The interstate highway system was an extremely ambitious and forward-looking plan. This forward-looking component was not always an easy sell. I regularly drive one of the last sections of the original interstate system to be completed, I-25 between Socorro and Truth or Consequences. The existing US Highways serving this area received very little traffic and work on the interstate did not even begin until the late '60s, due to a combination of the state refusing to expend the money and controversy over the bypass issue.<p>The bypass issue is an extremely important part of the interstate system. Because interstates must be freeways, it was extremely difficult to place them through towns, and so they usually "bypassed" the town. Especially in the west this had a devastating economic impact and lead to a broad trend of urban blight on roads which are former US highways. Late in interstate construction efforts were made to prevent this, but the problem was more or less intractable as not bypassing required a large amount of demolition.<p>At the same time, in urban areas there was an almost incredible enthusiasm for freeways. Modern Albuquerque has two freeways which more or less divide it into four quadrants. However, controversy around routing of I-40 during initial planning lead to a response of ¿porque no los dos? and at the peak of freeway mania plans included three east-west cross-town freeways (two of them barely more than a mile apart) as well as a beltway. Fortunately these plans were largely abandoned before construction, which is not the case in other cities in which construction was started before cancellation (for example, Portland's "Mt. Hood Freeway," one of the many urban freeway projects designed by Robert Moses who started out hero and ended up villain as the destructive impacts of urban freeways became clear.<p>Freeways are, as many large things, an epic history to themselves.