Transit Cooperative Research ProgramSponsored by the Federal Transit Administration

RESEARCH RESULTS DIGESTAugust 1997-Number 21

Subject Areas: IA Planning and Administration Responsible Senior Program Officer: Dianne S. Schwagerand VI Public Transit

Consequences of the Development of the InterstateHighway System for Transit

This TCRP digest presents the literature review for TCRP Project H-13A, "Consequences of the Development of theInterstate Highway System." The aim of this project is to determine the effects of the interstate highway system onurban and suburban areas, focusing particularly on the effects for public transportation as an industry and as a

service. The research phase of the project includes a comparative case study analysis of selected U.S., German, andCanadian cities analyzing the broad context in which interstate and similar highway projects were developed, their

intended and unintended consequences, and their effects on public transportation systems and use. Judy Davis,Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas, Inc., prepared this digest.

INTRODUCTION

This digest summarizes what is known about theconsequences of the interstate highway system forpublic transportation as an industry and as a service.The review also considers the effects of the interstatehighway system on the pattern of urban developmentand on transportation policy and planning becausethese factors also influence the transit industry andservice. By identifying the gaps and omissions in theliterature, the review shows the need for additionalresearch.

Considerable literature on the effects ofautomobility on American life exist. Recent books onthe subject include the following:

• Jennings, J., ed., Roadside America: TheAutomobile in Design and Culture, Iowa StateUniversity Press, Ames, IA (1990);• Lewis, D. L. and L. Goldenstein, eds., TheAutomobile and American Culture, University ofMichigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI (1983);• McShane, C., Down the Asphalt Path: TheAutomobile and the City. Columbia University Press,New York, NY (1994);• Nadis, S. and J. J. MacKenzie, Car Trouble,Beacon Press, Boston, MA (1993); and

• Wachs, M. and M. Crawford, eds., The Car andThe City: The Automobile, The Built Environment,and Daily Urban Life, University of Michigan Press,Ann Arbor, MI (1992).

In contrast, research that focuses on the effects ofthe interstate highway system is limited. The onlylarge-scale study of the effects on the interstatehighway system on urban areas was sponsored by theU.S. Departments of Transportation and Housing andUrban Development in the 1970s. It examined theeffects of beltways on land use and urbandevelopment (Payne-Maxie and Blayney-Dyett,1980). Much of the analysis of the effects of theinterstate highway system is found in books andarticles on suburban development and generaltransportation policy. This review relies on works ofrespected historians, geographers, and policy analystswho have studied transportation and urban patterns ofdevelopment. This review avoids the morecontroversial accounts of the interstate highwaysystem that appeared in the early 1970s, such asKenneth Schneider's Autokind vs. Mankind, Norton,New York (1971), Helen Leavitt's Superhighway-Superhoax, Double Day, Garden City, New York(1972), Ronald Buel's Dead End, Prentice Hall,Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey (1972),

TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH BOARDNATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

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CONTENTS

Introduction, 1

1.1 Context of Urban Interstate Development, 3Highway Congestion Was the Urban Transportation Problem of the 1950s, 3Transit Was Mostly a Private Business in the 1950s, 6Early Urban Interstate Highway Planning Did Not Consider Broader Urban Issues, 6Changing Nature of the Urban Transportation Problem, 6Federal Government Becomes Involved in Transit Financing, 7Coordinated Planning of Federally Funded Programs, 7Conclusions About the Context of the Interstate Highway Program, 7

1.2 Prototypes of Urban Form in the Interstate Highway Era, 8Fully Motorized Cities, 8Weak-Centered Cities, 8Strong-Centered Cities, 9Traffic Limitation Cities, 9

1.3 Interstates and Transit in U.S. Cities, 9Reduced Competitive Advantage of Transit by Improving Automobile Travel, 9Interstate Highways Changed Urban and Suburban Accessibility, 12Conclusions About Interstate Highways and Transit in the United States, 14

1.4 International Comparisons, 15United States, Australian, and European Comparisons, 15European Cities Vary in Emphases on Transit and Highways, 15Canadian Cities Have High Rates of Transit Use and Few Freeways, 17Conclusions About International Comparison, 17

1.5 Conclusions, 18

References, 20

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A.Q. Mowbray's Road to Ruin,Lippencott, Philadelphia, Penn. (1972),and Emma Rothschild's Paradise Lost,Random House, New York (1973).

Some research has identified theeffects the interstate highway systemhas had on nonmetropolitandevelopment, including work byHumphrey and Sell (1975), Lichter andFuguitt (1980), Briggs (1981), andMoon (1987). Improvements in travelhad an effect on the people, economy,development patterns, and lifestyles ofrural areas. But except on the urbanfringe, these changes do not reflect therelationship between transit andinterstate highways. This review,therefore, focuses on what happened inmedium- to large-sized cities, includingchanges that occurred at their urbanfringes. The two main positions aboutthe effects of the interstate highwaysystem on transit are as follows:

1. The interstate highwaysystem biased transportationinvestments in favor of urban freeways,reducing transit's ability to competewith the automobile.

2. The interstate highwaysystem facilitated the suburbanizationof households and jobs, creating originsand destinations that were difficult forconventional transit to serve.

The literature makes it clear thatthe interstate highway system was onlyone of many factors supporting thetrends of increased automobile use,suburbanization of population and jobs,and declining transit effectiveness. Thedifficulty for any research lies insorting out the role of the interstatehighway system relative to the otherfactors.

To understand the effects of theinterstate highway system, Section 1.1reviews the context in which theinterstate highway system wasdeveloped and considers how that

context changed during the era ofinterstate highway building(19561980). Section 1.2 outlines fourprototypes for major cities in theinterstate highway era with varyingpatterns of freeways, transit, and landuse. Section 1.3 presents evidence fromthe literature on how the interstatehighway system has affected transit usein U.S. cities, and the types of citiesthat have developed around this system.Section 1.4 compares the experiencewith limited access highways andtransit in U.S. cities with those inCanada, Australia, and Europe.

1.1 CONTEXT OF URBANINTERSTATE DEVELOPMENT

In 1956, Congress passed theInterstate Highway Act authorizing thelargest public works project in thehistory of the country. The actauthorized 40,650 mi (later expanded to42,796 mi) of Interstate and NationalDefense Highways to be built by 1972and provided $24.8 billion in funds forthe period from 1957 to 1969.Economic growth during the 1950smade financing a large, peacetimepublic works project feasible (Altshuleret al. 1981).

One innovation of this act wastreating the interstate highway systemas a single project with multiple-yearfunding. Previously, Congress hadprovided aid for highways on an annualor biannual basis in varied amountsdepending on the federal budget, theneed to provide jobs, and other factors(Federal Highway Administration1977).

A second innovation was themethod of funding. The Highway TrustFund Act, passed simultaneously withthe Interstate Highway Act, designatedall federal gas and other vehicle-relatedtaxes to highway construction andmaintenance. Previously, these fundshad been deposited in the general fundand highway federal-aid dollars were

apportioned from the general fund. Thefederal designation of funds followedthe practices of many states that haddesignated gas taxes exclusively forhighway use. Highway advocates werethus able to argue that users paid for theconstruction of these projects (FederalHighway Administration 1977, Dunn1981).

Table 1 summarizes thechronology of legislation relating tointerstate highway building from 1944,when the system was first authorized,to 1980, when the system was 95percent complete. Changes in policiesduring the interstate highway eraaffected the construction of interstatehighway system and the nature oftransit systems.

