Interstate 69: The Unfinished History of the Last Great American Highway
Written by Matt Dellinger
Narrated by Robert Fass
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Part history, part travelogue, Interstate 69 chronicles the last great highway project in America, introducing the people who have worked tirelessly to build it or stop it from being built, and the many places it would change forever.
Matt Dellinger
Matt Dellinger has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Oxford American, Smithsonian, The Wall Street Journal magazine, and The New York Times and has reported on transportation and planning for the public radio program The Takeaway. He worked for ten years on staff at The New Yorker as an illustrations editor, the magazine’s first-ever multimedia editor, and the producer and host of The New Yorker Out Loud, the magazine’s first weekly podcast. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Related to Interstate 69
Related audiobooks
The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Longest Line on the Map: The United States, the Pan-American Highway, and the Quest to Link the Americas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homeplace: A Southern Town, a Country Legend, and the Last Days of a Mountaintop Honky-Tonk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Source: How Rivers Made America and America Remade Its Rivers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Heritage History of the Confident Years: 1866-1914 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Aim High in Creation!: A One-of-a-Kind Journey Inside North Korea's Propaganda Machine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Third Reich at War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSUMMARY - The Rise And Fall Of American Growth: The U.S. Standard Of Living Since The Civil War By Robert J. Gordon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Heritage History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Motor City: The History of the Fur Trade Outpost that Became Detroit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Escape Artists Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Ball, a Dog, and a Monkey: 1957---The Space Race Begins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty that Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Digging for the Truth: One Man's Epic Adventure Exploring the World's Greatest Archaeological Mysteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAndrew Jackson: The truth about Andrew Jackson’s life and success principles revealed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Backwoods of Canada Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King and the Cowboy: Theodore Roosevelt and Edward the Seventh: The Secret Partners Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Founding Fortunes: How the Wealthy Paid for and Profited from America's Revolution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wagon Days Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Full Cup: Sir Thomas Lipton's Extraordinary Life and His Quest for the America's Cup Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Fort Worth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Long Surrender Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
The Song of Achilles: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Parable of the Sower Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lonely Dad Conversations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kindred Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Journey Through The Human Body Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hate U Give Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Radiolab: Mixtape: How The Cassette Changed The World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Left Hand of Darkness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Interstate 69
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The so-called NAFTA highway. Dellinger has traveled from Southeast Texas to Indiana exploring the history of the attempts to get this highway built. Some people are actively supporting the highway thinking it will bring good economic times to their impoverished communities and small towns. Others oppose it seeing the destruction of both natural habitats and historical areas.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A road book. No, not a travelogue type road book, a policy wonk type road book. The beginnings of the current iteration of I-69 date to 1991. It's often called the NAFTA highway- it proposes to connect southern Texas to Indianapolis. From there it will use the existing I-69 on to Canada. The world that existed when the Interstate system was built out from the 1950s through the 1970s is long gone. The money is gone. The fast-track system is gone. The political will for new big highways is gone. Interstate 69 covers the endless rounds of meetings by states, counties, cities, feds, advocacy groups, opposition groups, special interest groups, and politicos involved in the last two decades of trying to get I-69 built. Several people have devoted a huge chunk of their life to this highway. Some of them died along the way. As of today only stretches of the highway are built here and there along the proposed route. Some of them are less than two miles long. Completion dates are estimated from never to twenty more years. The Highway trust fund is basically broke. There's not even enough money there to maintain what is already built. Hard choices will have to be made in the future regarding funding of new highways in the US. Higher taxes (almost a non-starter), toll roads, or mileage fees. Everyone wants freeways but very few want to pay for them. Australia mandated private retirement accounts a few years ago. They need investments that are stable and pay out for decades. Along with Spain, they view US transportation as a area that fits these criteria. Decades long contracts with little risk. They have been involved in bidding of privatization of some toll systems- Chicago, Northern Indiana. This sends the conspiracy theorists into high gear and gives rise to some paranoid conclusions that are quite daft. All in all, this book covers the current climate of national roads in the US- a micro-system few of us ever delve into.