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campaign of the early 2000s. The family that in November 2005 won
$340 million in the Powerball Lottery celebrated by buying their dream
car, a Humvee. An amendment to the Senate energy bill in 2005 that
would have tightened vehicle fuel standards was rejected. This refusal
c ha ngi ng c ount r y 49
to strengthen demand-side action testified to the responsiveness of
legislators to widespread popular reluctance about fuel efficiency,
which, like downward social mobility or public transport, is generally
seen as for others.
In addition, large amounts of money were spent on the road system,
in response to both rising demand in saturated areas and, far more
generally, to a sense of entitlement to easy road use. In the early 2000s
billions were spent on the costliest single public-works project in
American history, the Big Dig in Boston, to reorganize the central road
artery and add tunnels to Logan airport all based on road transport.
The same amount of money would have greatly improved the railroads
in the North-East: the sheer size of the country argues against devel-
oped rail travel, but in the Boston Washington corridor much could be
done. Rail travel is important in commuting into many major cities,
for example New York, Chicago and Washington, dc, where the Metro
system was begun in 1976. It also helped to turn towns into dormitory
suburbs: Fredericksburg, for example, became one for Washington.
However, rail was of minor importance in commuting into Southern
cities or, indeed, for travel to them: Phoenix s passenger train service
ended in 1996. Rail also remained very significant for long-distance
freight, not least thanks to the use of containers. These were an American
innovation, introduced on shipping in 1956, and then spreading to rail
and road. This increased the speed, and cut the cost, of freight move-
ments. Containerization was linked to the needs for labour productivity
and product predictability that played a major role in the American econ-
omy, and helped it to sustain a powerful competitive edge. Nevertheless,
the crisis of rail at the national level was shown with the bankruptcy of
major companies, such as the Penn Central Railroad in 1970.
Whereas public funding for road building was very great, and major
projects were completed, there was no comparable support for the rail
system. Instead, there were frequent attempts by Republicans to cut
the funding of Amtrak. Public transport lacked instinctive support
among conservatives. It was disliked as a socialized system, of prime
benefit to metropolitan areas, particularly in the North-East. Sublimin-
ally, there was also a dislike of the social and racial mixing it represented,
one comparable to the response to public hospitals. This mixing is very
50 a l t e r e d s t a t e s
evident if local train services such as those of the New Jersey Transit
Authority are taken. The limited provision for public transport helped
to give the usa a distinctive character among developed societies. In
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), corrupt government and the destruc-
tion of neighbourhoods, both in the interest of the car and against
public transport, extended to the cartoon world. In practice, in 2005, 12
per cent of the voting-age population still did not have a driver s
licence, but they lacked political influence. The emphasis on car culture
was also shown with the average American only taking 28.4 bus trips
in 2002 and with the six-year transport bill passed in 2005, which allo-
cated $286.4 billion for roads and bridges; 35 per cent more than the
previous bill. Because of this expenditure, the federal Highway Trust
Fund is due to move into a negative cash balance in 2008. Legislators
were judged a success if they could deliver benefits, such as roads and
bridges, to their constituencies, a process known as pork , and seen in
the 6,371 earmarks in the 2005 transport bill. This expenditure
contributed to the crisis in public finances in the mid-2000s, as well as
to anger about the unwillingness of legislators to trim pork . There was
also activity on roads at the state level. The ten-year plan for California
unveiled by the Governor in January 2006 promised 1,200 miles of
new highway lanes.
Bridges symbolized human control over the environment, rather as
dams had done for a previous generation. Furthermore, whereas major
dams were largely confined to areas remote from centres of popula-
tion, and particularly to the West, bridges were frequently close to or,
indeed, part of these centres. Their impact was both local and regional,
the latter reflecting their role in changing transport patterns. The engi-
neering feats were frequently impressive, as with the Hampton Roads
bridge-tunnel between Hampton and Norfolk, Virginia, completed in
1978, and the cost similarly high. The eight-lane Arthur J. Ravenel Jr
Bridge, opened at Charleston in 2005, was, at 3.5 miles, the longest
cable-stayed span bridge in North America, and cost $632 million. Its
towers can be seen for more than 20 miles, and it is emblematic of the
dominant role of bridges in low-country regions of the us. This bridge
also reflects other tendencies of modern American bridge building.
Although in response to pressure from environmental and cycling
c ha ngi ng c ount r y 51
groups it includes a bicycle and pedestrian walkway, the bridge is for
road, not rail, travel. Secondly, it replaces existing facilities in a far
more dramatic fashion, in this case the Grace Bridge of 1929 and the
Pearman Bridge of 1964. Elsewhere, for example in the Virginia Necks,
bridges have replaced ferries, this contributing to the spread of the car
in poor coastal communities that were hitherto partially self-sufficient,
if not cut off. This is linked to the decline of local dialects in some areas,
such as near Gloucester, Virginia. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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