Archive for the ‘transportation’ Category
January 6, 2011
Anyone who has seen the Pixar movie Cars — or thought for a moment about how roads have changed over the past half-century — knows that bypasses around towns have a tremendous impact on traffic patterns. The latest to experience this shift are Tama and Toledo on the Lincoln Highway in Iowa. As reported by the Cedar Rapids Gazette, the 7,500 vehicles that daily went through the towns on U.S. 30 have been reduced to a trickle since a bypass opened. Motels and restaurants such as the King Tower Restaurant, below, are feeling the impact.
Since acquiring the local landmark eight years ago, Kristy Tovar has made a decent living running the King Tower Restaurant on the east side of Tama. Since the $82 million bypass opened, though, King Tower is no longer visible from the highway. Tovar’s anything but confident about the restaurant’s future.
“I never really thought that having this highway change would make that much difference, because most of our customers were local. I’d probably say business has been cut at least in half or more,” she said….
Since the days when it was known as the Lincoln Highway, Highway 30 has been the lifeblood of Tama-Toledo. Visitors recall the distinctive Indian head souvenirs sign at King Tower, which has been open since 1937, and the Lincoln Highway bridge that was an early architectural feature of the first transcontinental highway….
Brad Crawford is manager of the 54-year-old Big T Maid-Rite in Toledo. He said rumors are already flying about big restaurant chains like McDonald’s snapping up the good real estate along the bypass to open new restaurants.
Crawford is saving to buy a service sign on the bypass, but the cost will cut into funds he’d otherwise spend to advertise in the local newspaper and high school yearbook.
Tags:bypass problems, highway history, historic highway, Iowa, Lincoln Highway, old roads, restaurant, roadside, Tama IA
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, transportation, travel | 2 Comments »
December 16, 2010
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition has completed the next in a series of Interpretive Murals stretching along its 179-mile corridor. The mural will be on the Geneva Masonic Lodge building at 10 S. Second Street in downtown Geneva, Illinois.
This mural showcases the Lincoln Highway in Geneva’s downtown, with a streetscape featuring the local motorcycle policeman. The vintage image is hand-painted in shades from a tonal color palette, bringing the images to life. As the designated byway management agency overseeing the 179 mile Byway, the ILHC seeks ways to recognize the significance of the highway and ways to make the stories come alive. After receiving a National Scenic Byway Grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Office of Tourism, Attraction Development (TAP) Grant, ILHC worked with Jay Allen of ShawCraft Signs to make this project come to life.
For more information on the Illinois Lincoln Highway, places to see and things to do, stories of the highway’s significance and history, or to request ILHC’s 2010 Visitor Guide, visit www.drivelincolnhighway.com
Tags:Geneva IL, highway history, historic highway, Illinois, Lincoln Highway, mural for highway
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November 15, 2010
A story in the East Liverpool, Ohio, Review relates a plan to pay for making U.S. Route 30 in eastern Ohio by making it a toll road.
Route 30 is a four-lane road from Indiana to East Canton, where it remains a two-lane road the final 36 miles in Ohio through Columbiana County, except for a portion which runs with state Route 11 from West Point to East Liverpool. For more than 50 years, various people have tried to get the final segment of Route 30 in Ohio completed, to no avail.
The latest attempt involves dividing the project into three sections and doing them in phases as the money comes available. The sections are East Canton to Minerva, Minerva to Hanoverton, and Hanoverton to state Route 11 at West Point. The committee is pursuing the Hanoverton-West Point section first, a distance of 12 miles, which would cost an estimated $118 million to design, acquire the property rights of way and construct, according to Deputy County Engineer Robert Durbin….
Durbin said they believe charging a toll of $1.25 for cars and $2.50 for trucks to travel the 12-mile segment would generate enough revenue to pay for the new road in 40 years based on the increased vehicle traffic they expect to result.
Tags:East Liverpool OH, highway history, historic highway, Lincoln Highway, Ohio, toll road, US 30
Posted in highways, Lincoln Highway, road surface, Road trip, roadside, transportation | Leave a Comment »
October 28, 2010
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The state has awarded $500,000 for recreation projects in Franklin and Cumberland counties in Pennsylvania, one of which will be an iPhone application to promote the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. According to the Chambersburg Public Opinion, “the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources invested $23 million in 189 conservation and recreation projects in 65 counties. Another 177 applications were not funded. A grant of $180,000 will be used to develop an iPhone application to promote tourism in the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor and to finance a variety of other Lincoln Highway programs — mini-grants, school programs and repair interpretive exhibits and signs. The state’s National Road Heritage Corridor is also developing an iPhone application.
