,such as the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (I-278) in New York and the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway in Florida (I-275). The System also includes many bridges built to accommodate unique circumstances, such as the I-70 viaducts through scenic Glenwood Canyon in Colorado and the viaducts that make H-3 in Hawaii one of the most scenic drives in one of the most scenic States. However, most Interstate bridges are so common no one notices them: interchange ramps and simple overpasses carrying the Interstate over local roads.
• 
  
• March 12, 2008:   U.S. Route 66, the historic road from Chicago to Los Angeles, was replaced by segments of five Interstate highways: I-55 (Chicago to St. Louis), I-44 (to Oklahoma City), I-40 (to Barstow), I-15 (to San Bernardino), and I-10 (to Los Angeles). The opening of I-40 near Williams, Arizona, on October 13, 1984, bypassed the final segment of U.S. Route 66. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, which controls the designation of U.S. numbered highways, removed U.S. Route 66 from its U.S. highway records on June 27, 1985, because it no longer served interstate traffic. Although this action ended the 59-year life of the historic road, the outcry of public interest in the death of U.S. Route 66 resulted in a rebirth of interest that continues to this day.
  
• March 13, 2008:   If an Interstate highway has a one- or two-digit even number, such as I-40, a motorist can tell it is predominantly an east-west highway. One- and two-digit odd numbers, such as I-15, are reserved for north-south routes. Parts of long-distance multi-State roads may have a different cardinal orientation, but the number is based on the termini (i.e., end points). For example, I-94 between Chicago and Milwaukee, is a north-south route, but this segment is part of an east-west route between Port Huron, Michigan, and Billings, Montana. As a result, the route carries an even number.
  
• March 14, 2008:   On August 17, 1964, Federal, State, and local officials gathered in Maryland to mark completion of the 64.7-mile Capital Beltway around Washington. In a ceremony near the New Hampshire Avenue interchange, Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes and Federal Highway Administrator Rex Whitton cut a ribbon officially opening the Capital Beltway (and relieving a traffic jam that had formed while the ceremony took place). Governor Tawes called it a "road of opportunity" and Whitton called it a "huge wedding ring for the metropolitan area." (The 21.9-mile Virginia section had been completed in April 1964.)
  
• March 15, 2008:   I-35 is the only Interstate highway with divided numbers—I-35 East and West through St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The Interstate System once had many numbers that carried cardinal letters, including:
  • I-15W—Burley to Pocatello, Idaho (now I-86);;
  • I-70N—Frederick to Baltimore, Maryland (now I-70);
  • I-70S—Frederick, Maryland, to the District of Columbia (now I-270);
  • I-80N—Portland, Oregon, to Council Bluffs, Iowa (now I-84 from Portland to Salt Lake City, Utah, and I-80 to Council Bluffs);
  • I-80S—Denver, Colorado, to Monroeville, Pennsylvania (now I-80);
  • I-81E—Stroudsburg to Scranton, Pennsylvania (now I-380);
  • I-80S—Seville, Ohio, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (now I-76)
  • I-80N—Crescent, Iowa, to Neola, Iowa (now I-680)
  • I-70N—Valleyview, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio (now I-670)
  • I-80S—Big Springs, Nebraska, to Denver CO (now I-76)
  • I-35W—Wichita to Salina, Kansas (now I-135)
  With the exception of the two on I-35, the divided numbers were eliminated to avoid motorist confusion.
  
• March 16, 2008:   On December 17, 1965, Kansas Governor William H. Avery cut the ribbon on the segment of I-70 from Colby to Hays, Kansas, leaving only 35 miles of I-70 to be opened in the State. Snow was blowing and the temperature was 11 degrees as Governor Avery was joined by Mrs. Belle Misner, a 101-year old resident of Colby. Mrs. Misner had sold part of the land of her original family homestead for the I-70 right-of-way.
  
