[at-l] The Other MacKaye Vision

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Kent Gardam wrote:
>
>Perhaps interstate highways was the inevitable
>"refinement" of this idea in our society.  But when I
>read the original quote from TXIIS what I thought of
>was more along the lines of the Natchez Trace or the
>Blue Ridge Parkway.
>

Or the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

If you read the quote provided by TXIIS, and then compare it to the specs 
for Interstate highways, you'll find little if any difference.  Keep in mind 
that MacKaye vehemently opposed the Blue Ridge Parkway - and Skyline Drive.  
So those in particular are NOT at all what he was talking about.

>MacKaye's I-roads were not narrow corridors exclusively for the passage of 
>cars and trucks, but broad public preserves with both roads and hiking 
>trails -- a totally different concept from the Eisenhower roads we have 
>ended up with.

I know you didn't write that - but I only have time for one post today 
before I head north for a trail crew. And this is it.

So ---- at no point in either article does MacKaye talk about "broad public 
preserves"  - or about trails.  In fact, he specifcally notes that roads and 
trails do NOT mix.  As I said before -

>But not everyone reads (or is willing to believe) "ALL" of what he wrote - 
>some just read those parts that support their own prejudices and ignore the 
>rest.

It applies here.

Finally - Robert Moses may or may not have had a small part in the 
Interstate system - but it was most certainly MacKaye's idea that others 
built on.

As for the "morally repugnant and shockingly naive." part - you REALLY, 
REALLY need to re-read the original AT proposal and figure out just exactly 
WHO - and HOW the Trail and all it's attendant infrastructure (as MacKaye 
proposed it to be) were supposed to have been built and maintained.  We 
fought a war, in some part, to free slaves - and MacKaye proposed the 
creation of an entirely new class of slave.  And he proposed it in the naive 
assumption that mining, farming and logging would be "FUN" for those who 
toiled in the factories and cities for most of the year.  Sorry, Bubba, but 
I know what mining, farming and logging are like --- and it ain't fun for 
more than one day.  And mostly not that long.

None of this, BTW, is a put-down of MacKaye - he was a product of the 
society he lived in.  But I think it's a damn shame when those who "defend" 
him make him into a one-dimensional character and then twist his words to 
fit their own personal agenda.  That implies an ignorance of history and of 
human nature that I find repugnant.  MacKaye was MUCH better - and MUCH more 
of a real human being than some people give him credit for.

Walk softly,
Jim

http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/