Highway Congestion Was the UrbanTransportation Problem of the 1950s

In the 1950s, the public andelected officials considered highwaycongestion the main urbantransportation problem. Rapid growthof automobile ownership and thesuburbanization of the populationproduced congestion in central businessdistricts (CBDs) and on the routes toand from them during peak periods.Cities and counties tried to reduce thiscongestion by expanding arterial streetsand building expressways andparkways. The new and expandedfacilities, however, encouraged moresuburban growth and rapidly becamecongested. As a result, limited-access,high-speed free-ways were proposed asa solution to congestion.

Highways were regarded as apublic good that should be built andmaintained by government to serve themost "democratic" of transportationchoices-the automobile (Foster 1992).Federal funds for highway constructionwere first authorized in 1916. However,prior to the interstate highway era, mostfederal and state transportation fundswere spent on rural roads. Urbanhighways were

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TABLE 1 Chronology of federal legislation on interstate highways, transit, and the environmentduring interstate highway building years, 1944-1980

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TABLE 1 Chronology of federal legislation on interstate highways, transit, and the environmentduring interstate highway building years, 1944-1980 (cont.)

Sources: Jones 1985, Weiner 1992

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regarded as local routes that should befunded locally. The first federalfunding for urban roads was approvedas public works projects during theDepression more to provide jobs thanto deal with urban transportation issues.The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944was the first highway act to providefunds dedicated to urban highways(Kemp and Cheslow 1976).

The interstate highway system wasauthorized by Congress in 1944 toconnect regions and major metropolitanareas (see Table 1). Congress, however,did not provide special funds forinterstate highways, and few were built(Owens 1966). Prior to 1956, there waslong debate about whether interstatehighways should go around or throughurban areas. The AutomobileManufacturers Association (AMA) wasa major supporter of interstatehighways within cities. The AMAcommissioned a report by WilburSmith and Associates (1961) on citiesand highways, Future Highways andUrban Growth. This report laid out thereasons for building interstate highwaysin cities.

The Wilbur Smith report pointedout that the largest future market forautomobiles was in cities. Not onlywere urban areas the most rapidlygrowing parts of the country, but manyurban households did not yet ownautomobiles. The report contended thatCBDs needed radial freeways tosurvive and that express buses on thesefreeways were the transit of the future.The AMA also argued freeways wereneeded in cities for civil defensepurposes. The civil defense argumentthat freeways would help people leavethe city in the event of a nuclear attackhelped convince Congress that federaldollars should be spent on "local"projects like urban highways (Schwartz1962, St. Clair 1986, Flink 1988).

Transit Was Mostly a PrivateBusiness in the 1950s

In contrast to highways, transitwas viewed as a profit-making,taxpaying business. In 1960, only 38cities had publicly owned and operatedtransit systems. All but seven of thesecovered operating expenses with fares,and the industry as a whole made aprofit after taxes (Jones 1985, St. Clair1986, Smerk 1991).

The popular view was that transitwas a dying industry except in thelargest cities. In fact, 194 medium-sized cities did lose their transit servicebetween 1954 and 1963. Except for thepeak during the wartime years,ridership had been declining since thelate 1920s (Hinton 1985). Privatetransit companies were surviving butnot doing well. Regulations on service,routes, wages, and other operatingconditions made it difficult for them tomake a profit. Companies were notreplacing aging equipment andfacilities. As a result, service was oftenunreliable and uncomfortable Jones1985).

Early Urban Interstate HighwayPlanning Did NotConsider Broader Urban Issues

At the beginning of the interstatehighway era, highway planning waslargely done by engineers seeking low-cost, gentle curving routes. Interstatehighways were built to rural standardsso high speeds could be safelymaintained at all times. This requiredmore land than other types of highwaydesign. Urban interstate highways wereoften planned by state highwayagencies with little consideration forbroader metropolitan area plans.

When selecting routes,transportation agencies consulted withmayors, other public officials,

and major institutions, but rarely withthe public. Social and environmentalconcerns played little role indecisionmaking. Lower-cost routesoften went through poor neighborhoodsand city parks. The disruptions weregreatest in the inner cities where manyhomes and businesses were displacedby these massive projects. In thesuburbs, interstate highways couldoften be built on undeveloped orpartially developed land, causing lessdisruption to established patterns ofliving (Altshuler et al. 1981, Flink1988, Rose 1990).

Changing Nature of the UrbanTransportation Problem

Congestion continued to be anissue in the 1960s and 1970s. However,attention was also given to the declineof transit, the disruptions of urbanfreeway building, and automobilesafety. Later, concerns aboutenvironmental and energy issuesincreased as the nation celebrated EarthDay and responded to the Organizationof Petroleum Exporting Countries(OPEC) oil embargoes. Transitfinancing became an issue as more andmore systems became publicly owned,and state and local governments soughtfunds to maintain and expand service.As automobile use increased, concernabout the mobility of people withoutcars became more significant (Altshuleret al. 1981, Smerk 1991).

The environmental movementemerged in the late 1960s and early1970s. The National EnvironmentalPolicy Act of 1969 requiredenvironmental impact statements forfederally funded projects with majorimpacts. This changed the rules forplanning interstate highways. TheClean Air Act Amendments of 1970required that states develop stateimplementation plans (SIPs) for

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nonattainment areas. As a result, air-quality agencies became involved intransportation issues (Weiner 1992).

Freeway revolts had erupted in 12cities by 1970. What began as reactionsof the people directly affected by thedisruption of massive highway projectson neighborhoods and communities,snowballed and became a rallying cryfor civil rights activists,environmentalists, urban neighborhoodpreservationists, and downtownbusiness groups. Many groups fearedthat interstate highways aided growthin the suburbs and fostered downtownand urban neighborhood decline Jones1985, Kemp and Cheslow 1976, Dunn1981). Eventually, the freeway revoltsresulted in the withdrawal of someinterstate projects and the substitutionof other transportation projects. In1973, the rules were changed to allowtransit projects to be substituted forinterstate highway projects that werenot considered essential for the system.In 1976, the rules became even moreflexible, allowing some interstate fundsto be expended on other highwayprojects (Weiner 1992, Edner andArrington 1985).

Federal Government BecomesInvolved in Transit Financing

In the 1960s and 1970s, transitwas embraced by many groups as asolution to the problems of central citydecline, urban poverty, environmentaldegradation, suburban sprawl, andtransportation for the elderly. Thesegroups began lobbying for federalsupport for transit. The Housing Act of1961 included the first support forurban transit by authorizing $75 millionfor demonstration projects and loans. Italso authorized a study of transit needs.Lyle C. Fitch and Associates wroteUrban Transportation and PublicPolicy in 1964 for Congress. Thisreport established the case for federalcapital assistance for mass transit and

contended that transportationinvestments were distorted by federaland state aid that favored highways.The federal government needed to getinvolved in transit financing to solve anurgent urban problem, to complementother federal urban efforts, and tobalance federal spending on urbanhighways. Lyle C. Fitch andAssociates recommended federalmatching grants or loans for state andlocal agencies for capital improvementsfor transit.

The Urban Mass Transit Act of1964 enacted many of theserecommendations by authorizing thefirst federal capital grants for transit. Along-term federal commitment totransit was made in 1970 whenmultiyear projects were authorized.Cities used federal funds to helpacquire private transit systems and toimprove and expand these systems.Federal assistance for transit operationsbegan in 1974 (Altshuler et al. 1981,Weiner 1992).

Transit ridership increased in the1970s for the first time in the post-World War II period as a direct resultof improvements in urban transit.However, the large-scale federal, state,and local subsidies required to obtainthis improvement raised many concernsabout the efficiency of transit (Smerk1991).

Coordinated Planning of FederallyFunded Programs

As the number of federalprograms addressing urban issuesexpanded to include urban interstatehighways, transit projects, urbanrenewal, and model cities, the federalgovernment saw a need forcoordination at the metropolitan levelto avoid duplication of effort orcontradictory programs.

