The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

Sep 16, 2012 Marks54 rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a detailed history of how the US highway system developed in the 20th century, with a focus on the Interstate Highways. It draws together a large numbers of facts and factoids that are well known by nearly everyone who has done cross country driving but which I have never seen put together in a detailed, well written story focused on the roads themselves. If you like to drive and love trivia, this is the book for you. To start with, you will learn that Eisenhower had much less to do with...more

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Feb 13, 2013 james rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an excellent chronicle of the developement of our great network of local roads up through the Interstate highway system. The book relates a very interesting story:

The most direct transportation route from Needles, CA on the Colorado River to Barstow across the Mohave Desert (approx 140 miles) is blocked by the Bristol Mtns. The Santa Fe RR, in the latter part of the 19th century ran its route around the Bristols going about 20 miles out of the way. The highway, which became the storied...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book takes a nice long view of the development of the interstate highway system in America. And he takes a lot of shots at Eisenhower in the process. I got the feeling that the author was claiming that Ike had a heart attack to avoid his 1956 state of the union address (page 181), and that somehow he deserves blame for his sister-in-law's passing away (page 160). At first, I thought some of this was irony, but although I didn't mind the jabs, I noticed them and wondered how fair at least tho...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Converse rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: travel, technology, politics, non-fiction, engineering

I was surprised to learn that the idea of a interstate highway system, and much of the route planning, long pre-dated the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, during which the act of Congress that funded the project. Probably the most influential person behind the details of the project was Thomas Harris MacDonald, an engineer who spent decades working for the federal government. President Franklin Roosevelt had requested a plan for interstates in the late 1930s. MacDonald's plan, given in respo

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I was surprised to learn that the idea of a interstate highway system, and much of the route planning, long pre-dated the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, during which the act of Congress that funded the project. Probably the most influential person behind the details of the project was Thomas Harris MacDonald, an engineer who spent decades working for the federal government. President Franklin Roosevelt had requested a plan for interstates in the late 1930s. MacDonald's plan, given in response to this proposal and a request from Congress, differed in that it placed much more emphasis on freeways in and around cities rather than the routes crossing the countryside, because most of the traffic is around cities. Another government enginner, Frank Turner, oversaw much of the actual construction from the Eisenhower administration into Nixon's first term.

The interstate program has a pre-history. Carl Fisher, an Indianapolis businessman and one of the builders of the Indianoplis speedway, created the Lincoln Highway Association, a group of businessman with an interest in better roads (makers of automobiles and tires for example) who would purchase materials for those state and local governments who would contractually agree to provide the labor to build or improve roads, in order to provide a road from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This group appeared shortly before World War One and persisted into the late 1920s, at which time it was wrapped up due to increased government construction and funding. The increased funding resulted from the Federal Highway Act of 1921. What we would recognize as restricted access freeways were increasing advocated by a number of people in the late 1920s, including such unlikely people as Brenton MacKaye, one of the people behind the Appalachian Trail, and the architectual critic Lewis Mumford. Mumford later forcefull recanted his views and became a noted freeway critic in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The attempts to build interstates into built-up areas resulted in considerable opposition in the 1960s, opposition which gained some support in federal legislation in the 1960s. The author, Earl Swift, uses Baltimore as an extended example of the racial, ethnic, greenspace, and historical preservation aspects of this opposition. These issues, combined with increased environmental issues, made Frank Turner's last years in office more difficult. Turner, who appears to have had many admirable qualities, was perhaps too much of an engineer and technocrat to be the best person to cope with this new social landscape. Ironically, Turner could speak from personal experience of the unpleasantness of having freeways located near one's property, as his house lot was nicked by a freeway and his parents had to move because of state funded highway project in Fort Worth. Turner generally took the bus to work.

I think the main problem with the highway project is that it assumed that traffic patterns would remain static as these freeways were built. It assumed that commuting from the edge of the city to its center would remain the dominant commuting pattern. In fact, building these freeways reduced the cost, at least in terms of time, of locating outside the city center and encouraged a dispersed pattern of housing, commerce, and industry.

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May 04, 2012 Socraticgadfly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Eisenhower invented the interstate highway system and idea after being influenced by German autobahns at the end of World War II, right?

Wrong. Wrong, Wrong.

In fact, pre-WWII, bureaucrats in FDR’s government crafted the basic ideas, both in terms of routes, and safety/engineering, that became today’s interstates.

That’s just one of many things you’ll learn. (Another is that, in terms of refusal to do in-depth policy reading, Ike was the Ronnie Reagan of his day.)

