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The Road to Preserving History

November 12, 2003





Tucked inside federal transportation law is a small phrase
that has done a fairly heroic job of protecting some of the
nation's most important historic areas for almost 40 years.
These few words in the 1966 Department of Transportation
Act say that a federal highway project cannot destroy any
historic area if there is a "prudent and feasible
alternative." These words have blocked, for example,
highways from paving parts of the French Quarter in New
Orleans and Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

But as Congress begins negotiating a new transportation
bill, the Bush administration and the highway lobby are
trying to weaken those protections in the name of
"streamlining" the process of building the nation's roads.

Instead of acting as a powerful deterrent against building
roads through national treasures, the administration's
proposal would rely on transportation agencies to decide
what is historic. The agencies would then consult with
communities over a site's importance. That sounds a lot
like the old-fashioned way of building an interstate
highway - the "decide, announce and defend method."
Consultation with property owners or communities would end
up being a weak defense against the big bulldozers run by
the highway crowd.

Beyond the obvious need to preserve historic sites for
local communities, saving historic treasures can also help
economic rebirth. Retaining a community's local color keeps
one shopping mall from looking the same as the next. In
central Georgia, for example, residents of Macon have been
fighting a plan to put a road through the ancient Indian
mounds called the Ocmulgee Old Fields. The fields, part of
the Muscogee, or Creek, heritage, deserve to be part of the
Ocmulgee National Monument near Macon. If the law is
changed, it is not clear that those who want preservation
will have an important voice in the decision.

Irritated motorists caught in traffic jams may think the
answer is more roads, and they certainly have friends in
Congress. But those same motorists, if asked, could hardly
want the roads of the future to destroy what is left of
their nation's past.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/opinion/12WED3.html?ex=1069658708&ei=1&en=d7bd31175d1172aa


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