The federal government promotedregional cooperative efforts such asclearinghouses for federal grants andmetropolitan planning organizations(MPOs) for transportation

planning. Federal legislation requiredjoint planning of highways and transitafter 1973 (Smerk 1991, Weiner 1992).

Conclusions About the Context ofthe Interstate Highway Program

Throughout the interstate highwaybuilding era, there was a focus onplanning and building the interstatesegments that often downplayedexamination of other possible solutionsto congestion. The federal fundsavailable exclusively for theconstruction of interstate highwaysencouraged their construction as theway to meet urban transportation needs.A decade later, the provision of federalcapital assistance without operatingassistance for transit encouraged buspurchases and construction of railsystems, but no changes occurred inscheduling, routing, or transitmanagement (Kemp and Cheslow1976, Altshuler et al. 1981, Jones1985).

Many cities used the designatedfederal funds to build extensive radialand beltway interstate highways. Theselarge-scale projects created massivedisruptions in developed areas. In thelate 1960s and early 1970s, increasedactivism supporting neighborhoodpreservation, downtown revitalization,social and economic development forminorities, and environmental concernscombined with the disruptions ofinterstate highway building to changeattitudes and laws affecting theinterstate highway system. At the sametime, public opinion changed fromviewing transit as a private enterprise toseeing it as a solution to various otherurban problems, including congestion.Public agencies acquired failing privatetransit companies, and the federalgovernment became involved insubsidizing transit through the newlycreated Urban Mass TransitAdministration. Changes in publicattitude led to

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changes in federal policy, including thefollowing:

• Halting the construction ofurban interstate highway segments anddelaying the completion of others foryears;

• Substituting transit and otherhighway projects for interstate highwayprojects;

• Shifting urban highwaydecisionmaking from state highwaydepartments to newly created MPOs;

• Using an interdisciplinaryapproach to transportation planning thatconsidered the social, economic, andenvironmental impacts oftransportation investments;

• Establishing publicownership and operation of most transitsystems;

• Granting new federal, state,and local subsidies for transit; and

• Giving transit and highwaysseparate federal agencies and rules.

These changes-in transit financing,transportation planning rules,environmental legislation, and publicperceptions of transportation problems-affect the evaluation of the relationshipbetween the interstate highway systemand transit. This relationship is not asimple one because the context inwhich it was formed was alsochanging. In addition, as theinternational comparisons later in thisdigest show, while U.S. cities werebuilding interstate highways,governments and citizens in othercountries were making decisions abouturban highway and transit investmentsthat diverged from the American pointof view. Their investments reflectdifferent attitudes and policies towardurban development, transit, andhighways.

1.2 PROTOTYPES OF URBANFORM IN THE INTERSTATEHIGHWAY ERA

In Great Cities and Their Traffic,Thomson (1977) identified fiveprototypical

ways in which cities could develop,depending on the nature of theirinvestments in highways and transitand their land use policies. Of theseprototypes, one applies mainly to largecities in Asia, South America, andAfrica, but four are applicable to citiesin the United States and to otherdeveloped countries. AlthoughThomson wrote this book, on the basisof his observations of cities around theworld, nearly 20 years ago, theprototypes he developed reappear withminor variations in regional visions inthe United States and Canada today.Thus, these prototypes are relevant toan examination of the relationshipbetween the interstate highway systemand transit systems.

Thomson's four types of cities,listed from most to leastaccommodating to the automobile, areas follows:

• Fully motorized cities,• Weak-centered cities,• Strong-centered cities, and• Traffic limitation cities.

Fully Motorized Cities

Fully motorized cities aredesigned to ensure the free flow ofautomobile traffic. Small cities(200,000 to 300,000 people) can retaina traditional city center and be fullymotorized. However, in larger citiesthere would be too much congestion ifa substantial amount of employmentwere located in a dominant center.Therefore, a large, fully motorized citymust have multiple centers or adispersion of activities. Thomsontheorized that the ideal form for a fullymotorized city is a grid system withfreeways forming the primary networkconnecting dispersed centers.Secondary roads move traffic,including buses, between the freewaycorridors while distributor and accessroads provide access to jobs, shopping,recreation,

and homes. Thomson identified LosAngeles, Detroit, Denver, and SaltLake City as examples of fullymotorized cities where private motorvehicles are the primary mode of travel.Since the 1970s, three out of four ofthese cities have retrofitted their citieswith rail systems as part of a strategy tostrengthen the city's center.

Weak-Centered Cities

Weak-centered cities have a CBDthat retains many of the cultural andeconomic functions traditionallyassociated with city centers. Becausethe city center is too large for allworkers to arrive by car, it depends ontransit for a substantial share ofcommuters. These cities have,however, built radial and beltwayfreeways whose intersections areattractive locations for industrial andcommercial development and result ina multiplicity of centers. Hence, atension exists between retaining theCBD as the center of the region andletting it become one of many centers,thereby becoming a fully motorizedcity. Maintaining CBD primacyrequires policies that encourage (1)

development in the center anddiscourage it elsewhere and (2)investments in a commuter transitsystem to the city center. Thomsonlisted Melbourne, Copenhagen, SanFrancisco, Chicago, and Boston asexamples of weak-centered cities in the1970s.

While the U.S. cities on this list ofweak-centered cites may have beenweakly centered compared to cities inother countries in the 1970s, they aresome of the more strongly centeredcities in the United States in the 1990s.All three have extensive rail and bustransit systems serving the CBD. Allhad extensive growth in CBD officespace in the 1980s. Countering thiscentralization, suburban activity centersor edge cities have also developed inthese regions. Cities like Cleveland andKansas

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City, where the central city hasdeclined relative to the rest of theregion, are probably better examples ofweak-centered cities today.

Strong-Centered Cities

Strong-centered cities haveretained the city center as the heart ofthe region. The center is supported byradial freeways and high-capacitytransit that make the city center themost accessible place in the region.There are no beltways that confer thesame regional accessibility atinterchanges that occurs in the citycenter. Instead, small subcentersdevelop along the radial transportationroutes to serve local markets and usethe labor force from nearby areas fornon-central functions. Cities canremain strongly centered only as longas the quality of peak-period transit isroughly equal to that of peak-perioddriving. Without this balance betweentransit and automobile use, pressurewould mount to move functions out ofthe CBD to locations where automobileaccess would be better. Thomsonconsidered Paris, Tokyo, New York,Athens, Toronto, Sydney, andHamburg examples of strong-centeredcities in the 1970s.

Traffic Limitation Cities

Traffic limitation cities aredesigned to minimize the need to travelby private automobile. These citieshave a hierarchy of centers rangingfrom neighborhood centers to the CBDthat provide goods and services to everlarger parts of the region. Majorsubregional centers are linked to eachother and to the city center with highcapacity transit. Thus, most travel canbe made by walking to a nearby centeror using transit to reach a higher ordercenter. Automobile use is alsorestrained with high parking chargesand priority systems for transit,bicycles,

and pedestrians. Freeways serve mainlyas a means of leaving the city for thecountryside or other cities and are onlybuilt near the region's edge.Automobile traffic in the core of thecity uses arterials. According toThomson, traffic limitation cities of the1970s included London, Singapore,Hong Kong, Stockholm, Vienna,Bremen, and Goteborg. As the TCRPProject H-1 research reported, Ottawa-Carleton and Vancouver in Canada andCuritiba in Brazil have become trafficlimitation cities (Parsons Brinckerhoffet al. 1996).

