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

by Earl Swift

Perhaps nothing changed the face of America more than the creation of the interstate system. At once man-made wonders, economic pipelines, agents of sprawl, and uniquely American sirens of escape, the interstates snake into every aspect of modern life. The Big Roads documents their historic creation and the many people they’ve affected, from the speed demon who inspired a primitive web of dirt auto trails, to the cadre of largely forgotten technocrats who planned the system years before Ike reached the White House, to the thousands of city dwellers who resisted the concrete juggernaut when it bore down on their neighborhoods.The Big Roads tells the story of this essential feature of the landscape we have come to take for granted. With a view toward players both great and small, Swift gives readers the full story of one of America’s greatest engineering achievements.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Transport, Travel, Engineering, Urban Planning

375 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Longtime journalist Earl Swift is the author of the forthcoming ACROSS THE AIRLESS WILDS: THE LUNAR ROVER AND THE TRIUMPH OF THE FINAL MOON LANDINGS, due from HarperCollins in July 2021.

He is also the author of seven other books, among them the New York Times best seller CHESAPEAKE REQUIEM (HarperCollins, 2018), the story of an island town threatened with extinction by the very water that has sustained it for 240 years; AUTO BIOGRAPHY (HarperCollins, 2014), a narrative journey through postwar America told through a single old car and the fourteen people who've owned it; THE BIG ROADS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), an armchair history of the U.S. highway system and its effects, physical and cultural, on the nation it binds; JOURNEY ON THE JAMES (University of Virginia Press, 2001), about a great American river and the largely untold history that has unfolded in and around it; WHERE THEY LAY (Houghton Mifflin, 2003), for which he accompanied an Army archaeological team into the jungles of Laos in search of a helicopter crew shot down thirty years before; and a 2007 collection of his stories, THE TANGIERMAN'S LAMENT (UVa Press). He also co-authored, with Macon Brock, ONE BUCK AT A TIME (Beachnut/John F. Blair, 2017), an insider's account of Dollar Tree's rise from loopy idea to retail juggernaut.

Since 2012 he's been a fellow of Virginia Humanities at the University of Virginia. He lives in the Blue Ridge mountains west of Charlottesville.

Reviews

[Alec · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 every direction.

That's what led me to read this book, I was intrigued by how the formulas that we're conceived for these roads were put into action. From dirt paths created for horses to now.

Swift is incredibly detailed, extremely well organized on his timeline - and best of all - entertaining.

Something like engineering and politics of the Interbelt system I could imagine being dried out by the wrong writer. Swift is perfect for this subject & you can hear the passion in his writing.

Highly recommended!
Chapter 7 is my fav

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who knew there was so much about our national highway system? I didn’t. Earl Swift tells a complex story that involves the growth of our country and how its expansion was determined by the trails that we chose to improve travel from city to city and from coast to coast.

Obviously, we had roads before we had cars and trucks, but even with those vehicles becoming the primary means of transportation we lacked the roads that would make them as useful as they could be. You could run cars on dirt roads; you could run them on cobblestones or gravel, but it was well into the 20th century before there was much beside those, even within cities, much less from city to city.

Statistics:

In 1900, there were eight thousand motor vehicles registered. In 1903, thirty-three thousand with that growth doubling again in two years.

“At the end of 1909 the country had 2.2 million miles of state and county road. Just 8 percent, or 190,400 miles, was improved in any way; more than half of that good road was gravel. Concrete accounted for all of 9 (nine!) miles.”

Swift weaves together technology, history, and politics into a very interesting story. Particularly in the last third of the book, his documentation of debate on whether (not how) interstate highways would enter our major cities is an eye-opener. Up to that point, the discussions either concerned cost or engineering. After the 1950s, there was major controversy over what the building of elevated road way, deep cuts, and massive clearing of neighborhoods would do to a city’s culture and citizens.

Some may argue that this is a good article that was bulked up to book-size. Since I wasn’t in a rush, I found The Big Roads’ details both enlightening and entertaining.


PS: Though reading this book may make you think of family car trips, there is precious little in that vein. No chronicle of Burma-Shave signs or noting of advertising of “See Rock City” or “Try Mail Pouch Chewing Tobacco.” The only real detour in that direction is a chronicle of that phenomenon known as South of the Border and some noting of the dominance of the road hospitality services by chains ranging from Holiday Inn to McDonald’s.

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 the end of the 1950s, urban spur route interstates were drawing a backlash in several cities, on aesthetics, city division grounds, and the idea that, rather than alleviating traffic jams, they actually created them.

You’ll learn about largely-forgotten early highway engineering heroes who brought the interstate system, and the U.S. highway system before it, to reality.

This isn’t earth-shaking history, but within the subject matter, it’s definitely worth reading.

