Ask anyone to name a famous road in America and there is only one answer: Route 66. Originally commissioned in 1926 to create a transcontinental highway between Chicago and Los Angeles, this infrastructure icon is more than just a road. In this episode, Dan Lewis, Executive Director of the Asphalt Pavement Association, and Mike Skinner, Executive Director of the Asphalt Pavement Alliance, join the show to unpack what actually kept the Mother Road alive long after it stopped being the fastest way to cross the country.
The conversation moves from Route 66’s early role driving economic growth in the towns along its route, through its decommissioning, to the perpetual pavement design strategy that has kept it structurally sound.
Here’s a sneak peek into this week’s conversation but be sure to tune in to the full episode for all the insights. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts.
BW: To get started, I’m curious if you could both share what you’ve learned about Route 66 and how it’s helped shape infrastructure development in the US.
DL: Route 66 in New Mexico is a 400-mile stretch, and like you said, we’re celebrating 100 years. Back in 1926, the road was first commissioned, and the whole road was built to drive economic growth in the western part of America. It connected a lot of rural cities through the Southwest, from Chicago to LA. It’s got a great history, from the Great Depression through the ’50s and ’60s, and it’s a pretty remarkable road.
BW: The highway was officially decommissioned in 1985, but it’s really never gone away. What do you think has kept it alive, or what role has physical preservation of that pavement played in it still being part of our infrastructure?
MS: It’s a piece of American culture. It’s more than just infrastructure. It’s an American icon. It’s infrastructure, it’s mythology, it’s culture. The term “the Mother Road” came to prominence, though it wasn’t originally part of the highway when it was built, or when construction started in 1926. That term came from John Steinbeck in his classic novel The Grapes of Wrath.
It was written in 1939, so a portion of the road was already 13 years old before the term “the Mother Road” came into being, and that’s when Steinbeck used it to describe the road. It was a lifeline, a road of infrastructure for refugees fleeing the Dust Bowl in Kansas and Oklahoma, working their way toward California for a better life.
