Untitled Document

House, Senate pass resolutions marking
creation of the interstate highway system

U.S. Senate, House Committee, Pass Resolutions for 50th Anniversary of Interstate
The U.S. Senate has passed a commemorative resolution recognizing the 50th Anniversary of the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

June 29 marks the day President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which created the pay-as-you-go financing system for the Highway Trust Fund that provides funds for the Interstate system and other federal-state highway and transit projects. The Senate resolution, No. 427, was introduced by Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, and all the committee members.

It was approved on the Senate floor on April 6.

In the House, Representative Don Young (R-AK), Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, sponsored a similar concurrent resolution No. 372. The measure has been reported out by the committee will go to the full House in June.

In his floor remarks, Inhofe said, “The committee as a whole would like to mark the
momentous achievements made over the last 50 years that have provided for revolutionary
advances in our nation’s vital infrastructure.”

He continued, “The current challenges facing the Highway Trust Fund—and hence the highway program – will be very difficult to resolve and not unlike the challenges faced by the authors of the 1956 Act. It will be up to policymakers to be as visionary as they were 50 years ago. A new vision is needed in what the highway program will stand for in the next 50 years and how to pay for it.”

The resolutions recognize the vital role the system has played in transporting people and goods to make the United States the world’s leading free society and economy. The resolution also recognizes the state transportation departments, private contractors, engineers, workers and the Federal Highway Administration who built and maintain the system, as well as encourages governments and educational institutions to participate in the 50th anniversary celebrations.

“Everyone in the transportation field knows what the Interstate Highway System means to the U.S. and how it has shaped our country,” said AASHTO President Harold Linnenkohl, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation. “But the reason AASHTO and its partners are celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Interstate is to raise public awareness of how vital it is to everybody in the country for mobility now and in the future.”

Visit AASHTO’s Interstate 50th Anniversary website for more complete details on national and state celebratory events by visiting http://www.interstate50th.org. AASHTO, founded in 1914 and based in Washington, D.C., represents the transportation departments of all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.