Total Transportation System Solutions (T2S2)

INTRODUCTION

          In the twentieth century, the American transportation network, and more specifically, the road network, has undergone a significant transformation.  In the first quarter of this century, railroads provided the only efficient long distance transportation of both people and cargo, while roads were not much more than dirt trails connecting neighboring towns.  Fifty years later, rail passenger service was virtually nonexistent and wide, paved superhighways rivaled the railroads as a mode of long distance transport of cargo.  In short, the railroads lost their stranglehold on the American transportation system, and the roads emerged as the dominant form of long distance transportation.

            Simultaneous to the evolution of the American road was the transformation of American culture, as represented by American commerce.  At the beginning of the twentieth century, American commerce was pedestrian-oriented, and located in the center of cities and town.  By the end of the twentieth century, American commerce was auto-oriented and located on the perimeters of cities and towns.

            What factors contributed to this evolution?  What is the relationship between the evolution of the American road and the transformation of American commerce?

How, then, to answer these questions?  A historical investigation into the form and function of a particular corridor over time provides clues and valuable insight.  The ideal candidate for such an investigation should have two characteristics—(1) it should have been completely superseded by the Interstate freeway system, and thus have been decommissioned and cease to exist; (2) it should have a sizable body of work pertaining to it, directly or indirectly, from which one can reasonably draw historical and other inferences. 

U.S. Route 66, the most famous of the twentieth century American highways, is the best candidate for such a historical investigation.  First and foremost, U.S. 66 was decommissioned in 1985 after being completely superceded by the Interstate system.  It may be inferred from this action that Route 66 had achieved its final form (i.e. Interstate highway) and that, because the final form had been achieved, the old form could be abandoned, much as a butterfly abandons the cocoon.  While other U.S. highways such as Route 99 have also been decommissioned, no other such highway’s alignment has been so closely followed by the Interstates as Route 66.  Throughout most of its length, Route 66 is never more than a few miles from the Interstates that replaced it; throughout much of Illinois, old Route 66 is the frontage road for freeway that replaced it, Interstate 55.  Thus, it may be convincingly argued that the freeways that replaced Route 66 really are Route 66 with different monikers.  This geographic proximity and similarity of the various Route 66 alignments, including the final alignment of the Interstates that replaced it, makes Route 66 a superior choice for a historical study of the evolution of the American road and the transformation of American culture.

The second reason for the selection of Route 66 for this historical study is the large body of written work about Route 66.  Because of its place as an icon of twentieth century Americana, more has been written about Route 66 than any other road of the twentieth century.  With more numerous source material comes a more accurate historical picture.

Because the national migration has been from east-to-west, at the time of its commissioning, the more populous parts of the corridor were in its eastern part in Illinois; thus, construction of the road generally took place from east-to-west, with the Illinois section of the corridor generally being one generation (with respect to form) ahead of the western sections of the route.  In short, the Illinois sections tended to be the prototype for the rest of the corridor.  Thus, the historical investigation of Route 66 concentrated on the Illinois section of the route, particular the section through more rural Central Illinois, where the road’s impact was probably more pronounced than in the metropolitan areas on either end of the Illinois segment, namely Chicago and Saint Louis.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF FORM AND FUNCTION

          In 1926, Route 66 was a collection of intercounty two-lane roads connecting the business districts of successive towns and cities.  By 1985, Route 66 was a collection of interstate freeways bypassing the business districts of virtually every town and city along its path.  To many of these cities and towns, this bypassing has transformed vibrant business districts into abandoned ones.  What caused such a dramatic change?

There are three possible explanations:  over time, improvements made to the road caused people to change how they used the road, their travel patterns; over time, improvements were made to the road because people changed how they used the road, their travel patterns; over time improvements made to road because people changed how they used the road caused people to change how they used the road which caused improvements to be made to the road and so on.

Most of the literature about Route 66 argues the first explanation, that changes to the road caused changes in how it was used.  The corollary to this argument espoused in much of the literature is that if the changes had never been made to Route 66, then how it was used would not have changed, and the numerous defunct business districts along its path would instead still be vibrant.

            This corollary is what Phil Patton, in his book Open Road:  A Celebration of the American Highway, calls "the Lament for Route 66."  