These prototypes illustrate that acombination of transportationinvestments and land use policiesdetermine the degree to which actualcities fit a prototype. The building ofurban beltway and radial freeways hascombined with the neglect of transitsystems and few controls on suburbandevelopment in many U.S. cities toproduce weakly centered or fullymotorized cities. Many cities that havegrown rapidly since the 1950s have fewmiles of interstate highways, but theyhave developed either other freewaysor arterial networks that support fullmotorization. Many Australian citieshave followed a pattern similar to thatof U.S. cities. In contrast, Canadiancities, such as Vancouver and Ottawa,have adopted traffic limitationstrategies that emphasize use of transitand support a hierarchy of centers. Thenext sections review the literature thatsupports these conclusions.

1.3 INTERSTATES ANDTRANSIT IN U.S. CITIES

During the interstate era, urbanareas in the United States became morespread out, multi-centered, anddependent on the automobile. Thequestion of interest here is-What wasthe role of the interstate highwaysystem in fostering or supporting

these trends? The interstate highwaysystem was not the only force at work.For example, cities like Phoenix andOrlando have become fully motorizedcities without extensive networks ofinterstate highways or even otherfreeways. Many other factors areinvolved in the way cities havedeveloped, including individualpreferences for living in suburbs,higher incomes, widespread automobileownership, and few limits on suburbandevelopment (Altshuler et al. 1981,Jackson 1985, Linneman and Summers1993).

The interstate highway systemreduced the competitive advantage oftransit in two ways. First, it biasedtransportation investments in favor ofhigh-speed, limited-access highways.This enhanced automobile travel at atime when transit service was alreadydeclining and further encouraged use ofthe automobile and reduced use oftransit. Second, it facilitated thesuburbanization of households andfirms. The dispersed, low-densitypattern of development in mostsuburban areas is difficult to serveefficiently with transit.

Reduced Competitive Advantageof Transit by ImprovingAutomobile Travel

Interstate Highway Funding BiasedTransportation Investments

One effect of the interstatehighway system was to biastransportation investments in favor ofbuilding urban limited-access highwaysrather than pursuing other solutions tourban transportation problems. Dunn(1981) analyzed U.S. and Europeantransportation policies and concludedthat the U.S. emphasis on highwayswas largely a result of designatingmotor vehicle taxes exclusively forhighway construction. The earmarkingmust be considered part of the interstatehighway system because it occurredsimultaneously

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with authorizing the interstatehighways. Dunn argues that thisearmarking of funds allowed the UnitedStates to build the best highway systemin the world and created the powerfulargument that car users pay their ownway. It, however, meant that little wasinvested in other modes until thefreeway revolts of the 1960s and 1970sfocused attention on the environmentaland social consequences of automobileuse, including the decline in transitservices and use.

The lack of balance in federaltransportation funding was a keyargument used in the 1964 Lyle Fitchreport prepared for Congress urgingfederal support of transit. The reportmaintains that the Highway Trust Funddistorted transportation decisions bymaking funds available for highwaysbut not for transit. Transportationdecisions were made on a piecemealbasis rather than being based on asystemwide, multimodal analysis ofproblems and solutions (Lyle C. Fitchand Associates 1964).

The interstate highway fundingformula also biased decisions in favorof the limited-access interstatehighways. Congress set the fundingformula for interstate highways at 90percent federal and 10 percent state andlocal funds compared to 50 percentfederal and 50 percent state and localfunds for other federally aidedhighways. Meyer and GomezIbanez(1981) point out that this madeinterstate highways a more attractiveinvestment to local areas, despite theirhigher costs, than construction orimprovements in other projects eligiblefor federal aid. This funding formulacreated incentives to build interstatehighways rather than invest in otherhighways, develop transit service,improve existing facilities, or considerother transportation alternatives. Theconstruction of high-speed radial andbeltway interstate highwaysencouraged use of the automobile.

Interstate Highways ImprovedAutomobile Travel

The interstate highway system wasintended to link cities with highspeedtravel routes and to improve trafficflows in and around cities. Beltwayswere originally designed as part of thethrough traffic system, but they becamethe carriers of enormous amounts oflocal traffic as well (Payne-Maxie andBlayney-Dyett 1980). In city after city,as networks were completed, interstatehighways became the most highly usedurban routes. In 1991, the 131 federalaid urbanized areas with populations of200,000 or more had 8,505 miles ofinterstate highways. These urbaninterstate highways carried 26 percentof daily vehicle miles of travel withinthe urbanized areas although they madeup only 1.8 percent of total roadmileage (Federal HighwayAdministration 1992).

In an assessment of the economicimpacts of the interstate highwaysystem, Louis Berger International(1995) reports that three of the primaryimpacts of the interstate highwaysystem have been to reduce travelcosts, improve safety, and increaseconnectivity of regions. The interstatehighway system has increased trafficcapacity and travel speeds. A 365-miletrip that took 10 hours in 1956 tookonly 8 hours on the interstate highwaysystem in 1970, a 20 percent reductionin travel time. The travel costreductions had widespread effects onthe economy, lowering the cost ofconsumer goods and improving thecompetitiveness of businesses.Furthermore, the interstate highwaysystem has half the accidents per milecompared with travel on other types ofhighways. Interstate highways are saferbecause of limited access and widelanes designed for high-speed travel.Improved safety is one of the reasonsthat trucking has become reliable. Inaddition, the interstate highway systemincreased connectivity of

regions and metropolitan areas spurringa growth in trucking and shift inlogistics, such as to just-intimedeliveries.

Garrison and Souleyrette (1996)argue that transportation innovationsthat lower travel costs and increaseconnectivity, which the interstatehighway system does, spur companioninnovations. Transportation is essentialfor moving goods and people.Improved highways, for example,allowed the use of the larger trucks.This changed the nature of thewarehousing industry by supporting thereplacement of dispersed locations thatserved multiple clients withconsolidated locations operated byindividual retailers.

In urban regions, the interstatehighway system has facilitated greateruse of cars and trucks. Meyer andGomez-Ibanez (1981) points out thatthe underpricing and overinvestment inpeak-period highway capacity todowntowns encouraged the use of theautomobile for these trips. But Kempand Cheslow (1976) notes thatimprovements in travel conditions wereoften short-lived. Interstate highwayscreated the expectation that there wouldbe free-flowing traffic at high speeds atall times. The benefits to travelers wereoften less than expected because oflatent demand. Some interstatehighways rapidly became congestedduring peak periods because theimproved travel conditions encouragedmore travel or caused shifts in travelfrom other routes, times, or modes.

In an analysis of the politics of theinterstate highway system, Rose (1990)finds that many people becamedisillusioned with the benefits ofimproved travel once they realized thatinterstate highways also had social andeconomic consequences that had notbeen factored in when the system wasdesigned. He says,

Without doubt, the net results ofbuilding a national freeway systemincluded more rapid economic de-

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velopment, enhanced speed andmobility for motorists and truckoperators, and creation of anopportunity for millions of urbanresidents to relocate from centralcities to suburban districts. By themid-1960's, however, the framesof reference by which politicians,business leaders, and ordinaryAmericans judged the Interstatesystem began to change...In short,many Americans, includingbusiness and political leaders atboth the local and national levels,were contending that economicdevelopment, transport efficiency,and suburban lifestyles no longerjustified the social and physicaldestructiveness of the InterstateHighway System (pp. 101102).

One of the negative impacts ofinterstate highway building was toreduce the market for transit.

Interstate Highways DisadvantagedTransit Operations

As noted previously, theimprovements in automobile travel thatinterstate highways provided occurredat a time when few investments werebeing made in transit. Ridership wasdeclining. Few private transitcompanies had the resources to investin new equipment or expand services asurban areas grew. The improvementsmade in automobile travel onlycompounded transit's problems (Pucher1995b).