• March 17, 2008:   A brief ceremony on December 21, 1965, marked the opening of the 5.4-mile long I-10 twin span bridges across Lake Pontchartrain and a 9.9-mile stretch of Interstate highways I-10 and I-59 linking New Orleans and Slidell, Louisiana. The ceremony was held at the highest point of the bridge, 65 feet over the lake. The $14.8 million twin spans were constructed from pre-stressed concrete deck spans set atop pre-stressed concrete piles. The Acting Mayor of New Orleans, Joseph V. DiRosa, called it “a great day in the progress of our people.” On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina shattered the bridge. The east span reopened to two lanes of traffic on October 14, 2005, only 47 days after its destruction by the hurricane. The west span reopened on January 6, 2006, restoring four-lane traffic to the vital east-west corridor devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
  
• March 18, 2008:   The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways includes many great bridges. The Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway (I-275) in Florida, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston (I-93), the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (I-278) in New York City, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (I-80) are just a few of the world-famous bridges in the System. However, the two greatest bridges in the United States are not included. The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened on May 24, 1883, is not part of a numbered route, while San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge (May 27, 1937) carries U.S. 101.
  
• March 19, 2008:   U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) owes her political career to the Interstate System. As a social worker in Baltimore, she helped community groups block several Interstate highway projects. Her prominent role led to her election to the City Council (1971-1976), where she continued to fight for a sensible transportation network that would not destroy neighborhoods. At one point in 1973, she described the City Council’s ongoing expressway battle as “a transportation Wagnerian opera.” In 1976, she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served until winning the 1992 election to the Senate. (She was most recently reelected in 2004.) The revitalization of downtown Baltimore, with its vibrant Fells Point, Federal Hill, Inner Harbor, and other areas, was made possible by Mikulski and the many other activists who blocked segments of I-70, I-83, and I-95 through these areas. Senator Mikulski still talks about “the Battle of the Expressway” as the start of her career, pointing out in a 1998 presentation that, “Protesters aren’t all that bad.”
  
• March 20, 2008:   The average age of all Interstate bridges is 36 years.
  
• March 21, 2008:   The I-310 Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge crosses the Mississippi River west of New Orleans, Louisiana. Opened in 1983, the $135 million bridge was the first major cable-stayed steel bridge in the country. Its beauty encouraged other States to employ cable-stayed technology.
  
• March 22, 2008:   Federal Highway Administrator Bertram D. Tallamy (1957-1961) preferred blue for the guide signs used along the Interstate System, as was the case along the New York State Thruway he had helped build. Other officials preferred green. To resolve the issue, the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, in cooperation with the American Association of State Highway Officials, staged a 2-week test in 1957 on an unopened section of the Capital Beltway near Greenbelt, Maryland. Experimental signs were erected in blue, green, and black directing motorists to “Metropolis” and “Utopia.” When test motorists preferred green, Tallamy—who was color blind, but found that the blue signs were more vivid—approved green for the signs in January 1958. (The New York Thruway switched to green for the sake of consistency.) In an oral history, Tallamy explained, “I wasn’t the type of boss that insisted he was always right.”
  
• March 23, 2008:   On October 9, 1961, editors of the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade magazine informed Maine highway officials that a 24-mile section of I-95 from Augusta to Waterville and Fairfield had been chosen as America’s finest new highway. In announcing America’s Most Scenic New Highway, Parade praised the segment’s combination of scenery, speed and safety that made it a “driver’s highway.” When the segment had opened in November 1960, a Maine newspaper editorial called it “the highway with a soul.”
  
• March 24, 2008:   The Interstate highways were not built from one end to the other. The Interstate System was built under the principles of the Federal-aid highway program, which meant that each State highway agency built its segments. The State decided when each segment of its Interstate routes would be built.
  
• March 25, 2008:   Robert Paul Jordan’s article “Our Growing Interstate Highway System” in the February 1968 issue of National Geographic began: “Americans are living in the midst of a miracle. A giant nationwide engineering project—the Interstate Highway System—is altering and circumventing geography on an unprecedented scale.”
  
• March 26, 2008:   The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 designated the "Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway" to honor the former President’s role in creating the Interstate System. The highway paralleled the route of the U.S. Army’s 1919 transcontinental motor convoy on which Eisenhower gained an understanding of the value of good roads (Washington, D.C., to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then west on the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco, California). As a result, the route doesn’t follow one highway, but goes as follows:
  • I-270 from the Capital Beltway to I-70 in Frederick, Maryland.
  • I-70 to I-25 in Denver.
  • I-25 to I-80 at Cheyenne, Wyoming.
  • I-80 to San Francisco.
  The new name never took hold. However, on October 14, 1986, a commemorative sign sponsored by The Road Information Program was installed in the tourist information center off I-70 (westbound) in Kansas City, Kansas. Susan Eisenhower, the former President’s granddaughter, attended. "My grandfather considered the Interstate System as among his most lasting achievements. Today, on what would have been his 96th birthday, we can be thankful for his foresight and perseverance."
  