            "Sixty-six, we were told, was being bypassed.  The road of the Okies and of migration to California, with its lovely little Ma-and-Pa diners, its motor courts and teepee motels, was being killed by the cold, impersonal Interstates.  Any day now, went the stories' 'news peg,' the last link would be finished and 66 would be gone.

            "A typical report was presented in 1984 by Bob Dotson, a correspondent for NBC's “Today” show, who bubbled that Route 66 'was a thoroughfare for freedom, beat across the wilderness, a time-warped ark upon which so many of us determined the dimensions of our American dream.  Sixty-six was for most a yellow brick road, a journey important for what we would find.'  He added the ritual denunciation of the Interstate, which, with the bypassing of Williams, Arizona, had completed the killing of 66.  'The Interstate leaves little history.  Everything is too fast.  On 66, there was time, time to sleep in cement teepees and time to read messages on rusty fences, and laugh.'"  (Patton, pp. 243-244)

            This "Lament for Route 66" has been propagated through recent literature about the road.  The tone of Tom Teague's book Searching For 66 is somber and remorseful.   The same is true of Quinta Scott's and Susan Croce Kelly's Route 66:  The Highway and It's People.  Michael Wallis, in his book Route 66:  The Mother Road, expresses bitterness and hostility when discussing what Route 66 evolved into.

            ". . . the opening of the interstates made it possible to drive all the way from Chicago to the Pacific without stopping.  The government called that progress.  

"Thank God, not everyone agreed."  (Wallis, p. 26)

            Are the lamenters right?  Did the evolution of Route 66 forever destroy part of Americana by changing how the road was viewed and used?  Would the Mom-and-Pop diners still be in existence today, would we not have the desire to travel fast and far, if the Interstates had never been built?  Did the Interstates kill small town America?  Did the Interstates cause the extinction of a “kinder and gentler” America?  Did the form beget the function?

It is important to look at the history of roadbuilding in the United States in the twentieth century to gain some insight into why roads were built in the form that they were.  The genesis of the modern American road was the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916.  This act provided for a 50% Federal/ 50% State funding mechanism for the construction of rural transportation facilities. (ITE, p. 859)  The rationale for the emphasis on rural construction can be found in the concept of the function of the road at this point in time.  In 1916, the primary function of the road was considered to be to provide access from farms to nearby towns, villages, and cities, as well as for rural mail delivery.  In fact, the primary federal agency for road-building at this time was the Department of Agriculture.  Knowing this, it is easy to understand why the focus of this act was the improvement of rural roads.

            Due to occurrences during World War I, the concept of the function of the road began to change.

            "The military uses of highways, the chief justification for roadbuilding in the old western territories, had become a concern again in World War I.  At that time the railroads fell victim to a version of gridlock.  The system virtually collapsed.  Freight rotted on platforms.  Lack of coordination between competing lines, facilities that had been allowed to deteriorate, and bad management caused either by complacency or by government regulation left vital war material languishing in depots. . . .

            "The collapse of the railroads gave the trucking industry a chance to shine.  Trucks for the front had previously been sent by rail from Detroit to the eastern ports.  Now, they moved under their own power--and carried a load of supplies to boot--in huge convoys moving east from the MotorCity.

            "By the end of the war, the long-term military uses of highways as an alternative to rail were on the mind of the newly returned General Pershing."  (Patton, p.81)

            In 1919, General Pershing dispatched a cross-country convoy from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco.   According to Phil Patton in his book Open Road, "It took the column fifty-six days to make the trip--proof to the generals in Washington of the inadequacy of the nation's road for military or any other purpose." (Patton, p. 81).  Thus, because of the military, the concept of the function of the road began to include long-distance transport.

            While the Federal Road Act of 1916 was invaluable for improving many roads throughout the country, it had one major flaw:  it did not provide a mechanism to ensure the continuity of improved roads from one state to the next.  This was due to the fact that at the time the act was passed, roads were considered to be almost exclusively for transport from cities and towns to the surrounding countryside.  Unfortunately for the interstate traveler, the result of the 1916 act was the "State Line Syndrome," a common situation where the pavement would literally end at the state line.  What one state considered to be a primary route, the adjacent state considered to be minor, and thus what was a paved road in the first state would be nothing but an unimproved dirt trail in the adjoining state.  This discontinuity proved to be a significant hindrance to interstate and long-distance travel.