Tags:highway history, historic highway, iPhone app for old road, LHHC, Lincoln Highway, Pennsylvania, travel, vacation
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, roadside, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2010
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
Eastern Iowa Life reports that the last intact block of “automobile row” in Cedar Rapids will be razed as early as Monday:
Lagniappe Investments plans to raze 706 and 712 Second Ave. SE, buildings that in recent years served as the Home Appliance Center and a hall for the Emerald Knights Drum & Bugle Corps…. Tom Slattery, authorized representative for Lagniappe, would not say why the site is being cleared.
Mark Stoffer Hunter, an expert in Cedar Rapids history, said architecturally, the buildings are not significant, but the block is important to Cedar Rapids history. “It’s the one block of downtown Cedar Rapids that hasn’t changed in 50 years,” he said…. As the Lincoln Highway was routed onto Second Avenue around 1920, businesses replaced homes along the route.
In the above photo, supplied to the paper by historian Mark Stoffer Hunter, Barron Motor Supply is shown at 706 Second Ave. SE in this 1935 photo. The store was one of several that lined Cedar Rapids’ “automobile row” along the Lincoln Highway.
Tags:Automobile Row, building demolition, Cedar Rapids IA, highway history, historic highway, Iowa, Lincoln Highway
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, transportation, travel | 5 Comments »
October 26, 2010
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition announced the completion of its newest Interpretive Mural along the 179-mile byway corridor: 127 N. Third Street in Malta, Illinois, on the Malta Historical Society’s Old Town Hall.
The Malta mural showcases the Lincoln Highway’s first Seedling Mile with a detailed painting of workmen pouring the concrete from a steam-operated mixer and a view at right of men smoothing the surface. The LHA used Seedling Miles to demonstrate the advantages of concrete over dirt surfaces in hopes that it would inspire further road improvements.
For more information on the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition, including its murals and gazebos plus places to see and things to do, or to download an ILHC’s 2010 Visitor Guide, visit www.drivelincolnhighway.com/.
Tags:highway history, historic highway, Illinois, Lincoln Highway, Malta IL, mural
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, signs, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »
October 14, 2010
Northwest Indiana Times newspaper continues its coverage of U.S. 30 and the Lincoln Highway:
In honor of the “Region’s Road,” The Times takes a look at the many communities — starting from west to east — that use U.S. 30 as a main artery of transportation and a critical part of their residents’ very lives.: The region’s road is an extensive look at the communities.
The newspaper photo, above, shows a plaque at the region’s famous Ideal Sections. Towns profiled include Dyer, Schererville, Merrillville, Hobart, Union Twp., and Valparaiso.
Tags:highway history, historic highway, Ideal Section, Indiana, Lincoln Highway, Valparaiso Indiana
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October 8, 2010
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
In honor of the Transcontinental Railroad, Forrest has been taking a virtual walk along its route (ala Forrest Gump), following the westward progress of the Union Pacific from Omaha to Utah. He began April 16 and has logged 1372 miles as of this morning. He writes about the towns and people along the way, often coming upon parts of the Lincoln Highway, which paralells much of the route. Check it out here: walkforrestwalk.blogspot.com/.
He writes:
When the U.S. government named two companies to build a transcontinental railroad in 1862. no meeting point was set. Enormous financial rewards—paid out per mile of completed track—propelled both sides into a grueling seven-year race across daunting terrain of the states of Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, & Califorina. When completed the railroad connected a post Civil War nation, forever changing the American West. For the next 6 months & 1500 miles Forrest will follow this important and historical route that our ancestors followed so many years ago.
Tags:highway history, historic highway, Lincoln Highway, Transcontinental Railroad, walking old trails, Wyoming
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »
October 7, 2010
Northwest Indiana Times recently published a number of articles on the Lincoln Highway, including “Lincoln Highway, a lifeline for Illinois communities.” It includes mention of the sculpture seen at right, “Lincoln on the Road to Greatness,” which depicts Abraham Lincoln receiving flowers from two girls. The statue, dedicated in 2003, was funded by private donations including 200,000 pennies collected by local students. It is at the intersection of the Lincoln and Dixie highways, which on the opposite corner includes the Arche Memorial Fountain, dedicated decades ago to be a place of rest for weary motorists.
Tags:Abraham Lincoln, early travel, highway history, historic highway, Illinois, Indiana, Lincoln Highway, Lincoln statue, memorial fountain
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, roadside, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »
Lincoln Highway News 