Washington, D.C. [June 22, 2006]—America ’s transportation network, anchored by 46,000-miles of Interstate highways and nearly 56,000 Interstate bridges, has inspired more than 500 popular songs and played a central role in more than 100 major motion pictures, according to research by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).

ARTBA conducted the internet search to coincide with the upcoming June 29 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Interstate Highway System,and to show how the road and bridge network influenced pop culture in the United States.

The association’s search for “road songs” drew such classics as:

American moviemakers have also used transportation and highway themes and backdrops over the past 50 years to both entertain us and provoke serious thought. Examples include:

“Most of us take this incredible transportation network and our Interstate highways for granted,” says ARTBA Senior Vice President of Communications and Marketing Matt Jeanneret. “We only tend to focus on it when repair work or traffic congestion inconveniences us. But when you take the time to think about it, you realize the enormous impacts the Interstate system has on the American culture, economy and quality of life. Movies and music are a good reflection of that.”

Jeanneret points out that the U.S. transportation construction industry has designed and built 3.9 million miles of American roads, including the Interstate System; 5,400 airports; 200,000 miles of U.S. freight and passenger railway; 5,800 miles of urban mass transit lines with more that 2,300 stations; and 360 American ports.

Each year, he says, the nation’s transportation infrastructure handles almost 5 trillion miles of personal travel—an average 15,000 miles per year per American—and more than $9 trillion worth of freight. According to Jeanneret, the roadway network alone has an asset value of almost $1.4 trillion, which is about 10 times the collective asset value of all computers used in the United States.

ARTBA, based in Washington, D.C., was organized in 1902 by a visionary Michigan public official, Horatio S. Earle, for the purpose of advocating federal legislation to create a “Capital Connecting Government Highway System.” That vision was realized when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the 1956 law authorizing the Interstate Highway construction program and creating the Highway Trust Fund to finance it.

Information about ARTBA can be found online at www.artba.org.

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