            As a result of the change in attitude concerning the function of the road initiated by the military convoy and the railroad crisis during World War I, a new  highway act was passed in 1921.  The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1921 reflected the new attitude about the road's function, that is, to serve both local and long-distance travel, with the emphasis still on local travel.  This Act rectified the problem of the "State Line Syndrome" by requiring that each state designate a connected system of interstate highways, the Federal (U.S.) highway system, to be funded with 90% federal funds. The fact that local transport was still considered to be the primary function of the road can be seen in that section of the act that stipulated that the intrastate system, which would connect into the interstate system in much the same way the rural mail routes connected the countryside with the nearby town, would comprise no less than 93% of a state's highway mileage.

            The designation of route numbers, even on federal route, was up to the discretion of the individual states.  Because these uniform route numbers would be beneficial to interstate travel, and because certain route numbers (those ending in “0” and “1”) were perceived to be more important than others, the designation of route numbers became a point of contention among the highway officials of the various states.  These controversies indicated a further shifting of the concept of the function of the road away from local transport and towards long-distance transport, for long-distance transport must have been considered important enough for road designations, primarily for the benefit of long-distance travelers, to be controversial. One of these controversies arose over the designation of the route from Chicago to Los Angeles, a route later known as Route 66.

            The controversy over the numbering of Route 66 is clearly indicative of a changing attitude about the purpose of the rural road.  In the case of Route 66, the parties involved saw the purpose of the road as not for local transport, but for long-distance transport.  This dramatic shift in the concept of the function of the road has proven to be a significant factor in the evolution of the American road into what it is today.  Since this change in the concept of the function of the road manifested itself in the controversy over the numbering of Route 66, then Route 66 itself became synonymous with the new function of the American road:  long-distance transport.

            The controversy started when the chief highway engineers for the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois decided that the road from Chicago to Los Angeles via Springfield, Missouri, should carry the designation U.S. 60.  However, officials in Kentucky and Virginia protested, as they believed the road from Los Angeles to Newport News, Virginia, via Springfield, Missouri, should carry the “60” designation. Since the two competing routes followed the same road from Los Angeles to Springfield, suggestions were made that the southern branch between Springfield and Newport News be given the designation “60”, and the northern branch between Springfield and Chicago be given the designation "60-North."  However, this scheme was unacceptable to the engineers from Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois, "who thought '60-North' sounded like a side road and not a main thoroughfare."  (Scott and Kelly, p. 15)  B. H. Piepmeyer, the chief engineer of Missouri, marked the route through Missouri with U.S. 60 signs, and the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department printed 600,000 road maps showing the route as U.S. 60.  (Scott and Kelly, p. 15)

            "This action aroused the ire of W. C. Markham, executive secretary of the American Association of State Highway Officials [AASHO], as well as the officials in . . . Kentucky.  Markham wrote [Cy] Avery, [a highway officail in Oklahoma, and a proponent of the designation of the northern route as “60”] 'The selection of the interstate system of highways, while it was more or less contentious, was nothing in comparison to the contention that is going on between the States in reference to this numbering system.'"  (Scott and Kelly, p. 15)

            In a letter to Avery, Piepmeyer expressed concern about the number for the Chicago to Los Angeles route.

            "'In my judgement this is one of the biggest highways in the country.  There is more travel between Los Angeles and Chicago, or in that vicinity, than any other transcontinental route. . . . I would rather  accept anything than this {Route 60 north and south} designation.  I object to any other number than sixty, because that has been established.  We should use one of the zero numbers and this is one of the biggest roads.  You know our plan was to designate all of the big roads with zero numbers. . . .'"  (Scott and Kelly, p. 15)

            This squabble over route numbers attracted the attention of Thomas H. MacDonald, chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, who wrote,

            "'Personally, I think that more time has been spent on this matter than it deserves.  I do not feel that it makes one bit of difference to the States along the route from Chicago to Los Angeles whether it is Route No. 60 or 62 or any other number so long as the number is carried continuously, and that has been conceded . . .'"  (Scott and Kelly, p. 15)

            An agreement was reached among the parties involved that the southern route would be designated U.S. 60 and the northern route U.S. 66.  The designation 66 was chosen because it was close to 60 and had not yet been used.  Thus, it is ironic to note that the second choice would come to represent the concept of long-distance transport while the first choice would become "just another number."