You’ll learn about how, already by...more

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May 03, 2012 April rated it 5 of 5 stars

I geeked out on this book. It clears all misconceptions about what I've heard people say about the freeway in their city (oh this was the first freeway ever, created by Hoover for war transportation..). Not surprisingly - I've heard this from more than one person in more than one city.

From when I was a child, my father explained to me that even number freeways go east/west & odd number ones go north/south. Ever since then, I've been aware of the massiveness of concrete that stretches in ever...more

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Jan 13, 2013 Lynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: a-classic, history-books, non-fiction, travel

The story of modern road building begins in the late 19th century when bicycles and motor vehicles were invented. Horses and cattle left manure and urine in the road along with potholes prevented bicyclists from safely from using them. Men like Carl Fisher from Indianapolis who loved bicycles and motor vehicles planned roads and experimented with different kinds of asphalt for road building. Thomas MacDonald, an engineer from Iowa had the perspective of being able to troubleshoot when people att...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Joe Miguez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Carl Fisher. Jersey barriers. VOLPE v. Volpe. Zolene. I love reading books that highlight just how little I know about important parts of our culture. And there's probably no larger, more central, more important piece of American culture than our roads and highways. They're the skeleton over which our cities and towns are stretched, and the circulation system that delivers what clothes, feeds, and fuels us. Earl Swift's "The Big Roads" provides a sweeping history of the American system of roads...more Carl Fisher. Jersey barriers. VOLPE v. Volpe. Zolene. I love reading books that highlight just how little I know about important parts of our culture. And there's probably no larger, more central, more important piece of American culture than our roads and highways. They're the skeleton over which our cities and towns are stretched, and the circulation system that delivers what clothes, feeds, and fuels us. Earl Swift's "The Big Roads" provides a sweeping history of the American system of roads and interstate highways (focusing, as its title suggests, primarily on the latter). Reading about roads? Sounds boring, right? And if I told you Swift chose to base much of the story around the engineers and technocrats who perfected the road technology and, later, led the government's efforts to create an interstate system, you'd probably say thanks, but no thanks, to that surefire bridge to Yawnsville. But somehow, it all works. For anyone who's ever enjoyed a long, smooth, mostly uninterrupted drive across a vast stretch of the continent, this book is required reading. For anyone interested in how our federal and state governments have in the past worked together, politics notwithstanding, for the betterment of all (an alien concept these days, it seems), here's a book for you. And for anyone who simply likes a good, rollicking history filled with interesting characters, 'I-had-no-idea' revelations, and the sort of cool trivia you can bust out at parties to impress friends, this is a book you'll enjoy. Swift's prose is solid if unspectacular, and he has a good eye for apt anecdotes about key characters or events. But the underlying story is what carries this book. I'll never again drive those 18 miles of I-10 that pass over the Atchafalaya Swamp, or sit in agony on the upper or lower decks of I-35 in Austin, or navigate any spaghetti junction in any big American city, without a figurative tip of the hat to those who designed and built them, and who had the creativity to dream them up in the first place.(less)

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Feb 10, 2012 Doug Cornelius rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

I admit that I have a fascination with infrastructure. It seems so natural that I could jump in my car in Boston and be in Florida 24 hours later. I'm already forgetting the snarls and confusion in Boston during the Big Dig and the new harbor tunnel.

At the dawn of the automobile age, cross-country travel was virtually impossible for the average person. Actually, travelling outside the city was not much easier.

The Big Roads traces the development of the modern interstate through the eyes of some...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Andrew Liptak rated it 5 of 5 stars

This morning, I pulled out of my driveway and angled down U.S. Route 2, shifting onto VT Route 12 and through the hills of Berlin and Northfield to work. Tonight, I'll likely make my way back on the same route, but I very well might take I-89N up from Northfield to Berlin. Never once, in any of the hundreds of trips that I've made along that route, have I ever seriously wondered where the roads came from. They've always been there, for better or for worse, and they make up the foundation upon wh...more This morning, I pulled out of my driveway and angled down U.S. Route 2, shifting onto VT Route 12 and through the hills of Berlin and Northfield to work. Tonight, I'll likely make my way back on the same route, but I very well might take I-89N up from Northfield to Berlin. Never once, in any of the hundreds of trips that I've made along that route, have I ever seriously wondered where the roads came from. They've always been there, for better or for worse, and they make up the foundation upon which our modern lives exist. Earl Swift's latest book, The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways, is a grand story that I've long wanted to read about: the development of the American highway and interstate system.