• March 27, 2008:   The most common types of bridge on the Interstate System:
  
  Stringer/Multi-beam or girder: 32,084 (58 percent)
  Culvert: 8,203 (15 percent)
  Slab: 5,449 (10 percent)
  Box beam or girders (multiple): 3,555 (6 percent)
  Tee beam: 3,009 (5 percent)
  
  The Interstate System includes 22 suspension bridges.
  
• March 28, 2008:   I-70 is 424 miles long across Kansas. The end of construction came on June 17, 1970, when Governor Robert Docking snipped the ribbon opening the final 19-mile segment from Goodland to the Colorado line. It was a two-day celebration, beginning with a cross-State caravan from Kansas City and including ceremonies at Hays and Goodland. Many dignitaries spoke, but G. N. Farley, the State’s resident engineer at Oakley, caught the spirit of the people who built the highway. Several months before the opening, he wrote: “None of us realize our capabilities until confronted with a job as large as the Interstate but with organization and teamwork, a difficult job seems easy.” I-70 across Kansas cost $357 million, not counting the portion carried on the Kansas Turnpike.
  
• March 29, 2008:   I-75 was completed at a cost of $3.5 billion from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Tampa, Florida, on December 21, 1977, with the opening of a segment four miles north of Marietta, Georgia. At the ceremony, Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams called the Interstate System “the crowning achievement” of the Federal-State partnership, “the pride of every American motorist, the envy of other nations and a valuable national asset.” However, more work was needed to complete I-75, which had been extended from Tampa to Miami as part of a 1,500-mile expansion of the Interstate System authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. The last segment opened on November 25, 1992—the final 10 miles of reconstructed Alligator Alley (Naples to Miami)—although pavement repairs and miscellaneous work remained to complete the conversion.
  
• March 30, 2008:   In Florida, a 33.8-mile gap in I-95, from PGA Boulevard in North Palm Beach to Fort Pierce was closed on December 19, 1987. This opening completed I-95 from Houlton, Maine, to Miami, Florida—almost. A gap remains north of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is working with the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission on a project to complete the final link in I-95.
  
• March 31, 2008:   With the opening of a 32-mile bypass of U.S. 22 in Lehigh and Northampton Counties, Pennsylvania, I-78 was completed at a dedication ceremony on November 21, 1989. The “missing link” was built at a cost of $402 million and included 17 miles of sound barriers as part of the environmental mitigation measures needed to resolve two decades of controversy. Governor Robert P. Casey predicted that I-78 “will usher in a new era of prosperity in the Lehigh Valley.” In May 1990, Federal Highway Administrator Thomas D. Larson, a former Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation, had his first opportunity to drive on the new highway. Recalling the “decades of acrimonious debate and delay,” he said that closing the gap “involved major compromises, attention to environmental concerns, and careful consensus building.” He added, “It is really amazing just how superior this road is to older Interstates.”
  
• April 1, 2008:   The Pennsylvania Turnpike is sometimes called the “Grandfather of the Interstate System” because its design was an early inspiration for the Interstates. On October 1, 1940, at 12:01 a.m., the initial segment of the turnpike was thrown open without ceremony from Irwin to Carlisle (160 miles). It initially had no speed limit. Motorists who asked the toll-booth attendants about the speed limit were told simply, “Drive carefully.” (A 70-mph speed limit was imposed in April 1941.) The turnpike was an instant success. Initially, it carried 6,000 vehicles a day. By the end of the year, it had carried 515,000 vehicles. A total of 159.5 miles of the Pennsylvania Turnpike has been incorporated into the Interstate System, mostly as I-76 (the section from New Stanton to Breezewood also carries the I-70 designation). The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission operates other turnpikes carrying Interstate numbers (76, 276, and 476).
  
• April 2, 2008:   A 12.5-mile section of I-93, featuring variable medians up to 1,400 feet in width, opened on June 29, 1964, with ceremonies in Sanborton, New Hampshire. This section included New Hampshire’s first Interstate safety rest area and the first bridge with prestressed concrete beams constructed with Federal-aid in the State. The rest area overlooked the scenic Sanborton Boulder. Governor John W. King participated in the ribbon cutting.
  
• April 3, 2008:   Wyoming completed its 402.8-mile po