The big roads: the untold story of the engineers, visionaries, and trailblazers who created the American superhighways

Abstract

The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways is the largest public works project in history. In this fascinating history of the creation of these Big Roads the author reveals how Americans changed dirt tracks to expressways in less than a century. The story includes the profiles of those who played major roles in this process, including Carl Fisher, Thomas MacDonald, Lewis Mumford, and Joe Wiles. The story also includes the unwanted and unforeseen consequences of these Big Roads such as the slow death of small-town main streets and the rise of sprawl and edge cities; the unbroken chain of chain restaurants and box stores that highways helped to forge; the disruptive effect of freeways on urban life; ordinary citizens at the mercy of a governmental road-building juggernaut; and the environmental effects these routes continue to have. All of this and more can be found in the four parts of this book, entitled (I) Out of the Mud, (II) Connecting the Dots, (III) The Crooked Straight, the Rough Places Plain, and (IV) The Human Obstacle.