Vuchic (1981) argues that thiscreated a cycle of worsening transitconditions. Improved automobile travelled to fewer transit riders. Fewer ridersproduced less revenue and resulted inservice reductions. This in turn causedfurther defections to the automobile.One way to avoid the downward slideof transit was to simultaneously investin both modes to maintain a balancebetween them, as some Canadian andEuropean cities did, but most U.S.cities in the 1950s

and early 1960s only invested inhighway improvements.

Direct competition betweeninterstate highways and transit occurredon only a few long-haul commuter railor rapid transit routes in larger cities.This reduced peak and especially off-peak travel. Fares in the peak periodcould not be raised to compensate forfewer riders because of the competitionwith interstate highways, which alsolacked peakperiod pricing. For busoperations, the primary effect ofinterstate highways was increasedcongestion within the CBD because ofthe larger number of cars arriving there.This lowered the speeds of buses,making them less attractive to theirmain market: short-haul trips. Ifparking was available, short distanceriders began driving to work because ofthe time advantage (Jones 1985, St.Clair 1986).

Supported Suburbanization ofHouseholds and Jobs

The second major effect ofinterstate highways on transit was tosupport the suburbanization ofpopulation and employment, whichfurther eroded transit's market share.As a result of the dispersion ofhouseholds and jobs, transit served theneeds of fewer and fewer households.In 1990, the most common type ofcommuting trip (44 percent of allmetropolitan commutes) began andended in the suburbs. Only 20 percentof metropolitan commutes were fromsuburbs to the central city (Pisarski1996). Meanwhile, transit has focusedon bringing people to the CBD, where asmaller and smaller proportion of aregion's workforce is employed.

Some researchers reach sweepingconclusions about the impact of theinterstates on urban development andtravel patterns. In his history ofsuburban development in the UnitedStates, Jackson (1985) says,

...the interstate system helpedcontinue the downward spiral ofpublic transportation and virtuallyguaranteed that future urbangrowth would perpetuate acenterless sprawl (p. 249).

Muller (1995) states,

The maturing freeway system wasthe primary force that turned themetropolis inside out after 1970,because it eliminated theregionwide centrality advantage ofthe central city's CBD. Now anylocation on that expresswaynetwork could easily be reachedby motor vehicle, and intraurbanaccessibility swiftly became anall-but-ubiquitous spatial good(pp. 43-43).

Other authors are more cautious.Louis Berger International's (1995)analysis of the economic impacts ofinterstate highways reported that nostudies have conclusively shown thatthe interstate highway system haschanged the way cities develop. Rather,studies such as the Payne-Maxie andBlayney-Dyett (1980) study onbeltways have found that interstatessupported dispersed development onlywhen other factors like regionaleconomic growth, favorable tax rates,and zoning for higher levels ofdevelopment were also present.Altshuler et al. (1981) believed that theInterstate Highway Act was one ofmany public policies that"accommodate(d) and reinforce(d) themajority taste for lowdensity living andfor automobility (p. 24)." It points outthat postwar patterns of location andtravel were laid down between 1945and 1960, before any significantamount of urban interstate highwaywas built.

A recent review of the impacts ofhighways on land use by theTransportation Research Board (1995)takes the middle ground. It concludesthat highway expansion did influenceurban form, but only in conjunctionwith other societal forces and public

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policies supporting suburbanization.The study drew the followingconclusions about the effects ofhighways on urban land use:

• Early highway capacityexpansions, such as construction ofinterstate highways, dramaticallyreduced travel costs and increasedaccess to undeveloped land. Lower landcosts enticed households and firms tomove to areas on the urban fringe thathad improved accessibility.

• Highway capacity expansionsinteracted with population growth,rising personal income, increasedautomobile ownership, decreased costof transportation, and land use policiesto channel the location of growthwithin metropolitan areas.

• Additions to the highwaysystem made at the same time ametropolitan area was growinginfluenced the location of residentialand employment development becausethe corridor where the investmentswere made became more attractive fordevelopment.

• Additions to highwaycapacity that reduced the cost of travelsupported sprawl when other conditionsalso supported dispersed development.The effect was greatest when access tolarge tracts of rural land on the urbanfringe was improved.

In sum, the study finds thatbuilding highways, including theinterstate network, in urban areasimproved accessibility to suburban andexurban locations, facilitating thedevelopment of housing andemployment at the urban fringe, andencouraging the expansion ofmetropolitan areas. The highways didthis by interacting with a variety ofother factors that supported disperseddevelopment.

Interstate Highways ChangedUrban and Suburban Accessibility

Highway improvements thatreduce the time of travel enhance theease of movement between the placesthey connect. Some activities clusteredin areas adjacent to the new interstatehighways because the nodes andcorridors of the system have highvisibility and accessibility. Locating atthese nodes and corridors can reducethe cost of inputs to production, expandthe available pool of labor, or extendthe range of customers who can accessthe location. Thus, interstate highwaycorridors and intersections givebusinesses a competitive advantage.Other activities with less need toagglomerate have spread out asaccessibility has become ubiquitous.Households used the accessibilityadvantage of interstate and otherhighways to move away from centrallocations to larger homes and lots in thesuburbs. If other factors supporteddevelopment in the areas withimproved accessibility, developmentmay have occurred sooner or been of adifferent character than would haveotherwise occurred (Downs 1982,Giuliano 1995, Louis BergerInternational 1995, TransportationResearch Board 1995).

Suburban activity centers havedeveloped near the intersections ofinterstate and other major highways.Offices and retailing that have thegreatest need for access will pay themost for these locations.Manufacturing, which also needsaccess to the roadway network for theflow of goods and workers, will locatenearby but not at the prime locations.The modern highway system has madethe economies of business clusteringtogether available in more locationsthan the streetcar system did. Thus,large cities have developed a number ofspecialized and general purpose

activity centers in addition to thetraditional downtown (Deakin 1994,Moore and Thorsnes 1994).

Interstate highways have alsosupported the building ofmanufacturing plants in the suburbswhere firms could take advantage ofcheap land for spacious, one-storyoperations and ample loading andunloading areas. Interstate highwayshave given suburban manufacturingand warehousing advantages in movinggoods and attracting workers. Inaddition, interstate highways havefacilitated the development of suburbanindustrial parks that provideagglomeration economies and prestigelocations within the suburbs (Muller1981).

Interstate Highways Supported theExpansion of Metropolitan Areas

Interstate highways expanded thearea within a 30- to 40-minutecommute of the CBD. This expandedthe labor shed and market area ofmetropolitan areas and gave householdsand firms more choices about where tolocate (Rose 1990, Louis BergerInternational 1995).

Carlino and Mills (1987) foundthat interstate highways supportedmetropolitan growth in the 1970s, buttheir analysis does not support the ideathat suburbs grew at the expense ofcentral cities. They did a simultaneousequation analysis of population andemployment change in all U.S. countiesin the 1970s and found that people andjobs moved to counties with moreintense interstate highway networks.The largest impact was on total andmanufacturing employment. Countieswith double the square miles ofinterstate highways per square mile ofland had about a 6.0 percent increase intotal and manufacturing employment.Population grew somewhat less. A

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doubling of interstate density increasedpopulation density on average by 2.8percent. Interstate highways are densestin central counties, followed bysuburban, adjacent nonmetropolitan,and nonadjacent nonmetropolitancounties. The growth effects ofinterstate highways, therefore, declinedwith distance from the central city. Theauthors view the growth in populationand jobs in areas with more interstatehighways as an unintendedconsequence of the interstate highwaysystem.

