Crescent City, California: 12:14:13: Cannot help but to think of cars when in California. People here worship them new and old. The road here: magnificent.
The future of the American road depends on innovating firms like Tesla in order to reinvent the road and how we use it. America’s road infrastructure is unmatched in the world. For roads to have as bright a future as they have had a past technology will have to intervene. Electric car technology has great promise. Tesla is the American standout.
The automobile and the road have always had a yin & yang relationship. The road was all but dead with railroads as the king of transportation until the late 1800s. When the automobile was invented it was called the horseless carriage and it gave roads new life. As roads improved so too did cars. As cars improved, demands for better roads grew louder. My 1949 Hudson is a living example of that past. It is America’s first low rider, first lead sled, that was designed for the nearly unheard of superhighway yet to come.
The USA has 4 million miles of road with 64% paved. Every state in the United States ranks roads as the number one concern regarding infrastructure. Currently, however, investment in roadways is hundreds of billions short of what is needed. When my 1949 Hudson was built, the United States led in automotive technology. Today, we are living in the past. As strange as a horseless carriage was is how strange a driverless car is. Soon, with the help of Tesla, driverless electric cars are the future.
Dan McNichol is a number-one bestselling author and an award-winning journalist. His published books, articles, thought-leadership papers and speaking events focus on mega construction projects in the United States and The Peoples Republic of China.
McNichol recently contributed to a front page story in The New York Times titled, “Trump-Sized Idea for a New President: Build Stuff”. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) / Boston Chapter named McNichol as one of nation’s outstanding journalists in 2014 and again in 2003. McNichol contributes to worldwide media outlets including: The New York Times, Engineering News Record (ENR), ABC World News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) network, China Central Television (CCTV), TV Tokyo, MSNBC and PBS’s The NewsHour, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, History Channel. McNichol is a frequent voice on National Public Radio (NPR).
ENR Magazine recently tapped McNichol as the magazine’s national correspondent for a cross country tour. McNichol and Aileen Cho, ENR’s senior transportation editor, drove in a 1949 Hudson Commodore with the tagline, “America’s infrastructure is as old, rusty and energy defunct as our original Detroit lead-sled.” The journalists wrote ENR print and online cover stories about the nation’s ailing infrastructure.
A former White House appointee, McNichol served the President on US policy issues surrounding transportation and infrastructure between 1991-1993. McNichol has worked in official capacities on the nation’s largest infrastructure projects: California High Speed Rail (2017), San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Replacement (2013) and The Big Dig, a.k.a. The Central Artery / Third Harbor Tunnel Project (2000).
