Bochay Drum

Interstate 95 and Providence

Document Icon Providence Highways presentation for 12-11-07

I am making a wiki that covers the general history of the United States Interstate Highway System, and focuses on its physical enactment in Providence, Rhode Island. I will be exploring Interstate 95's role in the reorganization of the structure of the city and the correspondent reprioritization of spatial practices. I will examine the highway as a being in its own right, as interstate highway scholar Henry Moon describes as "the complex organism that grows beyond the bounds of its creators" (Moon 1994). Questions to be adressed include:

What lies beneath (in the past)? What has the highway directly physically replaced?

What motivations for the highway? What is the drive for flow of people and material across distance? What spatial organisations are privileged and why?

What is the popular concern for the highway? What are the informant networks of those who oppose or are in favor of the highway? How have certain spatialized or otherwise discernible groups affected differently by the highway? What is the public discourse about the highway (newspapers etc.)?

To what extent is it 'naturalized' into the environment?

What is the highway made of? Who made it?

What are the complications of current restructuring of the highway system in Providene?

"We would like to welcome members and the witnesses to today’s hearing, which is entitled Celebrating 50 Years: The Eisenhower Interstate Highway System. Since this is a celebration, we are going to celebrate with cake immediately following today’s hearing. That is cake, not pork pie. That is good cake. I invite you all to stay and enjoy some in honor of the interstate’s 50th anniversary." From Celebrating 50 years : the Eisenhower interstate highway system : hearing before the Subcommittee on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, June 27, 2006 Published Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 2007

Preliminary Bibliography:

Alexander, C. 1977. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press.

Hammerschlag, D., Barber, K., and Everett, M., 1976. The Interstate Highway System and Urban Structure: A Force for Change in Rhode Island. Planning Division, Rhode Island Dept. of Transportation, Providence.

Harman, G. 2002: Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects. Chicago: Open Court.

Heidegger, M. 1996. Being and Time. State University of New York Press, Albany.

Moon, H., 1994: The Interstate Highway System. Association of American Geographers, Washington D.C.

Olsen, B., 2003: Material culture after text. Re-membering things, Norwegian archaeological review 36(2), 87-104.

Celebrating 50 years : the Eisenhower interstate highway system : hearing before the Subcommittee on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, House of Representatives, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, June 27, 2006 Published Washington : U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O., 2007

Rose, M., 1990. Interstate: Express Highway Politics 1939-1989. Unversity of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Transportation is Key! Tricycles for moving people