The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways: The Road to Success?.
2010; Society for History Education; Volume: 44; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1945-2292
Autores Tópico(s)American Constitutional Law and Politics
ResumoTHE DwIgHT D. EISENHOwER National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was an innovation that changed America. The highway system, the greatest public works project in American history, made travel faster, easier, and safer. However, there were serious negative effects of the highways; they hindered the growth of cities, destroyed neighborhoods, and hurt the environment. As historian Evan Bennett asked, were they “highways to heaven or roads to ruin?” (Bennett 451). The ground-breaking Interstate Highway System had elements of both. After 1903, when Henry Ford put the automobile on the market, America needed new roads. In the early 1900s, the Office of Road Inquiry estimated that only 12% of roads in the United States were paved. The majority were dirt or mud, so cars rarely exceeded 25 miles per hour. Urged by lobbyists, state and local governments decided that a better road system was needed (Murphy 13-17). President woodrow wilson signed the Federal-Aid Road Highway Act in 1916, creating the Bureau of Public Roads. The Act allotted $75 million over the next five years to states that formed a highway department and used state funds to pay fifty percent of the cost. The act was slow to take effect. In 1919, Thomas H. MacDonald, a highway engineer, was appointed chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, and remained in that position for almost forty years. Between 1916 and 1919, the Bureau distributed merely half a million dollars, and only 12.5 miles of road were paved (Murphy 20-21).
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