Other studies by Humphrey andSell (1975), Lichter and Fuguitt (1980),and Rephann and Isserman (1994) havealso found that interstate highwayshelped expand metropolitan areas.They studied the effects of interstatehighways on population andemployment growth in nonmetropolitanareas and found that interstate highwayeffects were greater the closer the areawas to a metropolitan area. Some ofthis population growth in countiesadjacent to metropolitan areas was dueto increased commuting to themetropolitan area and some toexpanding service jobs within thenonmetropolitan county. Rephann andIsserman (1994) reports that adjacentnonmetropolitan counties began havinghigher population and retail growthimmediately after interstate highwayconstruction compared with similarcounties without interstate highways.The counties retained this advantagefor the period of the study (at least adecade) and also began attracting moremanufacturing as the population grew.All of these studies leave open thequestion whether interstate highwayscaused new development or were builtin the path of new development(Forkenbrock et al. 1990), although theRephann and Isserman time seriesmatched pair study provides moreconclusive evidence that interstatesdirected development than otherstudies.

Beltways and Radial InterstateHighways Changed MetropolitanDevelopment

Beltways and radial interstatehighway links confer their accessibilityadvantages on different locations.Radial interstate highways improvedaccess to the CBD as well as to areasalong their routes. One expectation ofradial interstate highways was that theywould support CBDs by improvingaccess from the homes of suburbanworkers and customers (St. Clair 198,Muller 1995). Little thought appears tohave been given to how beltwayswould influence development whenthey were originally designed, but oncethey were built, people becameconcerned about how they wereaffecting the economic health of centralcities (Payne-Maxie and Blayney-Dyett1980).

The Interstate Highway Actaccelerated the development ofbeltways by requiring bypass interstatehighway segments that later weredeveloped into full beltways.According to Muller (1981, 1995),locations along suburban beltways havethe same regional accessibility as theCBD. This has weakened the economicposition of the CBD and encouragedthe development of suburban activitycenters at the most accessible sites,frequently the intersection of twointerstate highways.

The Federal HighwayAdministration and U.S. Department ofHousing and Urban Developmentjointly sponsored a study of beltways inthe 1970s to test the widespreadassumption that beltway constructionwas undermining other federal effortsto support central cities. The beltwaystudy used a statistical comparison of27 cities with beltways and 27 citieswithout them and detailed case studiesof eight beltway regions. The studyfound little support for the hypothesisof suburban gains at the expense ofcentral cities. The study found nostatistically significant

differences between beltway andnonbeltway cities in regional economicgrowth, rate of suburbanization, CBDretail sales, and residentialdevelopment locations. Somedifferences between the two types ofregions were detected, but thedifferences were small. The impacts ofbeltways included the following:

• A small impact onemployment, supporting a shift in jobsto the suburbs;

• A "one-time" effect on officelocation, drawing some offices out ofCBDs; and

• A change in the location andtiming of regional shopping malls,office parks, and industrial parks, butnot the feasibility of these projects.Feasibility depended more on marketconditions, land availability, and laborforce locations.

The study further found thatcentral cities could counter the negativeeffects of beltways with CBDrevitalization and economicdevelopment programs. In addition, insome cities, beltways supported thedevelopment of suburban centers atinterchanges and thereby lessened theamount of strip development(PayneMaxie and Blayney-Dyett 1980).

Some observers think the primaryimpact of beltways was in the 1980s,the decade after the beltway study.Muller (1995) divides the freeway erainto five periods with different patternsof growth in each period. The firstperiod of Bedroom Communitiesoccurred prior to interstate construction(1945-1955). This was the period ofrapid suburban residential developmentafter World War II. Next cameIndependence (1955-1965) whenregional malls and office parks begandeveloping in the suburbs. The jobsdeveloped in the suburbs at this stagewere mostly population-serving jobs. Inthe third stage of Catalytic Growth(1965-1980), hotels, restaurants, andoffices began to cluster

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around regional malls in suburbanactivity centers. In the 1980s, HighRise/High Technology growth wasspurred by a rapidly expandingcomputer industry, which preferredsuburban locations, and an expansionof the service industry. Suburbandowntowns with high-rise officebuildings developed. Finally, the 1990soffer Mature Urban Centers assuburban activity centers diversify withmore cultural, social, and economicfunctions.

Hughes and Sternlieb (1988)suggests that it took a whole generationof living with interstate highwaysbefore developers realized that theintersections of beltways and radialinterstate highways afforded the sameaccessibility advantages as the CBD.Thus, it was not until the 1980s, whenmost interstate highways werecomplete, that high-rise officedevelopment along the beltways tookoff. In the 1980s, the circumferentialhighway corridors and, to a lesserextent, the radial corridors became thepreferred locations for officedevelopment. In 1981, 51.4 percent ofall office space in the 24 largemetropolitan areas studied by TheOffice Network was in CBDs. By 1985,56.5 percent was in the suburbs(defined as outside the CBDs).Furthermore, nearly two-thirds (63.5percent) of office space underconstruction in 1985 was in thesuburbs. Suburban offices were locatedon the interstate highway system or onother freeways to have access to alarge, high-quality labor force. The1980s' investments in suburban officecorridors were also supported by therapid growth of the service economyand tax laws that encouraged thedevelopment of offices.

Conventional Transit Does Not ServeSuburban Development Well

The Interstate Highway Act hasindirectly affected the viability of

transit by facilitating a low-densitypattern of residential development andthe growth of multiple nuclei in theregion. For the most part, transit servicehas not adapted to these trends. Mosttransit systems, including most new railinvestments, have focused on the CBD.Suburban activity centers, in contrast,typically have poor transit access andnearly complete reliance on theautomobile (Cervero 1985, 1989).There have been some efforts todevelop transit to serve these newmarkets, including the development ofexpress bus service and use of mini-buses and vans to connectneighborhoods to conventional transit(Pucher 1995b). But overall, transitserves a declining share of metropolitanarea trips because it does not provideconvenient connections between mostpeople's origins and destinations.Muller (1995) identifies thetransportation challenge for most urbanareas in the 1990s as figuring out howto provide mobility in a polycentricregion.

Conclusions About InterstateHighways and Transit in theUnited States

The literature supports thefollowing conclusions about theconsequences of the interstate highwaysystem on transit:

• Federal funding influencedtransportation investment decisions.The funding formula for interstates andthe dedication of gas taxes to highwaybuilding encouraged the building ofurban interstates instead of consideringother means of meeting metropolitantransportation needs.

• The interstate highwaysystem improved vehicle travel times,for a period of time, increasing theattractiveness of driving relative tousing transit and reinforcing adownward spiral of transit ridershipand service.

• The interstate highwaysystem improved access to thedevelopable land on the urban fringe,supporting dispersed, low-densitydevelopment that is difficult to servewith conventional transit. Estimates ofpopulation growth induced by interstatehighways are, however, low. Adoubling of interstate highway mileageper square mile of the average countywas associated with a less than 3percent increase in population in the1970s, holding constant other factorsaffecting population growth (Carlinoand Mills 1989).

• Metropolitan market areasand labor sheds expanded into adjacentrural counties as interstate highwaysimproved accessibility. The evidencesuggests that population growth andpopulation serving businesses first tookadvantage of this improvedaccessibility, followed bymanufacturing firms using thedecentralized workforce.

• Interstate highwaysfacilitated the suburbanization ofmanufacturing, warehousing, andoffices by supporting changes inproduction processes and logistics. Asjobs moved to the suburbs, use oftransit for work trips declined.

Once the interstate highwaysystem was completed, suburbanlocations had the same regionalaccessibility as downtowns. Developersand businesses responded in the 1980sby building suburban downtowns withmost if not all of the functions ofCBDs. These downtowns, however,have little transit service and are nearlycompletely dependent on theautomobile.