Despite the title about this being a history of the superhighway system, Swift's book looks to the development of the entire vehicular road system in the United States, deftly weaving together a story that looks at the rise of the automobile, its influence on urban development and the growth of commerce in the United States over the last century. This is a book that could easily be a dry tome, mired in the tiny details at the weed level. The focus is on the personalities, however, where unassuming men shaped the character of the country: Thomas "The Chief" MacDonald, Herbert Sinclair Fairbank, and Frank Turner, all people you've likely never heard of. Swift balances neatly the personal lives of each man (and from all accounts, he really did his homework, going the extra mile, so to speak, to look into how the men were motivated) with how they each influenced the way we drive around.

At the turn of the 20th century, driving was a nightmare for urban areas. Horses and bicycles were widely used within cities, and the first cars were primitive, dangerous contraptions that were hard to use at the best of road conditions. However, due to several motivated salesmen, cars became popular: the early days of racing sprang up, cars with wheels, a seat, steering, an engine, and not much else. As the demand for cars rose, so did the political pressure for a better road network, something that many notable politicians (including President Harry Truman), built their careers on.

The development of the United State's infrastructure seems to have come in a couple of stages: the commonly agreed upon problem of poor roads in the country and the city brought about an interesting case for the influence of federal vs. state government interaction: a massive, national project such as the first highway system (the two lane roads that criss-cross the nation) is enormously expensive, and something largely outside of what the states could afford. The process in which the money came around, but also the construction and standardization of the roadways largely follows MacDonald, who's vision carried the country forward by eventually linking the East and West coasts by a single, uniform road network. Once a dangerous endeavor that took weeks, it soon took just days, with little danger other than from one's fellow drivers.

The development of the US Highway system shaped just how we drive as well: the development of headlights, improved safety features and the types of vehicles that were built all came as a result of just how the American public itself changed as a result of the new freedom of mobility that the new roads offered them. At the same time, the changes in cars allowed for continued changes in just how the roads were designed: new methods for building, as well as the best colors to paint signs, and an entirely new standard design for the signs and features along the highway system.

The monumental and extraordinary growth in car ownership from the turn of the century to the mid-1950s meant that the roads designed to link together the nation were overtaxed, overcrowded and clogged with traffic jams. Swift notes that the infrastructure simply wasn't designed to hold the volume, which led to practical problems within cities. The traffic jams of today apparently can't compare to what it was like at that time, with too many cars flooding too few (or too small streets), partially due to missed assumptions on the growth of the automobile industry, but also some fundamental basics to how roads attract drivers and how people themselves drive.

Where MacDonald took over for the first major phase of the highway system, his retirement lead to the rise of one of his associates, Frank Turner, who got his start under MacDonald. Turner helped to shepherd a newly designed style of highway into the country to help ease the numerous traffic problems throughout the country. The superhighway system is radically different from the regular highway system: seperated from other roads, with limited access, higher speeds and designed to bring people in and out of cities and across the country. As Swift recounts the development and political wrangling that occurred, we're introduced to a new element of highway development: land use and the necessity to destroy thousands of homes and businesses in cities in place of roadway. Protests, political stalling and civic activism arises, further changing the system. Ever wonder why Baltimore doesn't have a highway running through it?

If there's any flaw with the book, it's the treatment of President Dwight Eisenhower, for whom the entire network is named for. Swift goes out of his way to denigrate the President, pointing out almost every instance of where he was on vacation or away while vital decisions were made. While I've no issue with the critical element here, I do have to wonder if the careful research present in all of the other elements of the book are present on the highest level: I can't fathom that Eisenhower was completely in the dark for all of the elements, as he alleges. That being said, it's a good historical example how how enormously complicated things work: the groundwork is often laid far in advance of when things get going: this is certainly the case for the roads, with all of the right people, research and motivation moving along and ramping up in the first half of the 20th century, before coming into fruition under the Eisenhower Administration, and finally completed by 1992.

Swift closes the book with a warning: the highway system, as monumental and fundamental as it is, isn't designed forever, and with further increases in traffic volume around the country, we're quickly running up to the point in time where large-scale problems will start to arise. Hundreds of bridges are dangerous, damaged or out of date, and road surfaces are in continual need for improvement. While this is the case, the entire system will need a large influx of investment in the coming decades, numbering in the hundreds of billions of dollars, while decreasing revenue is bringing in insufficient money to keep up with the demand. The golden age of roads may be coming to an end, but the system will last far into the future.