[Book Shark · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

“The Big Roads" is an informative albeit at times tedious read about the history of the development of the American Superhighways. The book focuses more on the politics and the key people behind the construction instead of the technical challenges involved. This instructive 401-page includes twenty-two chapters and is broken out into the following four parts: 1. Out of the Mud, 2. Connecting the Dots, 3. The Crooked Straight, The Rough Places Plain, and 4. The Human Obstacle.

Positives:
1. Accessible and well-researched book.
2. An interesting topic; the history of the development of American Superhighways.
3. Swift is respectful, fair and shows a justified admiration for the main personalities behind the vision and construction of one the greatest public works projects in history. Engineers such as Thomas H. MacDonald and his protégé Frank Turner play prominent roles in this book.
4. Early on debunks the notion that President Eisenhower was the main force behind the Interstate highways. “And despite their official name, they didn’t spring, fully formed or otherwise, from Ike or his lieutenants. By the time Eisenhower signed the bill that financed the system, in June 1956, most of its physical details were old news. Its routing had been committed to paper for eighteen years. The specifics of its design had been decided for twelve. Franklin Roosevelt had a greater hand in its creation than Eisenhower did, truth be told, and the system’s origins go back much further than him.”
5. A brief history of the construction materials involved. “The highest type of road construction, the darling of engineers everywhere, was Portland cement concrete, but it was still in its infancy as a road material. A few cities had experimented with it on small jobs, and the French were singing its praises, but its first real American test was just then getting under way in Wayne County, Michigan, outside Detroit.” A historical look at cement. I wished there were more of this.
6. The interesting life of Carl Fisher and his impact. “It was up to the industry to get things started, to provide an example of what could be accomplished with imagination and will, to inspire others. So in the late summer of 1912, Carl Fisher began talking up a new project, a transcontinental highway, a rock road stretching across a dozen states or more, from New York to California. A highway built to a standard unseen in the United States—dry, smooth, safe, not just passable but comfortable in the rainy seasons. A road built for the automobile. For the future.”
7. A comprehensive look at the impact of Thomas H. MacDonald. “THOMAS HARRIS MACDONALD earned his place in history less as a visionary than as a relentless refiner of the existing. He was an engineer’s engineer, a man gifted at recognizing a problem and developing a methodical plan for fixing it.” “
8. One of the most positive things about this book is how engineers like MacDonald and Turner determine priorities. “James and two other bureau engineers rounded up population figures for every county in the forty-eight states, along with four key economic indicators from the census for each—agricultural production, manufacturing output, mineral yields, income from forest products. They assigned a value of 100 to each state’s total population, and a number to each county based on its percentage of the statewide whole. They repeated the process for each of the economic statistics. The result was a quick-and-dirty gauge of county wealth and importance.”
9. Interesting facts on the evolution of America’s love for the automobile. “. In mid-1925, registrations reached 17.5 million, a car for every 6.5 Americans. A year later, they stood at 19.7 million. And the industry’s growth only accelerated. By the end of 1928, another 7 million vehicles were in use. Never before in the history of industry had a product gone from its first appearance to complete societal dominance in so short a time. In thirty years, America had become a nation on rubber wheels.”
10. The book does a wonderful job of capturing the number of conflicts and challenges faced by the visionaries. Political, environmental, urban development…
11. Interesting history behind the naming and numbering scheme behind the highways. “. He would assign even numbers to all of the east-west highways, and odd numbers to those running north-south. The numbering would be lowest in both directions in the northeast corner of the country, up at Maine’s border with Canada, and would climb as one moved south and west—in other words, the east-west highways with the lowest numbers would run through the nation’s northernmost states, and those with the highest, along the Gulf Coast and Mexican border; north-south highways would bear the lowest numbers on the Atlantic coast and the highest on the Pacific.”
12. A look at the Federal-Aid Highway. “And so, deep in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, there appeared a section that opened: “There shall be designated within the continental United States a National System of Interstate Highways,” and which specified that such a system should not top forty thousand miles in length, and should be “so located as to connect by routes, as direct as practicable, the principal metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers, to serve the national defense, and to connect at suitable border points with routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the Republic of Mexico.”
13. The prominent role of a hard-working engineer, Frank Turner. “FRANK TURNER described his role on the Clay Committee as “developing the papers, the numbers and all of the mechanics—what do we want to do, how do we do it, how do we find it—and converting all of those into proposals which the president would then transmit to the Congress.”
14. The interesting character that was General Clay. “General Clay had three main assignments: determine what kind of highway system the country needed, find out how much it would cost, and decide how to pay for it.”
15. The reality behind tie-ups. “By one estimate, tie-ups cost New Yorkers more than $1 billion a year in fuel, engine wear, lost productivity, missed sales; a quarter of all the gasoline consumed in American cities was burned, it was said, while motorists sat in traffic. Another forecast held that by 1970, New Yorkers would have to make an overnight trip to reach open country. Travel by horse and buggy had been faster.”
16. Some scandals noted. “With such money on the line, it was a given that some might try to take advantage of the right-of-way process. The first scandal broke in Indiana, where the chairman of the state highway commission was sneaking inside dope about upcoming land acquisitions to his friends, so that they could beat the state to the properties, then sell them to the taxpayer at jacked-up prices.”
17. The impact to the economy. “The economic impact of this effort was stunning. Each billion dollars spent on construction provided the equivalent of forty-eight thousand full-time jobs for a year and consumed an almost inconceivably vast pile of resources: sixteen million barrels of cement, more than half a million tons of steel, eighteen million pounds of explosives, 123 million gallons of petroleum products, and enough earth to bury New Jersey knee-deep. It also devoured seventy-six million tons of aggregate—so much aggregate, some in the business have surmised, that the United States could not mine enough rock to rebuild the interstates today.”
18. One of the more interesting stories in this book was the history behind Baltimore’s reluctance to build a highway through the city. “When Baltimore held its first hearing on a condemnation ordinance for I-70, the first legal step to seizing land and clearing houses, the audience of 550 protesters was so boisterous that the councilman running the meeting walked out; the Sun reported that the session reflected all of the city’s expressway plans: it ended “in shambles.”
19. A look at the 1968 act. “This shift in orientation became public in October 1968, when the Federal Highway Administration published the regulations it planned to use to comply with the new act. They called for two public hearings, not one, on every Federal Aid project: the first a corridor hearing at which taxpayers could speak their minds on a highway’s location, and the second a design hearing, at which they would have the chance to influence the project’s size and style—whether it would be elevated, depressed, or built at street level, how it would be landscaped, that sort of thing.”
20. Admiration for the great achievement. “The system’s nearly forty-seven thousand miles represent the greatest single investment that the American people have made in public works.”
21. The future and reality of our infrastructure. “One in four of the country’s nearly six hundred thousand bridges is structurally deficient or obsolete. Most were designed to last fifty years. In 2008, they averaged forty-three years old. Most are on state and county routes and are subjected to relatively small loads. But not all—a fact brought into sharp focus on August 1, 2007, when an I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi at rush hour, taking thirteen lives and injuring hundreds. The accident resulted from a design flaw, not deterioration, but it came as a jolt, nonetheless. This wasn’t some little country bridge. This was an interstate.”

