First wave of federal interstate highway constructuon, funded by National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (1956) (1 gen 1956 anni – 31 dic 1969 anni)

Descrizione:

national intestate and defense highway act: A 1956 law authorizing the construction of 42,500 miles of new highways and their integration into a single national highway system.

Suburbanization on such a massive scale would have been impossible without automobiles. Planners laid out new subdivisions with the assumption that every resident drove. And drive they did — to get to work, to take the children to Little League, to shop. In 1945, Americans owned twenty-five million cars; by 1965, just two decades later, the number had tripled to seventy-five million. American oil consumption followed course, tripling as well between 1949 and 1972. But the fuel efficiency of American cars was less important than power and style. Engine sizes grew with each new model year throughout the 1950 and 1960s — when the powerful V-8 engine reached the height of its popularity — and cars were weighed down by elaborate steel tail fins and the heavy application of chrome fixtures.

Americans had more cars, and thanks to the federal government more roads on which to drive. In 1956, the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act authorized $26 billion over a ten-year period to fund a vast expansion of the national highway network and the integration of newly constructed highways into a single system — 42,500 miles worth (Map 25.1). Cast as a Cold War necessity because broad highways made evacuating crowded cities easier in the event of a nuclear attack, the law remade driving habits and the landscape itself. An enormous public works program surpassing anything undertaken during the New Deal, and enthusiastically endorsed by a Republican administration, the interstate system became the foundation of American suburbanization. New highways rerouted traffic away from small towns and well-traveled roads such as the cross-country Route 66, and tore holes through the fabric of cities by necessitating the bulldozing of entire neighborhoods.


The 1956 National Interstate and Defense Highways Act paved the way for an extensive network of federal highways throughout the nation. The act not only pleased American drivers and enhanced their love affair with the automobile but also benefitted the petroleum, construction, trucking, real estate, and tourist industries. The new highway system promoted the nation’s economic integration, facilitated the growth of suburbs, and contributed to the erosion of America’s distinct regional identities.

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