The Big Roads is a fantastic book that delves into American's history and its character. Swift has done an impressive job in telling stories within stories, shedding an interesting light on the nature of the mid-20th century. It's exciting, exhilarating, and interesting throughout, with a bright cast of characters doing what very well might have been impossible, while building something that has made the country what it is today.

Originally posted to my blog.
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Sep 04, 2012 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, cartography-maps

Living here in Boston, Somerville in particular, it's not hard to see the bones of the grand plan for interstaes through the city. I-93 is eyesore enought (even after the Big Dig), but the unmet plans for the Inner Belt are just horrific. The question inevitably pops to mind, what were they thinking?

This book presents the interstates as an obvious growth out of earlier plans for national road systems. Each step logically followed and the technocrats (I say that in a non-disparaging way) who work...more Living here in Boston, Somerville in particular, it's not hard to see the bones of the grand plan for interstaes through the city. I-93 is eyesore enought (even after the Big Dig), but the unmet plans for the Inner Belt are just horrific. The question inevitably pops to mind, what were they thinking?

This book presents the interstates as an obvious growth out of earlier plans for national road systems. Each step logically followed and the technocrats (I say that in a non-disparaging way) who worked to build each iteration (never quite finishing one system or route before being asked to build, fix, or improve a new one) had the best statistics and science of the time on their side.

What is amazing is how large thier blinders were. The assumption was that the American people were drivers. Drivers want roads. They want fast, safe roads that take them to their destinations. They want these roads as cheaply as possible.

It just didn't occur to these besuited engineers that there are people besides drivers. It didn't occur to them that those who would feel more negative impact than positive impact of a highway would complain. It didn't occur to them that driving down property values and targetting slums and minority neighborhoods for demolition would have ripple effects beyond the money saved in the short-term. Most importantly, it didn't occur to these men that the very act of building anew road would render all their carefully gathered statistics moot.

The interstaes are hugely powerful engines for the economy. They have changed every aspect of American life and culture - hell they in large part created (along with TV) a single culture that can truly be considered "American." It seems now that there is a backlash as people seek a sense of place; not just an idea of regionalism in the US, but a knowledge of local food, local business, local culture. No one is (seriously) advocating ripping-up all the roads, but maybe we Americans should be willing to venture beyond the rest-stop and exit ramp to see what else there is in our world.(less)

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Mar 19, 2012 Diane rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction, technology

I like history of technology and was excited to read this book - however, the author covers very little about technology and engineering and focuses instead on the politics. When he does look at the technology I was fascinated - did you know that using nuclear explosion was seriously considered as a way to make tunnels? The book itself was a bit of a disappointment because of the lack of information on technology but it did bring back a lot of personal memories. I grew up taking long driving vac...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: real-world

Perhaps some of it should have remained untold? The first half of this book is interesting but also tedious at times. Swift's main point is that Eisenhower is not the creator of the interstate system as we know it. It was already in place and going to happen when he took office, unbeknownst to him. The current system was created by FDR and a highway bureaucrat named MacDonald or simply the Chief. The Chief's subordinate, Turner, then became the defacto guy for highways right up to Nixon. What wa...more

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Nov 04, 2011 Kili rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love it when a book opens my eyes....

When I was in high school, computers (what we now call "mainframes") were well on their way of transforming how business and science was done (government took some time). I got interested in computers, and my professional life has been tied to the growth and impact of this technology.

When my dad was in high school, aviation and automobiles were well on their way of transforming peoples lives and the world we lived in. He got interested in aviation, and his...more

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Dec 18, 2011 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

A very interesting, well written history of the interstate highway system from its origins (well before the mass adoption of the automobile), to the peak of its construction in the 1950s and 1960s to its re-evaluation and re-thinking of the 1970s. Those who cry for no government or small government would be well advised to read this book. Are their warts? Certainly, but without a federal leadership role this project would have never been completed or indeed undertaken at the level and scale we t...more

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Dec 29, 2012 Hillery rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting read on the history of the creation of the interstate highway system and the men (starting in the early 1900s) who were instrumental in its creation. People often think Eisenhower was responsible for the interstates' creation. He wasn't. He just happened to be in office when things finally fell into place to sign the bill to fund/build them. The essential design and locations of the interstates were mapped out by the late 1930s, but for various reasons--including WW II--things d...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Alec rated it 4 of 5 stars

I know what you're thinking. "Did a man named Earl Swift really write a book about the predominant mode of American rapid transit?" Believe me, I was skeptical as well, but after researching both the front AND the back covers of the book, my skepticism was dispelled. In celebration, I bought the book. (Spoiler alert: I then read it.)

