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The Era of the
Oswego Dragway 
Everyone is bound to bear patiently the results of his own example. - Phaedrus Fable 26
The personal computer came to market in the late 1970¹s (the 25 year anniversary of the IBM PC, arguably legitimized microcomputer use in business).
It's the twenty-first century and let's be honest - things are a little disappointing. Despite every World's Fair prediction, every futuristic ride at Disneyland, and the advertisements on the last page of every comic book, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our promised moon colonies? Our servant robots? - Books Inc.
Program Description: Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived
Meet roboticist Daniel H. Wilson co-author "Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future That Never Arrived," a hilarious look at the future imagined through movies, television, and comic books. He reveals which technologies are already available and those that do not yet exist - explaining what stands in the way of making them real.
The Interstate Highway Act
The Interstate Highway Act was passed and signed the same year that the Oswego Dragway was
paved with asphalted,
the starting line was moved to the opposite end of the track and so the direction
of races was away from Highway 34 and toward to the north.
|
|
1956 |
Current |
|
U.S. Population |
168,903,031 |
293,655,404 (2004) |
|
Annual Vehicle Miles |
627,843,000 |
2,829,336,000 (2002) |
|
Federal Gas Tax |
3 cents |
18.4 cents |
|
Registered Vehicles: |
54,013,753 |
135,669,897 (2003) |
|
Registered Trucks |
10,678,612 |
94,943,551 (2003) |
Smithsonian Museum: Source: Federal Highway Administration, Program Administration
Special thanks to Richard Weingroff and Bing Wong
U.S. Census Bureau
Electronic Highway? What if the Highway became Internet?
What would happen if the Highway would look like Internet....
- Author unknown
Think of the computer highway AS a highway.
There it is again. Some clueless fool talking about the "Information Superhighway." They don't know Jacj about the Net. It's nothing like a Superhighway. That's a bad metaphor.
Yeah, but suppose the metaphor ran in the other direction. Suppose the highways were like the NET. All right! Severe craziness. A highway hundreds of lanes wide. Most with potholes. Privately operated bridges and overpasses. No highway patrol. A couple of rent-a-cops on bicycles with broken whistles. 500 member VIGILANTE POSSES with nuclear weapons. 237 on ramps at every intersection. No signs. Wanna get to Ensenada? Holler out the window at a passing truck to ask directions. AD HOC traffic laws. Some lanes would VOTE to make use by a single-occupant-vehicle a capital offense on Monday through Friday between 7:00 and 9:00. Other lanes would just shoot you without a trial for talking on a car phone.
AOL would be a giant diesel-smoking BUS with hundreds of EBOLA victims and a TOILET spewing out on the road behind it. Throwing DEAD WOMBATS and rotten cabbage at the other cars most of which have been ASSEMBLED AT HOME from kits. Some are 2.5 horsepower LAWNMOWER ENGINES with a top speed of nine miles an hour. Others burn NITROGLYCERINE and IDLE at 120.
No license tags. World War II BOMBER NOSE ART instead. Terrifying paintings of huge teeth or VAMPIRE EAGLES. Bumper mounted MACHINE GUNS. Flip somebody the finger on this highway and get a WHITE PHOSPHORUS GRENADE up your tailpipe. Flatbed trucks with ANTI- AIRCRAFT MISSILE BATTERIES to shoot down the KRUD Traffic Watch helicopter. A little kid on a tricycle with a squirtgun filled with HYDROCHLORIC ACID.
NO OFFRAMPS.
Now THAT'S the way to run an Interstate Highway system.
The Interstate Highway Act
Plans Forged: Congress approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 and designated the National System of Interstate Highways to include up to 40,000 miles �to connect by routes, direct as practical, the principal metropolitan areas, cities and industrial centers to serve the National Defense� with connection to routes in Canada and Mexico.
Ramping Up: August 2, 1947, Commissioner MacDonald and Federal Works Administrator Philip B. Fleming announced selection of the first 37,700 miles on routes proposed by state highway agencies and approved by the Department of Defense. No federal funds authorized.
Foundation Laid: Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1952 authorized the first funding for system construction: $25 million a year for fiscal years 1954 and 1955. Another $175 million was authorized for fiscal years 1956 and 1957.
Green Light: June 29, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed for the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Title I increased the system's proposed length to 41,000 miles; nationwide design standards developed through AASHTO (A Policy on Design Standards: Interstate System); established a new method for apportioning funds among states and set federal government's share of the project cost at 90 percent. Title II�the Highway Revenue Act of 1956�created the Highway Trust Fund as a dedicated source of funding for the Interstate Highway System, on a pay-as-you-go basis through the federal gas tax and other motor-vehicle user fees.
Subsequent acts by Congress extended the Interstate system mileage to its current length of 46,837 miles.
Who's First?: Missouri, Kansas, and Pennsylvania claim to have laid the first portions of the Interstate Highway System. Here are their stories:
Missouri: On August 2, 1956, Missouri became the first state to award a contract with the new interstate construction funding. Of three contracts signed that day, the Missouri State Highway Commission first signed a contract for work on U.S. Route 66�now Interstate 44 in Laclede County. The other contracts were for work on U.S. 40 now I-70, the Mark Twain Expressway�in St. Louis; and for another section of the highway in St. Charles County. Work started on August 13.
Kansas: On August 31, 1956, the Kansas State Highway Commission awarded a contract for concrete paving of a two-lane section of U.S. 40 �now I-70�west of Topeka. Construction on this road started before President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, but paving under the new contract started on September 26.
Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania Turnpike between Irwin and Carlisle opened on October 1, 1940. It has since been incorporated into the Interstate system as I-76 and I-70.
Freight Fact: In 1956, according to the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), all drivers recorded a total of 627.8 million miles. Of that total, truck combinations (semi-trailers) produced 28,854 million miles. The more popular two-axle, six-tire straight trucks (Class 5) produced 98,551 million miles. Today, Americans log more than 2.829 trillion miles a year on the 46,837-mile Interstate system.
Oswego drag strip Starting TowerToday's Tuners
(If you were 18 today like you were in 1955, you'd be drivin' them too)
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