The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 provided that certain key routes such as the Interstate Highway System, be included. The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 is a United States Act of Congress that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 28, 1995. The legislation designated about of roads, including the Interstate Highway System, as the NHS. Aside from designating the system, the act served several other purposes, including restoring $5.4 billion in funding to state highway departments, giving Congress the power to prioritize highway system projects, repealing all federal speed limit controls, and prohibits the federal government from requiring states to use federal-aid highway funds to convert existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units. The act also created a State Infrastructure Bank pilot program. Ten states were chosen in 1996 for this new method of road financing. These banks would lend money like regular banks, with funding coming from the federal government or the private sector, and they would be repaid through such means as highway tolls or taxes. In 1997, 28 more states asked to be part of the program. Ohio was the first state to use a state infrastructure bank to start building a road. An advantage to this method was completing projects faster; state laws and the lack of appropriate projects were potential problems.
Overview
According to the Federal Highway Administration, the National Highway System includes roads important to the United States' economy, defense, and mobility, from one or more of the following road networks :
Interstate Highway System: The entire Interstate Highway System is included in the NHS, but retains its separate identity within the NHS.
Other Principal Arterials: Highways in rural and urban areas which provide access between an arterial and a major port, airport, public transportation facility, or other intermodal transportation facility.
Strategic Highway Network : The entire network of highways which are important to the United States’ strategic defense policy and which provide defense access, continuity, and emergency capabilities for defense purposes.
Major Strategic Highway Network Connectors: Highways which provide access between major military installations and routes which are part of STRAHNET.
Intermodal Conectors: Routes which provide access between major intermodal facilities and the other four subsystems making up the NHS.
The system includes 4% of the nation's roads, but carries more than 40% of all highway traffic, 75% of heavy truck traffic, and 90% of tourist traffic. All urban areas with a population of over 50,000 and about 90% of America's population live within of the network, which is the longest in the world.