The Big Roads is an excellent piece of non-fiction about a topic that many people, despite its staggering scale and obvious relevance to modern life, might find a bi...more I know what you're thinking. "Did a man named Earl Swift really write a book about the predominant mode of American rapid transit?" Believe me, I was skeptical as well, but after researching both the front AND the back covers of the book, my skepticism was dispelled. In celebration, I bought the book. (Spoiler alert: I then read it.)

The Big Roads is an excellent piece of non-fiction about a topic that many people, despite its staggering scale and obvious relevance to modern life, might find a bit dry. This fear is certainly not allayed by the wildly creative title. However, Earl Swift combats this admirably and brings the subject to life by focusing on the charming (or more often charmingly un-charming...these are engineers) players responsible for the Interstate System and creating a character-driven narrative.

Again, I know what you're thinking. "DWIGHT EISENHOWER! He built the Interstates with nothing but WWII glory and brawn!" I missed that one? Damn. I bet I was close though. As it turns out, good ol' Ike did not play much of a hand in the creation of the system which bears his name -- an awesome trick that our 34th President shares with Wendy and arguably Ronald McDonald. No, the interstates came into being after essentially 50 years of development* and had much more to do with visionaries like Carl Fischer (founded the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, pushed for the Lincoln Highway, is just generally interesting) and career highway-men like Thomas McDonald ("The Chief") and Frank Turner (star of the book). Eisenhower did get the program its funding...but a law mandating the funding of this system by the Federal government had been passed years earlier. Don't worry, I still love you Ike. Normandy rocked.

*Note: I'm writing this review without the book in front of me...which is always dangerous. Facts could be blurred and names might be changed. The broad strokes are accurate, however.

I should also point out that this book held quite a bit of "Omaha Syndrome" appeal for me on top of the subject matter. Not only was Nebraska featured prominently (more than once) in the book, but I also got a lot of satisfaction from having driven over a great many of the roads described. Upon reading about the path on I-40 takes through the mountains of California or the I-64 bridge over the Mississippi or the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel was my heart filled with a "I'VE DRIVEN THAT!" sense of joy/relevance? Yes it was. Am I ashamed to feel pride in something that literally millions and millions of other people have also done? Yes I am. But hey, this is the same pride that gets me to vote, so I'm going with it.

If you're like most people, you probably have some mixed feelings about the Interstate system. Things like "yeah it's great, but it's so uniform/noisy/filled with traffic" are common refrains and not without base. The Big Roads touches on all these criticisms, but Swift's goal is to get the reader to appreciate this amazing feat of engineering that familiarity too often renders common. A goal he certainly achieved with me. One fact in particular drove it home (pun!). Towards the end of the book, Swift states that once the Interstate system was finished, so much aggregate (crushed rock used in the base of a road) was used that many experts claimed that the system could not possibly be repeated. The reason? Because America could not physically mine enough rock to duplicate it. True? I don't know, but damn that's a lot of rock. Eat your heart out, Pyramids.
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Jul 24, 2012 Dan Kearns rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

I certainly enjoyed and learned from this book, but I think its design holds it back from being anything special. In order to write a narrative in the popular style, it tries to make heroics out of bureaucrats, congressional bills, and highway reports. None of that, though, gets in-depth at the nature of the interstates. It doesn't connect it to the larger themes of American history. It stays on the surface, away from economic and geographic hooks.

What I'm looking for is an analysis of the inte...more

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May 09, 2012 Jb rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is an interesting chronological account of U.S. highway system development that began in earnest with maturity of automobiles and trucks. The untold story part seems to be how the general public stood up to technocratic highway engineers who didn’t take the human factor into account as they planned to slice freeways through parks and densely populated areas in large cities. Also, the author negates the popular belief that President Eisenhower originated the Interstate highway system idea. H...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Nik rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll start by confessing that i'm a big fan of in depth histories of comparatively narrow topics, and my wife jokes that my favorite books are all one-word titles (Cod, Coal, Salt, etc). With that said this was a really well done narrative of the history of the interstate system, which significantly predates Ike and the auto boom of the 50's. The author does a good job of balancing the desire to include the myriad personalities behind this remarkable feat of engineering without overwhelming the...more

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Dec 12, 2012 David R. rated it 4 of 5 stars

There are really two parts to this solid history of the Interstate Highway system. The first is a retelling of the voyage from the very earliest days of the automotive age to the effective completion of the system in the 1960s. Here, Swift provides some clear and surprising understanding of the system (e.g. Eisenhower did not think it up, the numbering system has a basis in logic). The second part of the book, coming through almost as a subplot, centers on resistance to the Interstate system mos...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Keith Bordeaux rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book after taking two long road trips this summer. Those drives along interstates in the southeast got me wondering about the huge project building the U.S. Interstate System must have been. A topic I knew little about.

