Have We Stopped Dreaming Big in the United States?

We used to dream big in the United States.  There was a time when we looked across our land and made plans to travel further, faster, and more efficiently.  We didn’t let details stop us; we didn’t ask the price before embarking. We knew what was for the good of our nation, and we built accordingly.  We were a nation that built, and built big.

Driving the "Golden Spike" 

It was May 10, 1869 when history was made in the United States.  Dignitaries gathered at Promontory Summit, Utah to drive the Golden Spike, the final spike in the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.  Before this date, cross country travel was an arduous and sometimes deadly journey.  It was rarely made as a round trip venture.  With the completion of the railroad, it was now possible to travel from New York City to San Francisco by rail.

The Panama Canal

August 15, 1914 was the next great date in transportation history for the United States when the SS Ancon became the first ship to cross the Isthmus of Panama through the Panama Canal.  The opening of the canal not only changed American history, but redefined international shipping.  The Panama Canal made coast to coast shipping a much easier and safer proposition by no longer requiring ships to sail around Cape Horn, a dangerous proposition, even in the largest of sailing vessels.

June 29, 1956 is arguably the last date of significance in American transportation history.  On this day, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which created the modern interstate system.  After a grueling journey across our nation during a 1919 Army convoy, Eisenhower knew we needed a better system of roads in our country.  After experiencing the Autobahn during WWII, Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway System to safely move goods, people, and military armaments across our nation.  The Interstate system is, for all intents and purposes, complete at a cost of approximately $485 billion.  It is the largest public works project in the history of man.

Our past history demonstrates that the size of our dreams and aspirations were not limited by anything, least of which being the size of the treasury.  We seemed to have lost our way over the past decade.  Rather than dreaming big by redefining mobility for American citizens and creating a new transportation network, we have allowed our representatives to think small, excruciatingly small.  Our current federal transportation bill expired in 2009 and has been extended with no change in funding levels or priorities.  By all estimations, the recent bill proposed in Congress is not likely to pass, leaving our federal government with no transportation plan.  Within our own state, transportation is cited as an important issue among voters and representatives, yet our Governor has not acted on the recommendations of his own Transportation Funding Advisory Commission.

We are at a crucial crossroads in the development of our transportation infrastructure.  With gasoline prices reaching record levels, highways experiencing daily congestion, and our air quality continuing to decline, something has to be done.  We are presented with the opportunity to make bold plans, plans that will redefine the United States in the twenty-first century.  Tapping the spirit that conceived of and built a transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal, and the Interstate Highway System will give us nothing short of a magnificent solution.  Quarreling over the short term costs, the proper role of state and federal government, and preserving a system that no longer suits our needs does not improve mobility for our nation.  We need to dream big again, we need “magic to stir men’s blood.”

Posted in: funding,policy,Shayne Trimbell