Over the past month, I’ve been test-driving GPS navigation devices for an article that will appear in Washingtonian magazine. I won’t give you a preview here, but I did learn something interesting. Keep in mind that I’m a bit of a transportation geek, so what’s interesting to me can sometimes put others in a deep coma. Anyway, the thing I noticed was that these devices kept referring to Interstate 270 as the “Dwight Eisenhower Highway.”
I have never seen a sign indicating that to be the case, nor have I heard any of my friends in the traffic reporting community refer to it as such. So I did some research, and found that in 1973 Congress named a transcontinental highway for President Eisenhower but, typical of the way Congress can obfuscate the obvious, they decided to have this highway follow the route of the U.S. Army convoy of 1919.
This convoy included 83 motorized vehicles and was an effort to test the Army’s mobility. One of the 282 participants was a young Lt. Col. named Dwight Eisenhower. The only problem was that there were no single highway that followed that route (surprise), so congressional planners came up with a patchwork of highways. That’s why today the combination of I-270 between the Capital Beltway and I-70 in Frederick, Maryland; I-70 to I-25 in Denver; I-25 to I-80 at Cheyenne, Wyo., and I-80 to San Francisco make up what is known as the Dwight Eisenhower Highway.
Here’s the ironic part: Maryland Sen. Charles “Mac” Mathias Jr., R-Md., added a rather hard-nosed provision to that 1973 highway bill stating that “Any law, regulation, map, document, record or other paper of the United States in which such segments are designated or referred to shall be held to designate or refer to such segments as the “Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway.” Other than on some maps (and GPS navigation devices) there is only one federally installed highway sign marking the highway by name, and that’s at the information center along I-70 in Kansas City, Kan.
However, Mathias’ name is displayed on a huge sign at the start of northbound I-270 dedicating the road to him.
Amtrak Anniversary
This year not only marks the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower’s Interstate highway system, it’s also the 35th anniversary of Amtrak. That’s right, it was 35 years ago today that Amtrak became the nation’s passenger rail service.
Today, more than 25 million passengers ride Amtrak and it sometimes feel like all of them are in line at Penn Station when you are. Yes, Amtrak has had its problems and, yes, it has its detractors, but in this era of $3.25 per gallon of gasoline, I can’t think ofa better way to get to and from New York.
A response about cyclists
Here’s a quick note from George in response to the issue raised last week concerning rude and dangerous bikers on the hiker/biker trail between Rosslyn and Alexandria: “I ride my bike on the trails and I observe the rules … except, I must admit, I don’t always dismount on posted areas, only reducing my speed to a crawl (I will be more conscientious to dismount in the future). However, people often do whiz by on my left unannounced, so hopefully this will get them to follow more of the rules of the trail. I ride a mountain bike, so I rarely ride faster than 15-20 mph. However, some road- bikers pass me like I was walking my bike on these narrow trails.
Maybe this article will at least reach a few and they will be more respectful and careful. Thanks.”
Questions, comments, random musings? Write to [email protected].
