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Just as earlier residents had imagined covered bridges, trolley systems, massive concrete viaducts, and throughways tying together the disparate communities of the Lehigh Valley, for postwar boosters a modern airport seemed to be both an economic boon and the ultimate regional unifier. As early as the 1920s, Allentown's businessmen were captivated by the prospect of a new municipal airport connected to an improved surface transportation network. John Cutshall, an Allentown attorney opined in February of 1929 that a modern airport was needed "in order that Allentown may reap its share of the new business that will accrue from this new form of shipping and travel."[14] Although the valley was peppered with small airfields and strips catering to amateur aviators and small propeller-driven cargo planes, the region lacked an airport of sufficient size to draw major freight and passenger carriers. By the summer of 1948 leaders from both Bethlehem and Allentown, organized as the Lehigh Airport Authority, broke ground on a million dollar improvement to the preexisting Allentown-Bethlehem Airport by the end of the summer Easton had joined the Authority. The airport, opined the Allentown Morning Call, was becoming a truly regional institution and the cooperative process "an encouragement to those who would have general understanding in other matters."[15] The Easton Express made the realization that "the Lehigh Valley section is in effect actually one large metropolitan area. As far as the airport is concerned, any progress and added business is bound to have good effect on the whole area."[16]
With the construction of the Throughway, I-78, and the Northeast Extension passenger rail and trolley systems withered as the Lehigh Valley became almost totally wedded to the convenience of the automobile. By the late 1950s, nearly every major railroad serving the region was curtailing its service, abandoning track, and dispensing with station property. In 1959 the Central Railroad of New Jersey ceased its service to Bethlehem and two years later the Lehigh Valley Railroad ended its passenger service altogether. In a grim demonstration of the failing fortunes of Asa Packer's road, the Lehigh Valley Railroad station in Allentown was demolished in 1962. Until its bankruptcy in 1976, the Reading Railroad continued to offeralbeit infrequentconnections from Allentown and Bethlehem to Philadelphia. Even then, Conrail continued to operate service to Allentown under contract from the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) until 1979. Two years later, however, SEPTA abandoned its service to Bethlehem and a region once tied to steel rails and railroading was without passenger service.[17]
With the automobile and express highways Lehigh Valley residents may have found transportation convenience, but its road networks have spurred unprecedented residential and commercial development and reawakened interest in new modes of transportation and growth control. Just as 18th century settlers' distance and self-interestedness prevented connectivity, political fragmentation of the Lehigh Valley has prevented the region from coherently responding to challenges brought by changing modes of transport. It remains to be seen whether automobile fatigue or frustration with new growth will counter unrestricted development: development made possible by the construction of throughways, divided highways, and interstates.