This book starts around the turn of the 20th century when most of the "improved" roads in the country were still dirt. The invention of the automobile escalated the need for better roads. In 1909 only 9 miles of concrete paved road existed in the U.S.. We've come a l...more

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Jan 12, 2012 Craig Pittman rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

An engaging and witty book about what might seem like a (ahem) pedestrian topic. Earl Swift surveys the history of the biggest public works project ever attempted in the world, the construction of America's interstate highway system, which, as Swift notes, dwarfs Egypt’s pyramids, the Panama Canal, and China’s Great Wall. He begins with the speed demon who gave us the Indianapolis 500 and developed Miami Beach, Carl Fisher, who was also the first to propose a road that would cross the whole coun...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Richard marked it as to-read

Recommended to Richard by: NPR Science Friday

Shelves: historical-narrow-focus, non-fiction

Listen to my podcasts subscriptions — being months behind is sometimes very odd, as the tech podcasts are still talking about Steve Jobs as if he's alive — and heard about this book on NPR's Science Friday. I'm a good about construction engineering —you ever seen that cluster of guys (well, mostly guys) standing at a construction site watching 'em pour concrete? I tend in that direction. Happily learned about welding and post-tensioned concrete, etc., on an otherwise boring contractor-sub lawsui...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Cailean rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a detailed book! I found it relatively dense but enjoyable to read. This is quite a unique topic and refreshing to find it engaging and not dry. It could actually probably pass as a textbook for its depth of information. I found the first section on Carl Fisher especially interesting, all that he experienced as a promoter of the bike and then the car, and then the founder of the Indy 500! Not for everyone, this book really delves into all the many people and politics of the highways as they...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Bradley rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had high expectations for this book and it fell flat. Some interesting insights on the history of the U.S. highways and interstates (along with why/how they are numbered), but also a lot of superfluous information regarding the men that helped build the modern interstate system. Two major themes the author spent way too much time on were 1) Eisenhower wasn't the "true" father/originator of the U.S. interstate system and 2) Baltimore doesn't have any major interstates/freeways passing through i...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arts-and-historical

A man-made wonder, a connective network, an economic force, a bringer of blight and sprawl and the possibility of escape—the U.S. interstate system changed the face of our country. The Big Roads charts the creation of these essential American highways. From the turn-of-the-century car racing entrepreneur who spurred the citizen-led “Good Roads” movement, to the handful of driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work—years before President Eisenhower knew the plans ex...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

For starters, here is the Told Story. In 1919, a young military man named Eisenhower joined a convoy a trucks attempting to cross America from DC to California. Within 38 miles of leaving the convoy broke down. It took months to plod across roadless America and the entire mission was almost entirely lost in the Great Salt Desert. Intended to demonstrate military might and mobility, the mission turned into a fiasco. Eisenhower promised to do something about it someday--and he did as President in...more For starters, here is the Told Story. In 1919, a young military man named Eisenhower joined a convoy a trucks attempting to cross America from DC to California. Within 38 miles of leaving the convoy broke down. It took months to plod across roadless America and the entire mission was almost entirely lost in the Great Salt Desert. Intended to demonstrate military might and mobility, the mission turned into a fiasco. Eisenhower promised to do something about it someday--and he did as President in the 1950s, signing into law an act creating the Interstate Highway System.

This did happen but there is a back story that is somewhat less and also more interesting. In the 1890s bicycling became popular. A dearth of paved roads made longer rides impossible. A young bicycle promoter named Carl Fisher helped start a Good Roads movement.

Early in the next century cars came along and immediately caught on. But there were still no good roads. Rails connected towns and cities. Within cities, horses (and horse urine and poop) and streetcars were the rule.

Fisher dropped bicycles and immediately began applying his considerable promotional skills to the auto. He helped launch the Indianapolis Speedway (with disastrous and fatal initial results) and opened an auto showroom downtown. He was addicted to gimmicks like dropping an auto (secretly reinforced) off the roof of his showroom. The Goods Roads movement was taken up statewide but somewhat ad hoc, Chamber of Commerce-like groups.

