The Future of the Interstate Highway System

The Interstate Highway System is the backbone of our country’s transportation system. Representing only 1 percent of the total U.S. public road mileage, it carries over 25 percent of all vehicles miles traveled in the country, including more than half of the miles traveled by combination trucks—used mostly for freight carriage. The system not only has mileage in every state in the union, but it has physically integrated the nation.

But at over 60 years old, most of the Interstate highways and bridges have long exceeded their design lives and are worn and congested in many places. Furthermore, today the nation has new expectations for the system’s condition, performance and use. Meeting those expectations and remedying the system’s deficiencies is going to require the same forward-looking outlook and commitment that informed the system’s creation.

Our speaker will discuss the findings and recommendations presented in a new Congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report calls for a 20-year “blueprint for action,” which includes creating a federal “Interstate Highway System Renewal and Modernization Program” modeled after the original Interstate Construction Program. The speaker will also examine other program actions, including changes to law that the study committee recommended to U.S. Congress.

To read the report: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25334/renewing-the-national-commitment-to-the-interstate-highway-system-a-foundation-for-the-future

For more information: http://Interstate.trb.org

For more information on NGA’s Transportation Policy Learning Network: https://www.nga.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/TPLN-Oct-2018-Revised.pdf

 

Welcome and Introduction of Speaker:

Garrett Eucalitto, Transportation Program Director, National Governors Association

Welcome and Introduction of Speaker 

  • Garrett Eucalitto, Transportation Program Director, National Governors Association

Speaker

  • Steve Heminger, Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission