WorldCity Business Magazine

A fork in the road

by Ken Roberts

Shortly after the end of World War II, then-President Dwight Eisenhower came to a fork in the road. He made a decision that has had an enormous impact to this day.

The country, which had been attacked on U.S. soil for the first time only a few years earlier at Pearl Harbor, now had the atom bomb. But it did not expect to hold that distinction alone for long. The United States needed a way to quickly mobilize its population in the event of an attack.

The alternatives were cars or trains. That meant an interstate highway system or a similar buildout with rail lines.

The former general’s decision to build interstate roadways rather than a rail system had an enormous and liberating impact on the U.S. way of life, from the birth of Holiday Inns and McDonald’s along the thoroughways to the creation of Levittown and the suburban lifestyle.

U.S. automakers rode the wave for decades and were soon joined and threatened by the Germans, the Japanese and now the South Koreans.

It is safe to say that the subject of our cover story, 19-year-old Nelson Philippe, would not be racing subway cars today had Eisenhower chosen his other option. But it is also safe to say that our love affair with the automobile, from the ultra-efficient machines the young racer covets to those ultra-inefficient behemoths that idle on our interstates at rush hour, stems from that critical decision in the 1950s.

Now, all these years later, we are at another crossroads.

As the world’s economy continues to globalize, as imports and exports continue to grow, U.S. consumers are putting increasing pressures not just on our airports and seaports but also on the roadways and railways connecting to them.

It is true across the country. And it is true in Miami. Here, the Port of Miami is pushing the creation of an expensive underwater tunnel connector to the highway system. The goal is to take tractor-trailer rigs off downtown streets. And it is in Miami where the international airport is spending $4 billion-plus on expansion and efficiency upgrades.

China has not risen to become South Florida’s seventh-most-important trade partner and No. 3 importer simply because it likes us. It has done so because its ship can’t get through, despite massive infrastructure investment in the U.S. West Coast ports.

This time around, as another president stands at a fork in the road, the backdrop of U.S. oil dependence might tilt the decision in favor of rail. It certainly suggests the need for an aggressive alternative fuel strategy. Or maybe a combination of both.

But the vision required, the commitment to move forward aggressively, is no less critical today than when a former general looked out upon the landscape half a century ago. Along with education a topic for another day infrastructure is a critical issue for the United States going forward. Nowhere is it more critical than in South Florida, which is as dependent on international trade and related services as any region of the country.