Resistance in Omaha
Freeway Supporters
Omaha’s urban expressway advocates were mostly comprised of state and city officials, downtown and South Omaha business leaders, and the Omaha World-Herald, all of which believed that the Interstate Highway was critical to maintain Omaha’s industrial economy, reinvigorate downtown’s central business district, and foster connections with they city's rapidly expanding suburbs. Interstate advocates typically favored urban renewal and the defeated Omaha Plan proposal in 1958. After the Taxpayers Plan’s overwhelming victory against the Omaha Plan, freeway supporters carefully framed their advocacy for the interstate in 1959 and 1960, learning to counter critiques of eminent domain by arguing that Interstates would be a public good benefiting the entire community.
Although many South Omaha homeowners opposed the urban Interstate routes and instead favored the Interstate bypassing the city, South Omaha’s stockyard business leaders and labor unions became strong advocates for the urban Interstate and the South Expressway connection. The stockyards and packing plants that flourished on the south side provided thousands of jobs to working-class Omahans. In the 1950s, South Omaha’s immense stockyards surpassed Chicago as the largest stockyards in the nation. The presidents of the Union Stock Yard Co. and the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) warned that without urban expressways connecting South Omaha to the interstate, livestock shipments would very likely decrease. They feared that should Omaha not build urban freeways that the city would suffer a fate similar to that of Chicago, where roadway congestion had choked off the city’s access to livestock shippers. The United Stock Yard Co. president, Harry B. Coffee, noted that nineteen local meatpacking companies relied on the stockyards for its supply of livestock where 92.3 percent arrived in Omaha by truck and with as many as 2,700 trucks arriving each day. The UPWA cautioned that the livelihoods of 10,000 to 12,000 families were in jeopardy without efficient ways to receive and ship livestock in and out of Omaha (“Backing Route: Packing Industry Steps In,” South Omaha Sun, 30 April 1959). While the Taxpayers Plan was largely a working-class organization, Omaha’s organized labor aligned themselves with freeway advocates and opposed the Taxpayers Plan’s efforts.
As the Taxpayers Plan prepared to fight the interstate, city and state officials quickly responded to deflect critiques and build city-wide support through the front pages of local newspapers. Officials at the Highway Department argued that they provided a year-and-a-half advance notice of freeway right-of-way acquisitions and that they held a public meeting in January 1958, pointing out that it was the only mandated public meeting required by law and that official notice was not required to be sent to affected individuals (“Interstate Story—‘It Will’—‘It Won’t’: City Continues Plans to Use ‘Key’ Route,” South Omaha Sun, 16 April 1959). City and state planning officials also made community outreach efforts by establishing neighborhood relocation offices and investigated the use of FHA home loans to finance the moves of those displaced (“Omaha Asks FHA to Help,” Omaha World-Herald, 11 February 1960).
Furthermore, interstate advocates argued that unlike the Omaha Plan, the federal government funded ninety percent of the Interstate’s expense and state taxes, not city bonds, would pay the remaining ten percent. State Senator Michael Russillo, a former manager of the Chamber of Commerce’s Highway Development Department and City Planner Alden Aust both explained this cost factor to Omahans. Russillo defended the urban routes and critiqued what he called the Taxpayers Plan’s “half truths” that “played on the emotions of those...who do not like to lose their homes.” He also attempted to counter misconceptions about who would use the interstate, clarifying that traffic projections suggested that more than eighty percent of the interstate’s traffic would be used by local traffic and not only seventeen percent as the Taxpayers claimed. Pointing out that ninety percent of the interstate’s cost was federally-funded, he argued that the only local expense would be to improve the city’s thoroughfares connecting to the interstate. Russillo explained that all major metropolitan areas have had urban routes planned since the Bureau of Public Roads’ 1955 report and warned Omahans that if the city rejected the proposed Interstate route in favor of the bypass advocated by the Taxpayer’s Plan, and Omaha later decided to build expressways connecting its industrial centers to Interstates outside of town, he argued that the city would be required to pay at least fifty percent or more of the expense (“Russillo—Opponents ‘Give Half Truth’—Senator Hits Taxpayers Plan,” South Omaha Sun, 23 April 1959).
City Planner Alden Aust likewise claimed that the Interstate was necessary to provide connections to Omaha’s sprawling South Omaha stockyards and downtown wholesalers. Without adequate highway connections, he suggested, these industries risked losing access to their markets. Aust also highlighted the federal government’s share of the cost, noting that if the interstate was rerouted around Omaha taxpayers would have to spend an estimated $50 to $60 million dollars without federal and state subsidies for future expressways connecting Omaha’s industrial districts to the interstate (“Interstate Route Shift Would Cost 50 Millions,” South Omaha Sun, 19 March 1959). Russillo and Aust, both assuming that urban expressways were inevitable and a critical component of Omaha’s infrastructure, reasoned that the current routes were the most cost effective plan.
In the realm of public media, the Omaha World-Herald opposed the Taxpayers Plan. World-Herald staff editorials labeled freeway opponents a small but vocal minority within the estimated one thousand families who faced relocation and stood to block the rights of “99 thousand other families” that could benefit from the urban Interstate. The World-Herald argued that the urban Interstate route represented the greatest good for the greatest number of Omahans and defended the state’s use of eminent domain for “the progress of an industrialized society” (“The 99 Thousand,” Omaha World-Herald, 26 April 1959; “Eminent Domain,” Omaha World-Herald, 2 May 1959). The World-Herald also weighed in on the Taxpayers Plan’s proposal to have the Interstate bypass Omaha, reporting that a BPR study found in cities similar in size to Omaha “only 12 out of one hundred drivers prefer” bypass routes, arguing that freeways’ primary users would be locals (“‘Controversy...Wasteful’,” Omaha World-Herald, 2 May 1959). The World-Herald’s news coverage also recognized that Omahans facing displacement were not unified in opposition. Many instead merely wanted to know when their families needed to move and if they could move affordably. Other families used displacement as an impetus to move beyond Omaha’s older neighborhoods to newer housing in suburban communities.
Urban freeways found strong support among city and state officials, major business interests, organized labor, and local media, all of which believed the Interstate was necessity for Omaha’s industrial economy to remain viable. Without sympathetic and influential government leaders, or major media support, the Taxpayers Plan’s efforts faced difficulty in mobilizing public opinion in their favor. Moreover, freeway advocates presented arguments that the urban Interstate would be a public good, benefit the stockyards and its workers, preserve jobs, and cost taxpayers less money by building the Interstate in the city and to serve present and future metropolitan traffic needs. These arguments created an uphill struggle difficult for the Taxpayers Plan to surmount.