The net result is thatimprovements in access and travel frominterstate highways combined withother factors, including limitedinvestments in transit, to make mostU.S. cities weakly centered or fullymotorized. Radial interstate highwaysand transit systems helped the centersof weakly centered regions retain

15

some of their central functions, butthese centers must compete withsuburban activity centers at theinterstate highway interchanges. Fullymotorized cities have widely dispersedactivities with the downtown beingonly one of many centers in the region.In both types of cities, transit cannotserve the majority of trips nearly aswell as the automobile. As a result,most people who are able to drive doso.

Not every city in the developedworld has taken this route. Some citieslimited freeway building and investedin transit earlier to mitigate the effectsof automobility.

1.4 INTERNATIONALCOMPARISONS

Many observers note that cities inCanada, Australia, and Europe arefollowing U.S. trends of risingautomobile use and expandingsuburban development, but these citiesare not yet as spread out or asautomobiledependent as U.S. cities.The older cities in these countries havea history of more compact developmentand greater reliance on transit, andsome growing cities have developedaround transit rather than theautomobile. This section brieflyreviews literature comparing transit useand limitedaccess highway building inU.S. cities and cities in these countries.

United States, Australian, andEuropean Comparisons

Newman and Kenworthy (1989)assembled a set of data on thetransportation and land usecharacteristics of 10 large U.S. cities,the 5 largest Australian cities, and 12major cities in Western Europe.1 Thedata for 1980, summarized in Table 2,_________________________

1 Newman and Kenworthy also havedata on Toronto, Moscow, and three Asiancities, but this discussion omits them It isdifficult to generalize from one city inCanada, and data from more cities isavailable elsewhere. The Asian and Russiancities are substantially different places fromthose covered in this review.

shows that U.S. and Australianmetropolitan areas have similarpopulation and employment densitiesfor the region as a whole, but the innercities (the urbanized area prior toWorld War II) of the largest U.S. citiesare slightly more dense than those inAustralia. In contrast, the Europeancities are much more compact, withregional population densities about 4.5times greater than in the United Statesand Australia, and regionalemployment densities about 5 timeslarger. In addition, European innercities are more than twice as dense asthose in the United States. A greatershare of the population lives in theinner city in Europe, and fewer jobshave been suburbanized.

Despite the similar densities in theUnited States and Australia,Australians have somewhat higher ratesof transit use. Europeans are muchmore likely to use transit. In the largeU.S. cities, people use transit aboutonce every 6 days. In Australia, peopleride transit about once every 4 days,and in Europe, once every day. Theproportion of metropolitan areaworkers using transit for work trips inAustralia in 1980 ranged from 12.0percent in Perth to 29.5 percent inMelbourne. In the United States, therange was from 2.2 percent in Phoenixto 28.3 percent in New York. InEurope, mode shares ranged from 14.0percent in Amsterdam (where twice asmany bicycle or walk) to 46.0 percentin Stockholm. The Newman andKenworthy data includes a measure oftotal road mileage, but no measure ofthe miles of limited access highwaydevelopment, which is of more interestfor this study.

This table obscures some of thedifferences among cities in each part ofthe world. New cities like Phoenix andPerth have much lower densities andtransit mode shares than older citieslike Chicago and Sydney, whichdeveloped extensively before theautomobile era.

Using gasoline consumption percapita as their primary measure ofautomobile dependence (othermeasures such as transit mode sharewere highly correlated with thismeasure), Newman and Kenworthyillustrate the relationship betweenautomobile dependence and urbandensity. U.S. cities clustered at the highgasoline consumption, low density endof the scale, Australian cities are alsolowdensity but use less gasoline, andEuropean cities have much lowergasoline consumption and higherdensity.

While reviewers commendNewman and Kenworthy forassembling data using consistentgeographic definitions over time, theycriticize the analysis for beingsimplistic. Critics question the validityof using gasoline consumption as themeasure of automobile dependence,and they point out the lack of multi-variate analysis of phenomena withmany contributing factors (Gordon andRichardson 1989, Gomez-Ibanez1991).

European Cities Vary in Emphaseson Transit and Highways

Other analysis of European citiesemphasize differences among them.Simpson (1994) reports that theexperience with transit in Great Britainhas followed the U.S. patterns,although a much less extensive systemof limited-access highways has beenbuilt. As automobile ownershipincreased after World War II, thedemand for roads increased. Theresponse was a program of building"motorways" or freeways to adaptcities for the automobile. But a freewayrevolt based on the social andenvironmental costs of freewaybuilding led to the cancellation of thisprogram in the early 1970s.Nevertheless, automobile ownershiplevels have continued to rise, andtransit ridership has declined since themid-

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TABLE 2 Average values of urban form and transportation characteristics of major U.S., Australian, and European cities(1980)

Source: Newman and Kenworthy 1989

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based on the social and environmentalcosts of freeway building led to thecancellation of this program in the early1970s. Nevertheless, automobileownership levels have continued torise, and transit ridership has declinedsince the mid1960s. Outside London,transit is largely viewed as a socialservice for those without cars. In 1985,transit was deregulated, and publicfunds for transit were reduced.

Simpson looks to German andSwedish cities that have integratedtransit and land use planning as modelsof better ways to proceed. The cities ofHamburg and Stockholm, for example,have developed around rail transit axes.An integrated feeder bus and parkand-ride system brings people to the railsystem. Land uses in the corridors arecontrolled to maximize the accessibilityadvantages provided by the transitinvestments.

Pucher and Kurth (1995) reportthat many German cities adapted to theautomobile in the 1960s and 1970swhen West Germany was building theAutobahn, the second largest freewaysystem in the world. Nonetheless, someGerman cities have limited automobileaccess to their centers and invested intransit despite rising incomes andautomobile ownership rates. Cities suchas Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Munichand even dispersed regions such as theRhein-Ruhr have experienced increasedtransit ridership since 1985 as a resultof new programs to encourage transituse. Automobile mode shares areactually declining in Munich andFreiburg where automobile use in thecentral cities is restricted by highparking costs and limited supply,pedestrian only zones, and othermeasures.

Hamburg was a leader indeveloping a transit system that evenattracted the patronage of the affluent.Since the 1960s, transit ridership hasgrown by 14 percent while thepopulation has been stable

and automobile ownership hasincreased. Other German, Austrian,Swiss, and Dutch cities have followedHamburg's example of coordinatingtransit systems so that consumers havea single schedule, map, and ticket for asystem with multiple modes andproviders. In addition, the quality oftransit service has been upgraded.These regions also offer highlydiscounted passes that make transit usecompetitive with automobile use andcarry an "environmental" designationemphasizing the role of transit inhelping solve environmental problems.The quality service and cheap fares thatencourage transit use have requiredincreased subsidies for transit, a majorissue for governments cutting spendingin many areas (Pucher and Kurth 1995,Pucher 1995b).

Canadian Cities Have High Ratesof Transit Use and Few Freeways

Canadian cities are often describedas being more European than their U.S.counterparts. They have higher density,more land use regulation, higher ratesof transit use, less highwaydevelopment, and metropolitangovernments (Ley and Bourne 1993).

Goldberg and Meyer (1986)compared the transportation systems ofU.S. and Canadian cities in the late1970s. They found that U.S. cities hadmore than 4 times as many freewaymiles per capita as Canadian cities (1.3miles of freeway per 1,000 persons inthe United States compared with 0.3miles in Canada.). On the transit side,Canadian cities had 2.5 times theservice as U.S. cities (21.1 revenuemiles per capita in Canada comparedwith 8.7 in the United States). Despitethese differences in transportationinvestments, they also report thatsimilarly sized cities in the UnitedStates and Canada had about the samerates of decentralization between 1950and 1970, although the central areas of

Canadian cities remained more densethan those in the United States.

