If I Ruled America: Infrastructure
In my series “If I Ruled America,” I’ve already talked about what kind of country I’d like to see. So far I’ve covered the overview of my government and what kind of foreign policy that government would have.
If I Ruled America: Foreign Policy
Now, I will talk about what I think is another aspect of defense, a subcategory of “military” that I think the government can claim to be responsible for: infrastructure.
Fascists can get the trains running on time; unfortunately, they’re also fascist. My government would strive to interfere with only one aspect of your daily life: how you get to where you need to go.
History
Ancient Rome had running water thanks to military-engineered infrastructure. Not only that - their water often came from mountain springs and travelled aqueducts that sometimes cut through mountains. Impressive for an Ancient civilization; child’s play for us. Yet the quality of our civilization often only goes as far as we can keep our citizens close to fresh water, sewage systems, and roads.
In fact, many think that Christianity spread as well as it did because of the remarkable infrastructure of ancient Rome.
In the Civil War, thought to be the first modern war fought on Earth, the need for infrastructure became especially apparent - many generals like Sherman and Grant would cut railroads and supply lines; often at great expense.
The Highway System
We all take it for granted, but one of the great projects of the 20th Century in America was the Interstate Highway System. Championed by both President Eisenhower and auto manufacturers in the 50’s, the highway system encompasses over 40,000 miles of American frontier and urbana. It is more useful than Mount Rushmore and Canada combined.
Drive for just a few minutes on the highways and you’ll see a familiar sight: a semi. Some truck driver is hauling goods from one place to another. It happens so much that we often get annoyed by trucks for taking up space. Well, guess what? Trucks are the horse-drawn carriages of today, driving across even bigger marketplaces across a smaller world that is smaller thanks to those roads. They don’t haul milk, cows, and soda; they haul prosperity.
God bless you, truck drivers of America
Our roads and technology have expanded cities and created suburbs - brilliant places to live. Still wanna live in the city? Infrastructure supports buildings that go up into the sky, so there’s room for everyone! Want to live in the country? Sure, just commute! Or, in fact, enjoy small-town life with all of its big-city franchises and goods - delivered to you by infrastructure.
Infrastructure is the barometer of a civilization’s quality of life. By supporting a massive, simple infrastructure, the government does more to get out of the economy’s way than private funding.
My System of Infrastructure
Infrastructure doesn’t mean just roads: it means the cars on those roads, the water systems beneath those roads, the power grid over those roads. But, for all intents and purposes, this article is talking about roads.
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, the U.S. is very well-equipped already. Heck, there isn’t much to improve: that’s why we’re #1. But what if you were building a country out of nothing?
Water
Well, the first thing you really need are the basics: shelter and water. Humans can build their own shelter and get their own water; but if you want to expand, you need fresh water running everywhere. People gotta drink and need something to carry their waste away.
The way it’s handled now, local municipalities generally take care of water - at city or county levels. But if I was declared King of Ambola, Africa, I’d have a different task ahead of me: I’d want to create a water grid.
I don’t have a problem doing this with federal funds, despite my hatred for spending. It’s simple: if I was king and needed my kingdom to improve, I’d build access to water for everyone. It would cut disease and promote population growth instantly.
Once the problem is handled, then you turn it over to local governments.
Roads
Building and maintaining efficient roadways would be the peacetime responsibility of the military (since there’d be few other government employees), the way it was in Rome.
Shock troops would line the Great Southwestern Wall, which separates us from Mexico. By the way, I’d build a Great Southwestern Wall. (It’s just a nickname; everyone knows that fixed fortifications are futile.)
Instead of handing two bucks to some near-homeless bum working the tollways, you’d hand it to a soldier. Of course, there’d be no tollways, so you wouldn’t have to worry. To eliminate tollways, I would have to tear up much of Northeastern Illinois, much to the happiness of Wisconites.
Traffic jams would be viewed as unacceptable. Highways should be long, wide, and common. Congestive areas like downtown Chicago and New York would be relieved by a grid of Superhighways, underground tunnels and bypasses. Federal troops would ensure no one complains while I tear up their cities and lay superior roadwork down. I call them urban angioplasties.
And instead of the curvy nature of today’s highways, I’d want highways that went perfectly straight. They’d even compensate for the curvature of the Earth. You’d take one single highway from New York to L.A. - if you could do it without stopping, you could have cruise control on the whole way. It would cut through mountains and be propped over rivers. It might go up and down a bit, but that’s all.
I wouldn’t leave out the scenic enjoyment created by some country scraggly roads; lakeview roads and mountain passes would stay. But they wouldn’t be the federal superhighways.
Also: speed limits on these highways would be either non existant or really high. An American autobahn.
Also, it would be illegal not to post street signs at every urban intersection. I am driven crazy when I try to find my way through a city and there aren’t even labels to let you know where you are.
These huge Superhighways would also have huge barricades in between traffic flow so as to reduce accidents - this would be a more common practice. No more driving on country highways, two feet from blasting into a car going 50 miles an hour in the opposite direction. You’ll barely be able to wave at people going the other way.
Technology
Transportation isn’t limited to cars; neither is my policy. Hovertrains, planes, boats and spaceships are the future.
You’d be able to hop on a quick 300 mile and hour train from L.A. to Las Vegas, or a fifteen-to-thirty minute ride from Milwaukee to Chicago. You could live in Ann Arbor and work in Detroit. I would lay these tracks with federal funding.
Planes would be private: there’s no need for roads, so just as I won’t regulate your cars (or the companies that make them), I won’t regulate your planes. That means less required security. There’d be a law that would require pilots to carry guns and to be able to be locked off from passengers. Racial profiling would be allowed in airports.
As part of my third priority (research), spaceships would pave the way for transportation that gets you from New York to Hong Kong in a matter of hours. But I wouldn’t give the government a monopoly over spae, except that my military would have a monopoly over whose space it is.
So what would daily life be like for you? Well, if you live in a city, you’d probably be angry with all the construction going on. You’d also see a lot more soldiers, especially on a trip to Canada. I know this seems like Big Brother, but I’d only be controlling the expansion of infrastructure. Your car could guzzle all the oil you want, and soldiers wouldn’t stop you if you’re going 70 mph. Local policemen might stop you for going too slow.
There’d be less snowdays because the roads would be so well taken-care of. But the time you save on commuting would more than make up for that.
The result of all this infrastructure will be a economy in fast-foward. You could order a book on Amazon and get it later today. Pizza delivery would still be the dominant method of acquiring pizza. Also, your flights will be on-time because you don’t have all the billion security checks.
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