There are many private highways in the United States.
The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, begun in 1792 between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Lancaster, Pennsylvania was the first major American turnpike. According to Gerald Gunderson's Privatization and the 19th-Century Turnpike, "In the first three decades of the 19th century Americans built more than 10,000 miles of turnpikes, mostly in New England and the Middle Atlantic states. Relative to the economy at that time, this effort exceeded the post-World War II interstate highway system that present-day Americans assume had to be primarily planned and financed by the federal government". Because electronics did not exist in that era, all tolls had to be collected by human cashiers at toll booths, creating high fixed costs that could only be covered by a large volume of traffic. As railroads and steamboats began to compete with the turnpikes, the companies started to shut down their less profitable routes or turn them over to governments. (See Category:Pre-freeway turnpikes in the United States for a listing.)
The National Bridge Inventory lists roughly 2,200 privately owned highway bridges in 41 states and Puerto Rico.
Read more about Private Highways In The United States: Indiana Toll Road, Reedy Creek Improvement District, Dalton Highway, California, Dulles Greenway, Texas, Illinois, Colorado, Toll Roads To Serve Development
Famous quotes containing the words united states, private, highways, united and/or states:
“When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“The recognition of Russia on November 16, 1933, started forces which were to have considerable influence in the attempt to collectivize the United States.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“I cannot say what poetry is; I know that our sufferings and our concentrated joy, our states of plunging far and dark and turning to come back to the world—so that the moment of intense turning seems still and universal—all are here, in a music like the music of our time, like the hero and like the anonymous forgotten; and there is an exchange here in which our lives are met, and created.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)