About 1920 this enterprise was turned over to colorless bureaucrats and starchy engineers who truly launched the system--routes, funding, engineering standards, construction techniques. The author is unfortunately smitten with this group and overloads the biographical detail. (An exception is the Lear-ian RObert Moses, who has a small role in this book and is much better explicated by Robert Caro in The Power Broker.)

Come the 1950s and the book jumps to life as the unintended consequences of the Interstates become apparent. In 1958, Lewis Mumford launches an attack on the Interstates that galvanizes a movement. In the 1960s, protests against Interstates being rammed through cities as a form of "urban removal" sound one of the major notes of a turbulent decade. In the narrative, the faceless bureaucrats fall into retreat to be bested by heroes of historic preservation, racial equity, and neighborhood rights.

What makes the book work so well is Swift's balance. He sees the good and the bad of the Interstates and is able to amplify both equally. A major point that I agree with (although I am a proponent of walking, cycling, compact cities, and mass transit), is that the rise of the auto and highways was a popular movement. Americans fell in love with the auto from the get-go and clamored for highway construction well into the 1960s and 70s.

Swift also lances the popular myth that the oil companies conspired with car and tire manufacturers to destroy (then privately held) transit companies. People voted with their feet and ran away from transit toward cars. Now they are finally feeling stuck with them and starting to vote with their feet in the other direction: toward transit, biking and walking, and away from typical suburbs into more compact and walkable, transit-served neighbors. This movement is a trickle rather than a stampede. But it is discernible. (less)

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Jun 07, 2012 Ross rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, history

The fascinating story, well told, of the 60-year history of the 46,000 mile Interstate Highway system - the "big roads" that host over a quarter of the trillions of vehicle miles Americans drive every year - along with profiles of the visionary myopics who secured its funding and designed and built it.

In hindsight, the big roads have been a mixed blessing. (For one, it's not clear we can afford their maintenance.) But they're also a prime example of our country's ability to do big, bold things...more