            With the designation of the Federal highway system, the evolution of the American highway, and Route 66, would accelerate.  Like its sibling U.S. highways, Route 66 initially was nothing more than several different existing roads, most of which were dirt roads, linked by a common number.  Most of the roads that became “66” started as military roads in the 1840s and 1850s.  The U.S. highway system was not a trailblazer in the context of new road construction; however, it was a trailblazer in the fact that its number designations were intended to provide guidance for long-distance travelers through the maze of existing roads.  In other words, the function of the system, ideally, was to facilitate interstate transport.

            Within the next decade, Route 66, as well as the rest of the nation's highways, evolved significantly, from rough and rutted dirt roads, impassible during certain times of the year, to smooth, paved, all-weather roads, traversible at ever-increasing speeds.  By 1927, all 300 miles of Route 66 in Illinois were paved, and by 1937, the entire length of the road, all two-thousand plus miles, had been paved.

            At the same time as the American road was evolving, the concept of the function of the road was changing into one of a facility for long-distance transport.  This change in attitude about the purpose of roads is evident in the mass migration from the Dust Bowl states to Southern California via “66” and other U.S. routes in the 1930s, as the roads, not the railroads, were the facilities used for this long-distance migration.  For the "Okies," the roads provided a means of easy "escape" to far and mystic places one could previously only "escape" to through literature.  The mass migrations were a manifestation of the mobility that the American road, and “66”, as the epitome of the American road, had come to represent.  Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright acknowledged that the American road, and “66” in particular, had become synonymous with mobility and the new migration to the West when he commented that "Route 66 is a giant chute down which everything loose in this country is sliding into Southern California."  Because the purpose of the road was now considered to be mobility and long-distance transport, research on improving the roads conducting during this time suggested the construction of what ultimately became known as the Interstate highway.

            Meanwhile, because the concept of the function of the road had changed, so too did the American road itself change in order to fulfill the new expectations.  Thus, “66” and its major siblings began to evolve from roads designed and intended primarily for short-distance travel, intracounty and intrastate, to roads designed and intended primarily for long-distance, interstate travel.

            This transformation began with the construction of bypasses around small towns and cities.  Because Route 66 had come to represent long-distance transport, it was one of the first routes to undergo this transformation.  The Illinois Department of Public Works discussed proposed bypasses along Route 66 in detail in a 1938 document titled "21st Annual Report of the Division of Highways of the Department of Public Works and Building."  This document acknowledged the changing function of “66” with the statement "Through traffic is inconvenienced and delayed by having to travel through these [sizable] cities. . . . For several years the Division has been working toward a plan of providing belt lines or by-pass routes around a number of these intermediate municipalities."  (21st, p. 41)  Thus, with the construction of bypasses, preference was given to long-distance and interstate travelers, as the purpose of a bypass is to expedite through movements.

            The location and type of buildings on the road is indicative of the concept of the function of the road at the time the buildings were constructed.  Prior to the establishment of the U.S. Highway system, the primary function of the road was to connect the countryside with neighboring towns.  Roadside development, or the lack of it, reflected this emphasis on local traffic, for the bulk of development along the road was in the cities and towns.  Because the roads were essentially for local traffic, businesses were dependent upon local patronage, and thus development occurred where this patronage was the highest:  in the business districts of towns and cities.  By the late 1930s, however, the primary function of the roads such as Route 66 was for long-distance intrastate and interstate travel.  Buildings constructed during this time were dependent upon the motoring public for patronage, rather than local citizenry.  The types of buildings built reflect this emphasis on the motorist:   service stations, restaurants, and motels.  These businesses were not developed in the towns and cities, as before, but rather on the open road and the bypasses; the locations where interstate traffic was the highest.