Negatives:
1. Even as a person who has a lot of interest in this topic (I’m an engineer) I found the book tedious to read at times.
2. Very little civil engineering of significance. If the author was worried about disrupting the flow of the narrative an appendix of supplementary technical material would have sufficed.
3. The first time you introduce any acronym it needs to be spelled out. As an example, AASHO.
4. Very few maps. A book about roads would be well served in providing the reader with maps.
5. Focused too much on the politics instead of the technical issues regarding the big roads.
6. I didn’t get as much as I was hoping out of this book. I wanted to know more about the story behind the main roads in the country. Baltimore aside, I didn’t get that.
7. No timelines, charts or supplementary material that would have added value.
8. I’m not a fan of unnamed chapters.
9. The book ends on a very strange note that doesn’t feel like it even belongs in it.
10. No formal bibliography.

In summary, I really wanted to like this book but I found myself disappointed with the lack of science in the book. The parts are greater than the whole. On the other hand, it does a wonderful job of covering the lives and influences of the main people behind the construction, namely Thomas H. MacDouglas and Frank Turner. This was a hard review for yours truly. There is so much to like here but I felt there was also a lot of missed opportunities that could have made this book so much better. Read with noted reservations.

Further recommendations: “Engineers of Victory” by Paul Kennedy, “The Great Railroad Revolution” by Christian Wolmar, “Colossus” by Michale Hitzik, “Engineering: A Very Short Introduction” by David Blockley, “Studying Engineering” by Raymond B. Landis, and “Empires of Light” by Jill Jonnes.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