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Mar 18, 2013 Marvin rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the last half of the 19th century, railroads spread across Iowa. Wherever they went, they transformed the economic, social, and physical landscape. They also determined the fate of the communities they passed through—or passed by. Recognizing their influence, generations of historians and other writers have produced countless shelves of books examining every conceivable facet of railroad history.
In the last half of the 20th century, interstate highways bisected Iowa north to south and east t...more In the last half of the 19th century, railroads spread across Iowa. Wherever they went, they transformed the economic, social, and physical landscape. They also determined the fate of the communities they passed through—or passed by. Recognizing their influence, generations of historians and other writers have produced countless shelves of books examining every conceivable facet of railroad history.
In the last half of the 20th century, interstate highways bisected Iowa north to south and east to west (and bisected its capital city as well). Those highways, like the railroads that preceded them, dramatically altered the fate of small towns, big-city downtowns, urban neighborhoods, and so-called edge cities and flattened the landscape for those who traveled on them through rural America. Yet historians have paid little attention so far to the transformations they have rendered. So Earl Swift’s engaging history, The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways, is especially welcome.
Swift is a journalist, not an academically trained historian, so his primary goal is to tell an interesting story. He does what popular historians do best: leavens what could be a dry bureaucratic story with lively anecdotes, character studies, and telling statistics. (For historians, these strengths are partially offset by a frustrating system of documentation.) He celebrates the engineers who created the interstate highway system— noting that “the [interstate highway] system’s nearly forty-seven thousand miles represent the greatest single investment that the American people have made in public works” (317)—but does not ignore its critics, singling out the cultural critic Lewis Mumford in particular for significant attention.
Iowa readers will be interested to note that one of the heroes of the story is native Iowan Thomas MacDonald, who was chief of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads from 1919 to 1953 and mastermind of the interstate highway system. This book of 22 chapters and 324 pages of text does not get to what we think of as the interstate highway system until near the end of chapter 11, where, beginning on page 187, we read about the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which authorized the system. Even the seminal Federal Highway Act of 1921 appears only on page 74, at the end of chapter 4. Earlier chapters focus on the colorful Carl Fisher and his promotion of automobile travel; the Lincoln Highway; and Thomas MacDonald’s career in Iowa before his federal appointment.
The advantage of this long view is to reaffirm what history does best: show us how we got from the past to the present. We see the layers of precedent that preceded the present system of interstate highways. It was not created from scratch.
A big part of the point of all this buildup is to insist that Eisenhower “was not, by any means, the father of the interstates. . . . The system was a done deal in every important respect but financing by the time Ike entered politics” (152–53). Swift clearly doesn’t think much of Ike. “He entered the Oval Office professing an interest in building’ a network of modern roads,’ rating it ‘as necessary to defense as it is to our national economy and personal safety’ but having conducted little, if any, research on the subject. He didn’t know that the executive and legislative branches had already worked out the details of the network he sought. He had no idea that the Bureau of Public Roads had produced two reports, more than a decade before, that spelled out its design and approximate footprints. His own views about highways were at odds with those of the government’s experts: unaware that the greatest need for expressways was in cities, he favored a strictly rural network; and not knowing that the bureau had concluded that a national program could not be financed with tolls, he favored ‘self-liquidating’ highway projects, or those that generated the revenue to repay their costs” (158). To the extent that Eisenhower was involved, Swift insists, he just kept unsuccessfully delegating the task, trying to reinvent the wheel, and “stayed on them as much as he stayed on anything, given his rigorous golf and vacation schedule” (163). Instead, the hero, after Ike forces MacDonald to retire from the scene, is an unknown bureaucrat named Frank Turner, who, “more than anyone else, would midwife a conceptual network of superhighways into the concrete and steel octopus that now spans the continent” (166). And the crucial legislation itself “bore little resemblance to the bill Ike had sponsored; the chief contributor to the system’s financing in the executive branch wasn’t the president, but Frank Turner” (187).
Perhaps ironically, MacDonald, from rural Iowa, had long resisted Eisenhower’s preferred path of making large expenditures on roads through sparsely populated, rural areas, preferring instead to prioritize spending where it was most needed according to his careful statistical analyses: in and near urban centers. Turner continued this research-driven model.
When Swift writes about these intracity interstate highways, Eisenhower again comes off badly. When opposition emerges to intracity interstate highways, he appoints a committee headed by a proponent of toll roads who had lost most of the battles he had fought when the system was enacted. When the committee submits its report, Ike calls a meeting at which Turner defends the system. Swift concludes, “Given that Eisenhower was ignorant of the highway program even as he stumped for it, it’s difficult to fathom how he’d managed to remain oblivious in the years since. Yet . . . here was the evidence, from Eisenhower himself. Here was Ike saying he knew nothing of the highway plans predating his arrival in the White House. Here he was, saying that he hadn’t understood the bill he signed. Here he was, admitting that he’d been in the dark until just recently. Again, he wasn’t much of a detail man” (250).
MacDonald and Turner were both engineers who made decisions based on exhaustive reviews of data. But as planners sought paths for interstate highways through urban areas, it became clear that “ ‘Highway planning is not and cannot be a completely quantifiable process in which all elements can be . . . assigned numbers.’ A road’s design might be a task strictly for engineers . . . but the ‘planning and location of a highway facility involves many considerations other than engineering” (274). Even Turner, defending the Bureau of Public Roads against a bevy of charges against it, particularly from urban neighborhoods, said, in 1966, “Highways, you know, are for people. There is no reason for highways apart from people. Very simply, highways are people. Those who think they are a broom to sweep people aside simply don’t know highways or how we thing about them” (272–73). Still, Turner took great pride in an aspect of the system that is one of its most criticized: it was “so uniform you can’t tell what state you are in except as you look at the sign” (256). Swift puts this in context, noting that “travel had been moving toward monotony for a long time” (257), from walking, riding horseback, stagecoach travel, and trains to modern car travel on the modern freeway. “To Turner, though, ever-faithful to quantifiable results, the system’s strengths were irrefutable, its flaws matters of opinion” (258).
The later chapters of Swift’s book are largely devoted to the battles over the location of urban highways and their consequences, focusing in particular on a case study of Baltimore that is scattered through these chapters. He does, however, include a section acknowledging that the interstate system’s effects on small towns and their businesses—it “diverts traffic away from former arteries of travel, drains the life’s blood from established firms which are situated on the old highways and leaves them to die” (254). He also notes briefly the effects on farmers: Iowa’s “710 miles of freeway would devour 26,000 acres of productive cropland, or more than forty square miles” and divide farms, “isolating pieces beyond four lanes of impenetrable concrete and rebar” and forcing them to travel miles to reach former adjoining properties.
Anyone interested in how “the big roads” have transformed our lives will appreciate Swift’s account.(less)

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