Americas Highways History From 1776 To Modern Times Early Turnpike Era Roads Canals Motor Age Scientific Roadbuilding Federal Aid National Defense Interstate System Bridges Construction

This book has been written for a widely diversified audience--those interested in the general history of our Nation's highways and those whose interest might be more narrowly confined to matters relating to the technical aspects of highway transportation. It has been prepared in two parts--Part I deals with the broad subject of highway history from colonial days forward to the historic highway legislation of 1956; Part II deals separately and in some detail with the several areas of responsibility for administration, planning and research, design, construction and maintenance of highways and bridges, both foreign and domestic as authorized under the Federal highway legislation.The reader will note the changing reference to the name of the Federal unit assigned responsibility for the administration of the Federal-aid highway program--the original Office of Road Inquiry, the Bureau of Public Roads, the Public Roads Administration, again the Bureau of Public Roads, and finally the Federal Highway Administration. These changes in organization title are chronicled in Chapter I, Part II which covers the program administration through the years.America's Highways: History from 1776 * Part One * Chapter 1 - The Colonial Legacy * Chapter 2 - Early Turnpike Era * Chapter 3 - Early Federal Aid for Roads and Canals * Chapter 4 - The Age of Steam * Chapter 5 - The Good Roads Movement * Chapter 6 - Dawn of the Motor Age * Chapter 7 - The Beginning of Scientific Roadbuilding * Chapter 8 - The Drive for Federal Aid * Chapter 9 - Planning a Highway System * Chapter 10 - The Highway Boom * Chapter 11 - Roads for National Defense * Chapter 12 - Events Leading to Enactment of the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act * Part Two * Chapter 1 - Administration of the Federal-Aid Program * Chapter 2 - Finance and Economics * Chapter 3 - Planning * Chapter 4 - Research * Chapter 5 - Right-of-Way and Environment * Chapter 6 - Design * Chapter 7 - Bridges * Chapter 8 - Construction and Maintenance * Chapter 9 - Development of the Interstate Program * Chapter 10 - Construction in the Federal Domain * Chapter 11 - International Operations * Epilogue: The Success StoryThe economic growth of the United States in the 200 years of its existence and the record of individual prosperity achieved by its people in that brief period of time are attributable to the success of the transportation system developed during that period--a system almost totally dependent on the Nation's highways.This book has been written to record for posterity the story of highway development in the United States, beginning in the early years of the new Nation and expanding with the growing country as it moved into the undeveloped areas west of the original colonial States, and ultimately evolving into the Federal-aid highway program in which the State and Federal Governments have worked cooperatively and successfully for the past 60 years. It is a proud story and one that should be recorded.The book will make available for future highway transportation officials a documentation of earlier decisions and experiences which, up to this time, have been available only in scattered writings or in the individual knowledge and recollections of many of those involved directly in the Federal-aid highway program during this period of development and whose experiences have not previously been recorded.

The year 2006 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Interstate System, the most incredible road system in the world. Created by Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose WW II experiences taught him the necessity of a superhighway for military transport and evacuation in wartime, today's Interstate System is what connects our coasts and our borders, our cities and small towns. It's made possible our suburban lifestyle and caused the vast proliferation of businesses from HoJos to Holiday Inns. And if you order something online, most likely it's a truck barreling along an interstate that gets the product to your door. Written by bestselling author Dan McNichol, The Roads that Built America is the fascinating story of the largest engineering project the world has ever known.

Minnesota-based writer and photographer Kazynski traces the transformation of the US from a network of places connected by rutted wagon trails to a maze of highways connected to other highways. He describes and illustrates road and bridge construction and the new roadside culture that threw up motels, restaurants, gas stations, and scenic perspectives.

From the first rude ridgeways to the modern interstate highway, the evolution of the road is a fascinating story. Readers will learn the progression of roads from the first ridgeways, roads in the ancient world, Roman roads and the development of the revolutionary McAdam Road. American Indians developed an extensive system of trails for both trade and war. The pioneers used parts of these trails to blaze the first traces that penetrated the interior of the developing United States. Readers can also follow the progression of the United States highway system from the first named highways to the modern interstate system of roads first established in the late 1950's. pioneer, native american, trails, traces, united states, indian, early

Take your readers on a trip back in time with this engaging book about the history of the first U.S. transcontinental highway. The trip begins with Carl G. Fisher and his vision of the Lincoln Highway, and continues through the planning, construction, use, and legacy of the great road.

In The American Road Katherine M. Johnson develops a bold new theory for how the American highway system has taken on such outsized scale and complexity by emphasizing the emergence of a powerful administrative apparatus in the American federal system. Established in 1914 expressly to intervene in the congressional debates of the era, the American highway bureaucracy consisted of forty-eight state highway officials acting in and through their self-organized association, the American Association of State Highway Officials. Johnson’s central argument is that this new institution occupied a similar position relative to the American state as political parties and courts did. The capacity to organize across a complex constitutional order enabled it to control the purpose and allocation of federal highway aid for the better part of the twentieth century. Johnson investigates this new conception of the American highway bureaucracy, showing specifically where and how that extraconstitutional authority emerged, expanded, and manifested itself in the legislative history, physical dimensions, and geographical reach of the emerging highway system. The American Road reveals that all of the major highway legislation approved by Congress from 1916 to 1941 was collectively developed and advanced by state and federal highway bureaucrats drawing on the new authority conferred by the system of federal grants-in-aid, which required state legislatures to provide a state matching grant and local governments to relinquish control over decisions of location and design. The capacity to advance their policy aims through both the advice of experts and the will of the states not only secured the new highway program against renewed opposition in Congress in the 1920s but also won the strong support of the motor vehicle industry and set the stage for even more impressive policy gains of the 1930s when highways became the largest category of federal emergency public works. That collective authority, however, required a high threshold of consensus to secure and maintain, producing not just a narrow one-size-fits-all approach to technical issues but also a striking incapacity to respond to changing conditions. Johnson completes her compelling narrative by identifying the source of the interstate highway plan, first proposed in 1939 and finally funded in 1956, in the internal dynamics of and external threats to that extraconstitutional authority.

In 1956, after much planning and compromise, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act, creating the interstate highway system, a project which transformed America forever. As our Country entered the 20th century, good roads, even paved roads, weren't common. Plans for a national system of expressways were developed in 1944 by the National Highway Committee. Congress designated the 40,000 mile national system of interstate highways in 1944, but funding would not be authorized until 1952, when President Harry Truman signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1952, offering a token down payment of $25 million for the interstates. However, it would be up to the next President, President Dwight David Eisenhower, to lead the campaign for the Nation's interstate system. President Eisenhower made it a keystone of his domestic agenda when he was elected to office in 1953. He envisaged a new, tax-based financing plan with the Federal Government bearing the largest share of construction costs. Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act without fanfare, in a hospital room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was recovering from illness. Today, Americans continue to reap the benefits of that legislation. The wide, relatively straight roadways in the interstate highway system were designed to be faster and safer than the two-lane roads that preceded them. In fact, the interstate system is the safest road system in America.

This report, prepared by the Public Works Historical Society with some minor editing by AASHTO, outlines the origins of the Interstate and Defense Highway System, the early years of its implementation, and the challenges and adjustments required in its completion.

Relates the history of the conception and building of the Interstate Highway System and its affect on the American lifestyle.