Transportation Economics in the 21st Century - Highway Data

1.  The Pershing Map

Commissioned in 1922 by the Bureau of Public Roads, the Pershing Map showed the most important U.S. roads for public defense in the event of war. It is the first official roadmap of the U.S. and many of the roads were  incorporated into the federal highway system. 

Maps provided by Stephen J. Redding and Nathaniel Baum-Snow

• Small Map 
• High Resolution Map 

As used in: Michaels, Guy, Ferdinand Rauch, and Stephen Redding. “Task Specialization in U.S. Cities from 1880-2000", Journal of the European Economic Association, 17(3),754-798, 2019.

2. PR-511 data, The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways, Dept. of Transportation

Data outlining highway segments funded by the 1956 Federal Highways Act, other federally funded segments, locally funded segments, and toll segments for highway miles constructed between 1950 and 1990.

Provided by Nathaniel Baum-Snow.

• Original PDFs and Excel Data
• Stata.dta
• Stata.do

As used in: Baum-Snow, Nathaniel (2006) “Did Highways Cause Suburbanization?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(2), 775-805.

3.  Interstate highway segment openings from the FHWA PR-511 data. 

Data cataloguing the dates in which segments of the U.S. interstate highway opened, including whether the interstate replaced old routes. Shares completed available at the county or corridor level.  

Provided by Thomas Hubbard. 

• Openings and Route Replacement 
• Corridor Data

As used in: Hubbard, Thomas N., and Michael J. Mazzeo. 2019. "When Demand Increases Cause Shakeouts." American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 11 (4): 216-49.

4.  Highway Performance Monitoring System, Dept. of Transportation

Annual US road segment data providing length, number of lanes, number of vehicles per lane per day for the universe of the interstate highway system. Available from 1980.

Provided by Matthew Turner.

• Data (1980-2008)
• Data (2011-2017)

As used in: Duranton, Gilles and Matthew A. Turner (2011) “The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities,” American Economic Review, 101(6), 2616-52.

5.  National Highway Planning Network, Dept. of Transportation

Map of the interstate highway network as of 2005.

Provided by Matthew Turner.

• Data (as of 2005)

As used in: Duranton, Gilles, Morrow, Peter M., and Matthew A. Turner (2014) “Roads and Trade: Evidence from the US,” The Review of Economic Studies, 81(2), 681-724.

6. Costs of U.S. highway infrastructure

Data on real spending per new mile for the U.S. Interstate Highway System from 1958-1993.

Data provided by Leah Brooks and Zachary Liscow

• Replication archive containing data and code

As used in: Leah Brooks and Zachary Liscow (2023) “Infrastructure Costs,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 15(2), 1-30.

7. Shapefile for the 1947 U.S. Interstate Highway Plan

Shapefile for the 1947 U.S. Interstate Highway Plan with census tract-level detail provided by Jeffrey Brinkman and Jeffrey Lin.

• Zip archive containing shapefile

As used in: Brinkman, Jeffrey and Jeffrey Lin (2023) “Freeway Revolts! The Quality of Life Effects of Highways,” Review of Economics and Statistics, accepted for publication.