Mangesh & Jason
Why Does Hawaii Have Interstate Highways?
by Mangesh & Jason - May 11, 2009 - 9:24 AM

A reader writes: “I have a stupid question. How is it that Hawaii, which obviously borders no other states, has interstate highways? I don’t remember where I first saw this question, but do you guys have an answer?”

hawaii-h1.jpgWhile we’d like to believe Hawaii’s Interstate system was created for the sole purpose of annoying the late George Carlin, the name is actually a misnomer. Not all Interstates physically go from one state to another; the name merely implies that the roads receive federal funding. The three Hawaii Interstates (H1, H2, and H3) became Interstates as part of The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and National Defense Highways to protect the U.S. from a Soviet invasion by making it easier to get supplies from one military base to another.

[This answer comes from our "25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe" issue in 2004.]

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Comments (10)

  1. Is it true that one out of every five miles on any interstate highway must be straight so that military planes could land there if needed during an attack? Inquiring minds want to know!

    posted by Melissa on 5-11-2009 at 9:44 am

  2. NO, the legend about the American highway system being designed to be used for emergency airstrips in case of war is false.

    http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/airstrip.asp

    posted by EJ on 5-11-2009 at 9:55 am

  3. My kids were asking pretty much the same question when we were over in Hawaii this year; nice to see we gave them the correct answer.

    Canada has a version of this, at least they do out here on the West coast. Vancouver Island (which can only be reached by car via a two hour ferry ride from the mainland), has a section of the “Trans Canada Highway” running the length of the island. Of course it’s all because of funding issues but it did rather give me a laugh the first time I saw the signage!

    posted by Saffron on 5-11-2009 at 10:06 am

  4. Yes, Melissa, that’s the point of the Eisenhower Interstate System. The interstate system was actually cribbed from Germany’s Autobahn, which was built to facilitate easy movement between military bases.

    posted by AmyD on 5-11-2009 at 10:06 am

  5. There are several interstate highways that never leave their origin state.

    Interstate 45 runs from Downtown Dallas, Texas to the Gulf coast in Galveston.

    Interstate 4 runs from Tampa Florida east through Orlando to Daytona Beach.

    I am sure there are others.

    posted by Witty Nickname on 5-11-2009 at 10:26 am

  6. The tour guide on our trip to Pearl Harbor in 2006 pointed this unusual fact out. I felt all smart and stuff for knowing this today and on Monday to boot! :)

    posted by nihil on 5-11-2009 at 12:04 pm

  7. There’s a couple more in my neck of the woods:

    I-97 runs from the Baltimore Beltway to Annapolis, MD.

    I-99 runs through Altoona and State College in connecting I-80 to I-70/76 in PA.

    posted by John on 5-11-2009 at 12:15 pm

  8. Interstate [sic] 4 was always a particular annoyance, as a former Tampa resident. But I-45′s lack-of-inter-state-ness is especially egregious, since highways ending in 0 or 5 are supposed to be more major.

    posted by Curtis on 5-11-2009 at 12:23 pm

  9. Saffron – the Trans-Canada Highway does not run the entire length of Vancouver Island – just from Nanaimo to Victoria. The reason, of course, being that Victoria is our capital and therefore an appropriate place to start the TCH, and the mainland part of the highway goes to Horseshoe Bay in North Vancouver, from whence the ferries go to Nanaimo.

    Knowing is half the battle…

    posted by Jon. on 5-11-2009 at 1:27 pm

  10. I-12 in Louisiana runs from Baton Rouge to a few miles from the Mississippi border.

    posted by Lindsey on 5-11-2009 at 5:38 pm

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