Published: 31/07/2022 20:29:12
Modified: 31/7/2022 20:26:03
At the time, it seemed like it was taking forever to build these new interstates to connect the High Valley to what many people thought was the rest of the world. More than six decades ago, traveling to Concord, Boston, Hartford, New York or Montpelier and Burlington was an arduous undertaking on two-lane roads where on a good day you could average 45 miles per hour.
It would take about a dozen years to complete those new four-lane asphalt ribbons, and the segment-by-segment march was like an extended joke. First came I-89 from Concord to Hopkinton and I-91 from the Massachusetts border to Brattleboro, then six- and seven-mile chunks would come closer and closer to Lebanon and White River Junction. Each successive opening would dump traffic onto an old two-lane highway, prompting near-universal emotions among drivers: “Hurry up and make those new roads.”
It would be the same step-by-step crawl as the two Interstates moved steadily northward from White River Junction toward the Canadian border, with a similar impatience to get the job done and open the new roads.
But looking back now, the completion of these major public works projects in just over a decade must be considered an amazing achievement. But it certainly cannot be reproduced today either. The layout of these new corridors was easy: Washington stipulated that they would connect major population centers and defense establishments, and the states were left to figure out the exact path they would take.
Much of the real estate needed for rights-of-way could be acquired cheaply, since rural land in both states in the early 1960s was trading for as little as $10 an acre, and landowners unwilling to sell or they thought they should get a lot more money for the land grab, they were constantly beaten by government agents in negotiations or in court. Individuals, neighborhoods, communities: for the most part, they accepted or renounced the progress of construction.
There just wasn’t the kind of nimbyism that goes up today for construction projects of any size. Thus, once the necessary land was acquired and the design and engineering completed, the projects could be tendered and awarded within a few weeks. Most of the jobs went to large regional construction firms such as Perini and Palazzi, which expanded and prepared once their bids were accepted.
Post-World War II advances in construction methods and machinery enabled a new approach to road construction. Instead of having to work around obstacles like hills, swamps, and ledge outcrops, the “cut and fill” system took over and allowed contractors to cut through the terrain, moving dirt and rock with backhoes, bulldozers and large dump trucks of higher grades to fill them. in ravines and wet areas. Modern air drills and advanced blasting strategies quickly shaved off ledge obstructions. And, yes, there wasn’t much wetland regulation and landscape disturbance to slow the progress of the road-building enterprise. This would reach the 1970s and greatly complicate, and often stop, the process of building new roads. New Hampshire’s last major four-lane highway construction effort, Route 101 from Manchester to Hampton in the 1980s, took years just to design, as the state had to work with the complex wetlands mitigation, environmental impact and other regulatory minefields, both state and federal.
The construction of the bridge was an important aspect of the construction of the New Hampshire and Vermont interstate highways. And here again the rate of construction and completion of crossings over rivers and streams, railways and secondary roads was remarkably rapid by today’s standards. The twin I-89 bridges over the Connecticut River between West Lebanon and White River Junction took less than 18 months between contract award and opening to traffic. The high-level I-91 bridge over the White River in Hartford had steel workers from the Iroquois Nation build it in less than 12 months.
The rapid road construction schedules of the 1960s are but memories today. Witness the widening of I-93 from Manchester to the Massachusetts border, now in its second decade with much more work to do. And our impatience to complete interstates more than half a century ago seems quaint today.
Steve Taylor, a former New Hampshire agriculture commissioner and former editor of the Valley News, lives in Meriden.