Dual-purpose design for Interstate Highway

To support automobile and heavy truck traffic, interstate highways are also designed for use in military and civil guard operations within the United States, mainly troop movements.
One potential civil guard use of the Interstate highway system is for the urgent situation evacuation of cities in the event of a potential nuclear war. Although this use has not at all happened, the Interstate Highway System has been used to make easy evacuations in the face of hurricanes and other natural disasters. An alternative for maximizing throughput is to reverse the flow of traffic on one side so that all lanes become outbound lanes. Several Interstates in the South U.S., together with I-16 in Georgia, I-40 in North Carolina, I-65 in Alabama, and I-10 in Louisiana, are equipped and signed for reverse flow, with crossovers inland after most important interchanges to deal out much of the traffic. This is on the other hand not limited to Interstates; State Road 528 has the same setup in central Florida.
A widespread but false urban legend states that one out of all five miles of the Interstate highway system have to be built straight and flat, so as to be usable by aircraft during times of war. On the other hand, the Germans in World War II used the Autobahns for just such a purpose or target.

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