Ed Pawlowski wrote:

> On 5/11/2017 5:59 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
>
> >
> > Don't let them do it. We had a stretch of highway that was being built
> > as a bypass for Toronto. It was supposed to take some of the traffic off
> > the QEW between Hamilton and Toronto. Then the province decided to
> > make it an electronic toll road and privatized it. It is outrageously
> > expense. It is bad enough that they charge by the kilometer, but there
> > is also an access fee. For me to get on at Hamilton and take it to
> > Toronto to head north from there costs more than $20, and it is only
> > about 30 miles.
> >
>
> Roads should never be privatized. The past two weeks I've been driving
> on a few thousand miles of interstates and we have a really good tax
> paid highway system. The toll roads we have are reasonably priced too.
> Every one of the 12 states I was in is doing work to improve them also.


Did you visit Illinois...???

;-)


>
> Eisenhower did good. In 1919 he took a caravan of army trucks across
> country to see if it could be done Barely was but he saw the need for a
> good system.


Yes, Ed, Ike did! The Interstate Highway System stands as the largest and most successful civil engineering project in history. It is one of the foundations of "Modern America"...like the chlorination of water, the Mississippi and other lock and dam systems (TVA, Grand Coulee, Hoover...), the microwave relay system for early television, the microchip, etc....

I'm a big fan of Ike. Until recently he was fairly "forgotten", but there is new scholarship on his era, and thus new admiration for his work. One of the greatest - and unsung - things that he did was to keep the hothead Pentagon generals/military honchos and State Department hard right -wingers at bay, they were itching for a nuclear showdown and other shenanigans with the Soviet Union. Fortunately his cooler reasoning prevailed...remember, his Farewell Presidential Speech highlighted his concerns about the military/industrial complex.

A great man, and a fine leader...my "second most - admired" historical figure, the person I admire most is General George Marshall.


--
Best
Greg