United States Interstate Highway System

Paragraph 1：The United States Interstate System was initiated in 1956 under a law that outlined a system of more than 40,000 miles of roads from coast to coast and border to border, to link major cities and most state capitals. These highways, over 95 percent complete by 1990, had some important advantages over traditional long-distance routes. Speed was the most obvious one, with a coast-to-coast auto trip that had taken 50 or more days in 1900 down to four or fewer by 1990. Equally important in urban areas, these roads could carry a high volume of traffic, even during congested, peak commuting hours. Safety was a third critical advantage. Since cross traffic was eliminated and opposite direction traffic separated, there were fewer opportunities for collision.?

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1. According to paragraph 1, one of the main purposes of the Interstate Highway System was to?

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A. reduce the volume of traffic in urban areas?

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B. reduce traffic during peak commuting hours?

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C. reduce the miles traveled by commuters?

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D. link major cities and state capitals

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2. According to paragraph 1, what made the Interstate Highways safer than traditional long-distance routes??

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A. Interstate Highways greatly reduced the amount of time drivers had to spend on the road.?

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B. Interstate Highways were specially designed to carry a high volume of traffic.?

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C. Interstate Highways reduced the opportunities for collisions.

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D. Interstate Highways were designed to reduce congestion during peak commuting hours.?

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Paragraph 2：There were limitations to the Interstate Highway system. While speed was increased, route choice was decreased, since there were so few roads planned. Often it became more time-efficient for drivers to drive out of their way on Interstate than take a shorter but less speedy local route. This, of course, increased fuel consumption and its ensuing pollution. Interstates also limited access to desired locations, such as businesses or even entire communities, due to location of entrances and exits to the highway. High-speed travel also brought a new, blurred image of the landscape through which drivers passed.?

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Paragraph 3：Perhaps the most serious change caused by the Interstate Highway system was the new order which it brought to the built landscape. Residential patterns were altered as suburbs extended farther into areas outside cities. Commuting distance of 60 or more miles (97 or more kilometers) became possible, if not acceptable, to everyone. This, coupled with other government-sponsored programs, hastened population movement from the cities to the suburbs after 1945. Businesses were equally affected, particularly neighborhood shopping areas and small-town downtowns. Commercial areas reoriented to points of traffic concentration – Interstate interchanges and routes leading to them. Just as nineteenth-century downtowns had clustered near railroad depots, the new dispersed commercial zones concentrated at Interstate interchanges.?Interstate Highways also allowed certain businesses, such as light industry, greater freedom of locational choice and many former inner city enterprises relocated to suburbs or small towns as a result.?

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3. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.?

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A. Interstate Highways made it possible for many businesses to relocate away from the inner city.

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B. Interstate Highways gave inner city enterprises a locational advantage over businesses in small towns and the suburbs.?

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C. Interstate Highways provided light industry with more locational choice than many inner city enterprises had.?

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D. Interstate Highways allowed certain kinds of inner city industries to grow large enough to spread into suburbs and small towns.?

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4. According to paragraph 3, the United States Interstate Highway System had all of the following effects EXCEPT:?

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A. People lived in areas farther from the city.?

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B. People commuted for longer distances.?

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C. People shopped more in cities than in small towns and neighborhood shopping areas.

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D. New commercial areas developed away from the city center.?

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Paragraph 4：This new urban order had a negative effect on older, poorer areas, for two reasons. First, many planners viewed highway development as a federally funded method to renew run-down areas under the guise of “progress.” Thus, older neighborhoods were often the first targeted for destruction so the land could be used for new highways. Secondly, these roads were planned based on allegedly objective criteria of traffic capacity, cost, and scientific safety standards by federal and state level engineers. Plans did not account for local goals other than those associated with prime travel destinations, nor was there serious examination of the social consequences of highway rights of way.?

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5. According to paragraph 4, how did highway development affect older, poorer areas??

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A. It transformed some of these areas into prime travel destinations.??

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B. It led federal and state engineers to reexamine the standard criteria used for road planning.?

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C. It sometimes gave planners an excuse to tear down neighborhoods in such areas.

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D. It sometimes brought in federal funds to support and preserve such areas.?