            An excellent example of this trend in roadside development is the Route 66 bypass of Springfield, Illinois.  The bypass was constructed in 1940; by 1942, 15 structures had been built along it.  These buildings were built because of the highway (the bypass was far enough outside the urban area to not be shown on the city map even in 1948, eight years after it was built), and consisted primarily of motorist related businesses such as service stations, restaurants, and motels.  Similar types of roadside development occurred along other Route 66 bypasses in Illinois and other states.

            By 1949, Route 66 bypassed thirteen cities and towns in Illinois.  However, the bypasses were becoming as ineffective at expediting interstate travel as the old city routes due to the extensive roadside development, later dubbed "strip development," they spawned. For example, the number of structures on the “66” bypass of Springfield, Illinois, doubled between 1942 and 1950.  With this additional development came additional entrances, additional turns off of and onto the highway, increased traffic congestion, and increased traffic accidents.  Thus, the next stage in the transformation of the American road:  from two lanes to four lanes.

            In its "32nd Annual Report," (1949) the Division of Highways acknowledged that this transformation was being planned.  According to the "32nd Annual Report,"  "The traffic carried justifies four-lane construction. . . Construction is planned and right-of-way secured for a second two-lane pavement, to be separated from the first by a center parkway" (32nd, p. 84).  By 1955, all but 16 miles of Route 66 in Illinois had been transformed into a four-lane highway.

            While four-laning the road, and specifically Route 66, helped ease some of the problems due to roadside development, it did not solve them all.  Speeds still had to be reduced in areas of heavy development, as through vehicles were slowed by those vehicles turning on and off the roadway.  Furthermore, the unlimited access from the road to adjacent properties was hazardous, as every driveway off of the road increased the probability of a traffic accident.  Motorists were slowed even more by traffic signals at major intersections.

            The ultimate solution to the problems caused by roadside development, and its subsequent impeding of long-distance transport, was the restricting of access, and the elimination of at-grade intersections:  the freeway, the type of road scorned by the "lamenters of Route 66."  The freeway, and its cousin, the tollway, was considered to be the ultimate facility necessary to ensure the preservation of American mobility and the expedition of long-distance transport.

            The virtues of this type of facility had been proven by the parkways of the Northeast and the Autobahns of Germany.  In the northeast, travelers more than halved the trip between New York and Boston when the parkways across Connecticut provided an alternative to busy U.S. Route 1.  In Germany, the American military was impressed with how quickly and easily troops and equipment could be transported across the country.  This type of controlled access, multilane, high speed facility was envisioned in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which established a National System of Interstate Highways.  Route 66 was one of the routes selected to be on the National System of Interstate Highways, and the ultimate objective, as stated by the State of Illinois in 1949, was to turn it into a freeway, the ultimate facility for interstate transport, for it had already been designated as one.

            Although Illinois declared its intention to turn 66 into a freeway in 1949, the word did not become synonymous with "Interstate highway," the object of loathing of the "lamenters," until 1956.  It was in this year that Congress passed what became commonly known as the Interstate Highway Act, officially the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.  This act provided $25 billion for the construction of the National System of Interstate Highways authorized in 1944, renamed the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, a 72,500 mile system of freeways.  These freeways were assigned a new designation scheme, independent of the U.S. Route system, the "Interstate" highway system.  Thus, with the passage of the 1956 act, there were two federal highway systems:  the U.S. highway system, consisting of secondary interstate routes, and the Interstate system, consisting of primary routes.  It was this segregation of the two systems which ultimately led to the decommissioning of Route 66, as 66 was considered a primary route and was thus given Interstate designations.  (To keep the U.S. route designation would imply Route 66 was a secondary route, which it wasn't.)

            The construction of the Interstates was the last phase in the evolution of Route 66 and the American road.  The function of the road, and specifically Route 66, was now exclusively long-distance transport.  Outside of major cities, access points to the Interstate were several miles apart; feeder roads connected the towns along the route to these access points.  This final transformation of Route 66 allowed the entire route, from one end to the other, to be traveled in four days.  The final step in this final phase of the evolution of the American road was the assigning of Interstate route numbers.  Route 66 was assigned five different Interstate numbers: 10, 15, 40, 44, and 55.

