Model Ts coming off the assembly line around the turn of the 20th century . These relatively inexpensive cars led to the demand for better roads on which to travel .
• recognized the need for full cooperation among representatives of the federal , state and municipal governments .
The bill authorized a federal contribution of more than $ 1.5 billion for construction over a three-year period , dividing those dollars among interstate highways , Federal-Aid roads , state roads , secondary feeder systems and local urban routes . MacDonald ’ s agency ( once again renamed as the Public Roads Administration and now in the Federal Works Agency ) would supervise and administer this massive public works project .
The national agenda immediately after World War II included initiatives such as retooling the manufacturing sector to produce long-delayed consumer goods , building houses for returning veterans and their families and catching up on deferred maintenance on the nation ’ s roadways . Unfortunately , and perhaps surprisingly , the agenda did not include acting quickly to develop the interstate highway system . It took until August 1947 for the PRA and the states to identify the 37,681 miles of roads that would constitute that network .
In 1948 , President Harry Truman shortchanged the national highway system in his budget , believing it was necessary to constrain the costs of this inflationary program . By mid-1950 , the President and Congress were ready to turn on the money tap for road building , and even to increase the federal share of the costs from the traditional 50 % to 75 %. However , North Korea ’ s invasion of South Korea pushed that idea into limbo . The President asked Congress to restrain all non-defense expenditures . It would not be until late 1952 when Congress again was ready to consider federal funding for a new Interstate Highway System .
President Dwight D . Eisenhower entered office in January 1953 with a good understanding of the need for better highways . He had participated in the US Army ’ s investigational 1919 convoy across the United States and had seen how the poor condition of its roadways hampered the military ’ s ability to move troops and equipment . He was also familiar with the network of autobahns in Germany that helped a more heavily mobilized Army traverse that country in 1945 . In 1954 , the President asked a committee headed by General Lucius D . Clay to work with the nation ’ s governors to develop a comprehensive plan for a system of highways to meet the needs identified in the 1944 Interregional report and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of that year .
Library of Congress
Both the Clay Committee and a special Governors Committee endorsed the need for an improved highway network like the one identified in 1947 . Their reports to the President and Congress cited reasons of safety , traffic congestion , worn-out road surfaces , national defense and both population and economic growth as reasons to act promptly . Congressional hearings in 1955 revealed widespread agreement over the need for action , but also unearthed serious concerns over the potential $ 100 billion cost of funding a new interstate system and the existing Federal-Aid system , as well as various state and local road networks . It took another year of discussing alternatives before Congress adopted the idea of using highway user taxes to fund a new self-liquidating Highway Trust Fund within the US Treasury . With that plan in place , President Eisenhower was ready to sign the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 in July .
It had taken four decades for all parties to agree on the description of a viable interstate highway system that promised to meet many national needs . It would take several more to build the majority of the 41,000 miles of highways initially identified as key components of the interstate system , and for both its builders and users to understand the positive and negative effects of that program .
Michael A . Martorelli is a Director Emeritus at Fairmount Partners and a frequent contributor to Financial History . He earned his MA in History from American Military University .
Sources
Seely , Bruce E . Building the American Highway System : Engineers as Policy Makers . Temple University Press . 1987 .
Swift , Earl . The Big Roads : The Untold Story of the Engineers , Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt . 2011 .
US Department of Transportation . Federal Highway Administration . Highway History : The Interstate System . https :// www . fhwa . dot . gov / highwayhistory / interstate . cfm
US Department of Transportation . Federal Highway Administration . America ’ s Highways 1776 – 1976 : A History of the Federal-Aid Program . Washington , DC : Government Printing Office . 1976 .
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