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Paragraph 5：This lack of comprehensive planning allowed serious and permanent damage to occur, including destruction of viable urban neighborhoods, destruction of much of the historical fabric of small towns and cities alike, permanent occupation of waterfronts by highways, and unnatural segmentation of cities into zones unrelated to function. More positively, Interstate assured cities access to those skilled workers who preferred suburban living, fostered some local planning movements, provided permanent buffers to those neighborhoods that remained intact, and increased weekend recreation travel. As in cities, the Interstate Highways brought both good and ill to rural areas. The highways meant better access to urban amenities, as well as better roads for crop and livestock transport. But their construction also removed millions of acres from production and also divided farms into uneconomic or unreachable parcels.?

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6. According to paragraph 5, Interstate Highways changed the way people in cities lived in all the following ways EXCEPT:?

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A. They divided up cities into separate areas in ways that made little sense functionally.?

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B. They encouraged people to travel for fun on days that they were not working.?

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C. They encouraged a wide variety of businesses to relocate along urban waterfronts.

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D. They caused the loss of some historically significant buildings and other structures.?

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7. According to paragraph 5, what was one way that Interstate Highways harmed rural districts??

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A. They increased the cost of moving livestock from one place to another.?

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B. They eliminated roads that had previously been used for transporting crops.?

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C. They caused many skilled farm workers to switch to urban jobs.?

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D. They cut up farmland in ways that made it less productive.

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Paragraph 6：While Interstate Highways and their related intra-urban alternate routes have often been criticized for destroying public transportation, in many instances public and private transit were integrated within a single transportation network. In Chicago, for example, the city’s existing subway system was extended along with construction of superhighways into the suburbs. A center portion of the highway right-of-way was reserved for electric railway lines and stations. At suburban terminals large parking areas assured that passengers could access the system, thereby guaranteeing ridership for the railway lines.?

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8. In paragraph 6, why does the author discuss Chicago’s public transportation system??

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A. To provide evidence that Interstate Highways had a destructive effect on public transportation systems?

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B. To call into question the idea that the construction of Interstate Highways was necessarily bad for public transportation systems

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C. To explain why public transportation systems often had difficulty surviving in the presence of Interstate Highways?

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D. To identify specific criticisms made of Interstate Highways and their related intra-urban alternative routes?

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Paragraph 4：This new urban order had a negative effect on older, poorer areas, for two reasons. First, many planners viewed highway development as a federally funded method to renew run-down areas under the guise of “progress.” Thus, older neighborhoods were often the first targeted for destruction so the land could be used for new highways. ■Secondly, these roads were planned based on allegedly objective criteria of traffic capacity, cost, and scientific safety standards by federal and state level engineers. ■Plans did not account for local goals other than those associated with prime travel destinations, nor was there serious examination of the social consequences of highway rights of way.■?

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Paragraph 5：This lack of comprehensive planning allowed serious and permanent damage to occur, including destruction of viable urban neighborhoods, destruction of much of the historical fabric of small towns and cities alike, permanent occupation of waterfronts by highways, and unnatural segmentation of cities into zones unrelated to function. ■More positively, Interstate assured cities access to those skilled workers who preferred suburban living, fostered some local planning movements, provided permanent buffers to those neighborhoods that remained intact, and increased weekend recreation travel. As in cities, the Interstate Highways brought both good and ill to rural areas. The highways meant better access to urban amenities, as well as better roads for crop and livestock transport. But their construction also removed millions of acres from production and also divided farms into uneconomic or unreachable parcels.?

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9. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.?

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However, many important concerns were ignored.

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Where would the sentence best fit??

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10. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selected THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

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The United States Interstate Highway System, which involved building over 40,000 miles of roads throughout the nation, had both positive and negative effects.??

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Answer Choices:?

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A. The popularity of traditional routes, which passed through small towns and near local businesses, delayed the substantial completion of the Interstate System until about 1990.?

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B. Interstate highways greatly increased speeds at which vehicles could travel while improving safety, thus, changing residential patterns by allowing people to live farther from cities.?

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C. The new highways drew traffic away from local routes, and commercial areas shifted from downtowns to interstate exchanges, increasing miles driven and hurting some communities.?

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D. Interstate highways served many of the same purposes in the twentieth century that railroads had served in the nineteenth century and, like the railroads, the new highways promoted industrial growth.?

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E. Older and poorer areas of cities were often overlooked and left with no access to the new highway system.?

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F. Rural areas benefited from access to cities and better roads but large amounts of farmland were lost in the process of creating the Interstate Highway System.?

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