Continuity and change in American urban freeway networks

Joe Weber

Journal of Transport Geography, 2017, vol. 58, issue C, 31-39

Abstract: The American Interstate Highway System was created in 1944, though construction did not commence until 1956. During the planning process for this network the blueprint for American urban freeway systems was set in 1955 by a federal document called the Yellow Book. This provided about 100 maps of cities with planned urban freeway locations for the Interstate Highway System. A set of three basic network patterns were applied to these cities based on their size and location. In the half century since 1955 urban freeways in the Interstate System have expanded from a planned 2000miles to over 16,600miles, along with another 11,500miles of non-Interstate freeways. The number of large metropolitan areas has increased tremendously while the monocentric commuting patterns of have been transformed. This paper explores how these urban freeway systems were applied to the country's urban geography of the 1950s and how they have adapted to changing populations and other transformations in American metropolitan areas in the last half century.

Keywords: Interstate highway system; Freeways; Networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692316306834

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:58:y:2017:i:c:p:31-39

DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2016.11.007

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Transport Geography is currently edited by Frank Witlox

More articles in Journal of Transport Geography from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().