50 States, 50 Ways to Move, Stop 1 of 50
Remember the walker from Chapter 1 of my Research on Transport series, the one who wondered if he could cover the whole world on foot? Our first stop is a place where walking became one of the loudest sentences ever spoken.
On December 5, 1955, thousands of residents of Montgomery, Alabama stopped riding the city buses. They walked. They biked. They carpooled. The boycott lasted 381 days, until December 20, 1956 (National Archives). Nobody built a new machine to win that fight. People used their legs and their will.
Ten years later, in 1965, marchers walked the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. Today that road is the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, established by Congress on November 12, 1996 and managed by the National Park Service.
So Alabama is the right place to begin. Here, the freedom to move was not an idea. It was something people had to claim, step by step.
The Road Network
Here is how Alabama moves today. The figures below are from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Highway Statistics 2023.
- 100,223 miles of public roads: 70,218 rural and 30,005 urban.
- 1,004 miles of Interstate: 571 rural and 433 urban.
- The state highway agency owns 10,950 miles, about 11% of all public road miles. Yet those roads carry about 55% of the state’s daily vehicle travel.
- Counties own most of the network: 52,572 rural miles and 5,587 urban miles, 58,159 in total.
That last point echoes the lesson of Chapter 2 of my Research on Transport series. A few busy roads do most of the work, and a vast web of county roads connects everything else.
The Commute
In 2024, 80.8% of Alabama workers drove to work alone. The US figure was 69.2%. That makes Alabama the state with the second-highest share of solo drivers, behind only Mississippi at 81.2% (US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 1-year data, 2024).
Safety
Alabama recorded 974 traffic deaths in 2023, down slightly from 988 in 2022. Of the 2023 deaths, 283 (29%) involved alcohol-impaired driving (NHTSA).
The Bridges
Alabama has 16,181 bridges in the National Bridge Inventory (FHWA, 2026 release):
- Good: 5,591
- Fair: 10,062
- Poor: 528, or about 3.3%
The Port
Alabama’s gateway to the sea is the Port of Mobile. In October 2025, the Alabama Port Authority announced that the Mobile Ship Channel had reached its authorized 50-foot depth, and a ribbon-cutting followed on October 13, 2025. The state and federal $366 million Mobile Harbor Modernization Project, with the US Army Corps of Engineers, now makes it the deepest container port on the Gulf Coast.
The Highway That Turns Around
Alabama’s cleverest trick is one you hope never to see. When a hurricane heads for the Gulf Coast, the state can turn I-65 into a one-way road. Every lane from near Mobile up to Montgomery flows north, so evacuees get four lanes out instead of two. In past rehearsals, around 200 highway workers and state troopers have taken up positions at 24 checkpoints to make the switch safely, and the state practices it every year before hurricane season. The plan was drawn up after Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and used for Hurricane Ivan in 2004. Same road, same pavement, just a different direction.
Next stop: Alaska, where many places have no road at all.
Sources: FHWA Highway Statistics 2023 (Tables HM-10, HM-20, HM-81); NHTSA, Overview of Motor Vehicle Traffic Crashes in 2023 (Table 9); U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2024 via America’s Health Rankings; FHWA National Bridge Inventory, Bridge Condition by Highway System 2026; Alabama Port Authority announcements; ALDOT and National Weather Service I-65 contraflow information; Amtrak; National Archives; National Park Service.