Perl and Pucher (1995) attributethe success of Canadian transit toCanadian governments' earlyinvestments in transit, which halted thepost-World War II decline in use by1960. By investing in transit earlierthan U.S. cities did, Canadian cities hadthe easier task of maintaining ridershiprather than trying to revive it as U.S.cities attempted in the 1970s. Inaddition, transit use was supported by apattern of development in both urbanand suburban areas, whereas in manyU.S. cities, the suburbs grew whilecities declined in population. TheCanadian automobile-owning middleclass had the option of living in eitherurban or suburban neighborhoods. Ineither case, it found transit convenientfor getting to work in the CBD.Because freeway revolts halted mostfreeway construction in Canadian citiesin the 1970s, transit remained morecompetitive with the automobile forwork trips; however, Perl and Pucherare concerned that declining subsidiesfor transit during a period of fiscalausterity in the 1990s has reducedtransit's competitive edge, which isreflected in declining ridership.

Bourne (1987) contends that thereis a simultaneous relationship betweenthe higher population densities ofCanadian cities, limited mileage offreeways, and greater use of transit. Hesees higher-density development asbeing a cause and an effect of hightransit usage and limited freewayconstruction. Without high levels oftransit use, congestion couldoverwhelm these dense centers.Because of high density, transit servicewas improved and the disruption offreeway building was avoided.

Conclusions About InternationalComparisons

Europe and Canada provideexamples of regions that have

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excluded freeways from city centerswhile investing in transit systems andsubsidizing transit operations. Manyhave also regulated land use patterns tosupport their investments in transit.Despite high standards of living andautomobile ownership levels, transit iscompetitive with the automobile formany trips in these regions. Thesestrongly centered or traffic limitedcities contrast with the weakly centeredand fully motorized cities in the UnitedStates where automobile use is highand transit is considered an inferiormode of travel.

Pucher and his colleagues (Pucher1995a, 1995b; Perl and Pucher 1995)contend that public policy has played astrong role in shaping these alternativepatterns of development. European andCanadian governments have adoptedtransportation policies that differ fromthe U.S. government's. These policydifferences include the following:

• The public role in transitprovision. European and Canadiancities have longer histories of publicownership and investment in transit.Governments upgraded transit systemsin the 1950s and 1960s, when transitwas still regarded as a private businessin most U.S. cities. Early publicinvestments helped maintain ridership.By the time public agencies took overU.S. transit operations, service andridership had declined, and publicagencies faced the daunting task ofrebuilding transit use.

• Decisions about adaptingcities to the automobile or limitingautomobile use in cities. U.S. citiesoverwhelming have been adapted to orbuilt for automobile use. The decisionto include radial freeways as part of theinterstate highway system was a majorstep in accommodating automobile usein the city. In contrast, many Canadianand European cities have decided thatextensive automobile use is notcompatible with other goals for theircity centers. They have kept high-

speed highways out of their centralcities, relied on slower-speed arterials,and limited automobile use with highparking charges, controlled parkingsupplies, and traffic-calming programs.

• Subsidization and taxationof automobile ownership and use.European countries levy 4 to 10 timesthe taxes on automobile use than theUnited States does. In Europe,automobile taxation produces morerevenue than is spent on roads. Theratio of automobile revenue to roadwaycosts ranges from 1.3 in Switzerland to5.1 in The Netherlands. In contrast,user taxes pay only 60 percent of theroadway construction costs in theUnited States, largely because mostlocal road construction is financed withgeneral taxes. The high cost ofautomobile use in Europe makes transita more competitive alternative.

• Integrating land useplanning with transportationinvestments. Canadian and Europeancities have stronger land use controlsthan in the United States, and they haveused this authority to organizedevelopment in ways that takesadvantage of the accessibility providedby transit. City centers have retained agreater share of the region's jobs,subregional centers have beenconnected with transit, and evensuburban development is more densethan in the United States. This land usepattern can be more efficiently servedby transit than the lowdensity,dispersed pattern of most U.S. cities.

1.5 CONCLUSIONS

In the United States, the interstatehighway system provided considerablefunding for a specific solution to urbantransportation problems. The federalfunding formula encouraged states tobuild interstate highways as thesolution to urban congestion. Buildingthese highways reinforced a downward

spiral of transit service and use that wasalready underway and supported apattern of development that is difficultto serve efficiently with transit. Mostcities in the United States becameweakly centered or fully motorizedcities that are highly dependent on theautomobile. Nevertheless, there havebeen some transit success stories in theUnited State during the interstatehighway era both in cities withextensive interstate highways and inthose that grew too recently to havereceived much interstate highwayfunding.

Canada and Germany provideexamples of countries that took anothercourse of action. Both have highstandards of living, high automobileownership levels, and increasinglysuburbanizing populations. Thecountries built high-speed, limited-access freeways to connect cities, butlimited these freeways within cities.Within urban regions like Vancouver,British Columbia; and Hamburg,Germany, the emphasis was on transitinvestments and supportivedevelopment patterns.

Further research is needed todetermine why some U.S. cities havebeen successful in attracting riders totransit despite extensive automobility.What policies have these regionsadopted and investments have theymade that have mitigated the effects ofinterstate highway development? Whatlessons could be applied elsewhere? Inaddition, research is needed tounderstand the cultural, institutional,political, and economic factors thathave contributed to the viability oftransit in some places and its declineelsewhere. This research needs to lookwithin the United States and beyond itsborders to cities that have limitedautomobile use.

This research needs to carefullysort out the roles of the interstatehighway system and of other factors onchanges in transit service and use. Inany social science research, causality isa difficult issue to resolve. Theliterature reviewed here often

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assumed that interstate highways werean independent variable changing thedependent variable transit use. Yetthere are usually competingexplanations, contrary examples, andquestions about which events precededothers that are not adequately addressedin the research.

Interstate highways were only oneof many factors that contributed to thedecline of transit, either directly bymaking driving more attractive orindirectly by facilitating suburbandevelopment. The literature has notclearly sorted out the role of theinterstate highways relative to otherfactors. How much of the transitridership decline was due to publicneglect of transit in the 1950s and early1960s, which probably would haveoccurred with or without the InterstateHighway Act, and how much was dueto the increased attractiveness ofautomobile travel because of interstatehighways? If the accessibility providedby interstate highways was a primaryfactor in the development of suburbandowntowns in the 1980s, why doesGarreau

(1991) find three existing and fouremerging "edge cities" in Phoenix, aregion with few interstate highways orother freeways? In other words, areinterstate highways the key to makingsuburban locations as accessible as thecity center or is it the more generalprovision of roads and widespreadautomobile ownership?

In addition, the literature has notclearly considered whether interstatehighways were the cause or effect ofother outcomes. Did building theinterstate highways cause a decline intransit use or was a decline in transituse one of the reasons that morehighways were needed? Did interstatehighways cause suburbanization orwere these highways a response tosuburbanization? Most of the researchreported here identifies associationsbetween interstate highways and otheroutcomes but does not meet all therequirements of showing that interstatehighways were a cause. It isparticularly difficult to prove causalitybecause transit was declining andhouseholds were suburbanizing

before any interstate highways werebuilt. This makes it reasonable tocontend that interstate highways werebuilt to serve the new pattern ofmetropolitan development and to fill anexisting desire for mobility. Yet, mostresearches frame the relationships inthe opposite direction, saying thatinterstate highways causedsuburbanization and the decline intransit use.

Research is needed that sorts outthe sequence of events and identifiesthe multiple factors shaping thepatterns of transportation and land use.The balance of this project will addresssome of these issues with case studyanalysis of selected cities in the UnitedStates, Canada, and Germany. The casestudies, using cities with differentpolicies regarding urban freeways andtransit, will examine the outcomesthese policies have produced. The studywill also identify cultural, institutional,political, and economic factors thathave contributed to transit viability insome regions and decline in othersduring the interstate highway era.

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