This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System that brought us many of the big roads that we use every day. Did you know that the minimum height of bridges built along designated routes was to allow for certain missile systems to fit underneath in the event that they had to be moved along the highways? President Eisenhower was a lieutenant colonel in the army in 1919 and participated in the transcontinental movement of men and equipment from Washington to San Francisco to prove that the military could move long distances. It was during this experience that he got the idea to build a better, bigger series of roads (I?m sure many of the men on that trip had similar thoughts but few ended up in a position to do anything about it). During his presidency, Eisenhower got the Interstate Highway System act passed that led to these changes. To commemorate that, Congress established the Dwight Eisenhower Highway, which is a patchwork of highways between the East and West Coasts. If you drive on Interstate 70, you?re using part of it.
I generally don?t drive to Orioles games anymore, preferring to take transit so I?m hoping one or more of you can offer some suggestions to Barbara, who wrote: “My husband and I have some tickets for the Orioles games. We are coming from Harford County and going through the Fort McHenry tunnel. We have parking in Lots F, G and H, which are near the Ravens stadium. Well, we now have mastered the roads leading to those lots. After the games, we are never sure where we will end up. It is a labyrinth. We asked someone directing traffic [not a policeman], and he said turn right onto Hanover Street and that would take us to the tunnel. We traveled past Harborview Hospital and then went over the Hanover Street bridge. The road became desolated, but we still followed it. Lo and behold, on the left side was a road to the Harbor Tunnel. We must have gone more than four miles. So many of the roads are closed when you come out of these lots at night, and the signage is very poor at best. Noteworthy, the signs that say I-95 do not indicate north or south. Do you have any suggestions on how we can get to the Fort McHenry tunnel without going into some areas that we don?t feel safe? We would even use 83 if we could find it.”
The signs for I-95 in the downtown area of Baltimore are terrible and lead to far too many lost souls. The city and the state do a wonderful job of getting us TO the stadium[s] and it would be nice if they?d work a little harder to get us out again.
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