CONCLUSION

          Did the evolution of Route 66 from a collection of two-lane roads that passed through the center of successive towns into a collection of freeways that bypassed towns effectively kill the towns it bypassed?  It may have helped hasten their demise, but the evidence suggests that the change in the function of the road from short-distance to long-distance transport contributed more to the demise of these towns than any change in form, no matter how dramatic.  As the function of the road changed, so to did the types of businesses needed to service the road.  Motorists traveling long-distances are merely passing through – to these motorists, small town business districts are merely a nuisance.  The bypasses, then, provided for the removal of this through traffic out of the business districts, traffic which was not patronizing the types of businesses found in these areas, anyway.  Therefore, their removal did not cause any harm to the survival of these business districts, and in fact, was probably beneficial by making them more pedestrian friendly with the removal of the traffic.

Did the change in the form of Route 66 cause the change in the function, or did the change in the function cause the change in the form?  Both.  As Route 66 was improved, access to places a longer distance away improved.  Because it was now easier to travel longer distances, more motorists did, with the result being higher traffic volumes.  These higher traffic volumes, in turn, necessitated more improvements, which induced even more traffic, which necessitated more improvements, and so on.  In short, form and function are interdependent – the function is the correct function for the form and the form is the correct form for the function.  Neither is independent of the other.

This interdependence, as revealed in the evolution of Route 66, is an important concept that should be invoked by all transportation officials, engineers, and planners.  There have been numerous bypasses constructed over the years whose original function, the expedience of long-distance transport, was corrupted by the introduction of too many access points and the degradation of the road from one for interstate travel to local travel.  So too, there have been many local roads that have been overdesigned and morphed into long-distance trunk routes, much to the chagrin of local officials and property owners.  By studying a particular corridor, Route 66, we can better understand the delicate relationship between form and function (not only of the roadway, but of the businesses servicing the roadway)), and utilize that information when planning for the future.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

     "21st Annual Report of the Division of Highways of the Department of Public Works of the State of Illinois," 1938.

     "32nd Annual Report of the Division of Highways of the Department of Public Works of the State of Illinois," 1949.

     City of Springfield, Illinois, Street Map, 1948.

     "Groups trying to bring back vanished road."  USA Today, June 6, 1990, pp. 1-2.

      ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers).  Transportation and Traffic Engineering Handbook, 2nd Edition.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice-Hall, 1982.

     Patton, Phil.  Open Road:  A Celebration of the American Highway.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, 1986.

     Sangamon County, Illinois, Highway Map, 1937.

     Sangamon County, Illinois, Highway Map, 1954.

     Scott, Quinta and Kelly, Susan Croce.  Route 66:  The Highway and It's People.  Norman, OK:  University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.

    State of Illinois Highway Map, 1926.

    State of Illinois Highway Map, 1940.

     State of Illinois Highway Map, 1949.

     State of Illinois Highway Map, 1955.

     Teague, Tom.  Searching For 66.  Springfield, IL:  Samizdat House, 1991.

     "The ways we were:  Memories of old Rt. 66 in Springfield."  Illinois Times, Volume 14, Number 49, August 3, 1989, pp. 11-13.

     United States Geological Survey.  Map of Springfield (IL) Quadrangle, 1932.

     United States Geological Survey.  Map of Springfield (IL) Quadrangle, 1942.

     United States Geological Survey.  Map of Springfield (IL)  Quadrangle, 1950.

    Wallis, Michael.  Route 66:  The Mother Road.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990.

SYNOPSIS

Popularized by a brand of gasoline, a song, and a television show, Route 66 (U.S. 66) is arguably the most famous American highway.  Superceded its entire length from Chicago to Los Angeles by parallel Interstate highways, it was officially decommissioned in 1985.  Subsequently, many have argued that the construction of the Interstates and the national freeway system have caused the death of American cities and towns by bypassing through traffic around urban centers (a viewpoint epitomized in the aminated feature, Cars); in other words, the function of the road changed because the form did.  This study concludes the opposite, that over time, the form of the road evolved to match its function.

This paper was originally writeen as part of a Master's Degree program in History at Sangamon State University in Springfield, Illinois.

Cite as:

Schrader, Michael H. (1992)  Route 66: the evolution of the American road.  Total Transportation System Solutions.