Word: expressway
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Since 1956, when Congress authorized the program, federal and state agencies have poured $23.3 billion into the economy for land, labor, construction materials and equipment. Real estate prices along the roads have risen as much as thirtyfold, putting adjoining land among the nation's most expensive property. Around expressway interchanges and exits, new motels, restaurants, gas stations, shopping centers and even office buildings have sprung...
...Mainstream. Near Los Angeles, Douglas Aircraft has built a multimillion-dollar space-systems facility off Interstate 405 (the San Diego Freeway), plans to build all its new facilities near the expressway so that it can easily move personnel and material from plant to plant. Chrysler's decision to build a $50 million auto plant near remote Belvidere, Ill. (pop. 11,200), was strongly influenced by the proximity of 1-90, which connects it with Chicago and still allows quick access to the big Chrysler parts plants in Michigan...
...truly congested cities, the expanses of concrete built to unclog traffic are often jammed almost from the moment they open. The Long Island Expressway, designed for 80,000 by 1970, now carries up to 170,000 a day; and the Hollywood Freeway, intended for 120,000 by 1970, now conveys nearly twice that many. "This is the only business where, if you have record crowds the first day, you consider it a failure," says Chicago's Project Supervisor Patrick J. Athol. To technophobes, this proves the futility of building roads-but that is something like not building schools...
...traffic-jam trauma is under attack. For example, Detroit's John C. Lodge Expressway is testing an ingenious control system. Fourteen TV cameras, mounted on bridges over a particularly congested three-mile stretch, transmit pictures of cars to a 14-screen big-brother console near by. Technicians at the console can zoom in their lenses for closeup shots of any single suspicious vehicle; on several occasions they have watched on television while a smashup or a breakdown occurs. Then they call a policeman and throw switches that change speed-limit signs, block ramps, and turn...
...dozen or so of the U.S.'s 224 cities of over 50,000 population, the answer to the traffic problem is clear: more expressways. As E. H. Holmes, planning director of the U.S. Bureau of Roads, says, "Congestion isn't peaking up any more; it's spreading." Little more than 5% of all metropolitan traffic in most cities is bound for the downtown area; most of it is skirting the city. And for such as New York and San Francisco, the answer lies mainly in more mass transit facilities (although New York is preparing to build...