2015 and Doc Brown was wrong. We do need roads! Great scott!
But, did you ever wonder where they came from? If you thought it had anything to do with Eisenhower, you'd be mostly wrong! The planning, research, and groundwork for what would become the Eisenhower interstate system was already well in place when ol' Ike putted his way into the White House. In fact, he wasn't even aware of its existence. So much for that.
This book is about the tireless folks who ARE responsible for the biggest public works project pretty much ever. Thomas MacDonald. Herbert Fairbank. Frank Turner. Chances are you've never heard of any of these guys. Or any of the men and women involved in the project. Or even how it all started, going all the way back to daredevil businessman Carl Fisher back at the turn of the century.
It's quite an amazing story and often very vague as to who you should be rooting for. On one hand, the various iterations and incarnations of highway planning departments in the government did the bulk of the grunt work and research, but there was quite a bit of wrangling drama on the issue of how states and the feds should complement each other in the process. Even more fascinating, is the ruinous effects that the interstate highway system had on our culture: a stultifying sameness that guarantees you can get the same shitty McDonald's burger in Needles, CA and Mouahukukoum, ME. That never lets you savor a city or town. That keeps you distant and in a simultaneous non-rapport with millions of other drivers. On the other hand, it makes traveling a lot easier. Or it did.
Probably the most engaging bits are about the protests, especially Baltimore, which Swift thankfully returns to repeatedly in the last third of the book. Irate that cold, mechanical planning was going to destroy parts of Baltimore where, gee!, people lived, local activists (mostly black at first) protested and protested. Then the whites got in out too in an amazing show of solidarity that saw white folks applauding militant black volunteer forces ready to take up arms against the Highwaymen. And they won, mostly, dammit the people won.
So, yes, the best part of this book is the social aspect, how all this affected people's lives, uprooted them, and so on.
And it's all starting to fall apart, too, as Swift impatiently reminds us.
Mucho recommendo.

[Marks54 · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 the Interstate Highway system than is commonly thought.

It is much more than that, however. It is a history of the shifting relationships between individuals, businesses, state and local government, and the federal government that developed and mutated as the highway system developed. This will likely not be known to most readers and I have seen little of this material in other books or journals.

It is also a history of how we have thought of urban planning in the US and this story parallels much of what can be found in history if cities -- utopian dreaming, central planning, system views, urban development and slum reducing views, and strong reactions to those views. Familiar names like Robert Moses and Lewis Mumford are featured and it is neat to see how these debates unfolded with the growth of the highway system in the 1960s and 1970s. The book features an excellent case study of highway development efforts in Baltimore that is memorable.

Finally, it is also a book about some of the lesser known individuals who played large roles in the growth of US highways, including early entrepreneurs like Carl Fisher and strong expert bureaucrats like Thomas MacDonald and Frank Turner. It is not that long of a book for a history, and is well worth the effort, especially if you have ever wondered where Stuckey's, Howard Johnson's, or "South of the Border" came from.

[Andrew Liptak · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Fraser Kinnear · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for a book discussing the magnitude and complications of the engineering problem fo building our interstate highway system. This book focuses more on the policy and entrepreneural history.

Swift really takes umbrage with Eiseinhower's name being associated with this project, as most of the work was done by the legislature and beurocracy, as well as by executives (FDR and Truman) before his time.

A surprisingly large amount of this book actually focuses on urban planning, with the Corbusian villian Robert Moses looming large as a man who tried to overbuild our highway system through dense urban areas.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found the larger story interesting--such as the birth of the modern road movement out of the cycling craze of the late 19th-century--I got bogged down in the details. I'm sure some would find them fascinating but I guess I just wasn't interested in the nitty gritty of road construction and politicking. The parts of the book that dealt with social changes were more interesting.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For whatever reason I've wanted for some time to read something on how the U.S. Interstate system came to pass and voila, 'The Big Roads' (2011) appears at a local library book sale! I love when things like that happen. Not sure it is the best or most comprehensive account but it certainly 'scratched that itch' for me! The subtitle is 'The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways'. And I would say it fulfills that mission admirably. It is far more about the those people than the actual engineering although there is at least some discussion of the technical issues. The book is lacking somewhat in both maps and diagrams but I guess you could go overboard in those areas quite easily given the size and complexity of the system. Carl Fisher (basically the founder both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and of Miami Beach, among other accomplishments) Thomas MacDonald (The Chief) and Frank Turner are the 'stars' of The Big Roads and substantial space is devoted to their lives and activities. Its a well-told story with numerous humanizing and insightful anecdotes. For some reason, the author is keen to remove most of the 'credit' for the Interstate system from Dwight Eisenhower (after which it is of course named) almost to point of my wondering why. True, much of the thinking and planning for such a system had been done in the 1930s and 40s but when Ike entered office and started to push the idea those plans were deeply buried in the bureaucracy and no one even seemed to know they existed. It still took the strongly stated desires of the Chief Executive to get the project rolling and the political battles were not trivial.

One of the interesting documents uncovered in this book was the 'Yellow Book of Highways' which was a sort of blueprint from 1955 detailing the then-proposed Interstate Highway system. I found a really cool internet link to the Yellow Book (http://www.ajfroggie.com/roads/yellow...) along with many other interesting documents including the 1938 and 1943 interstate plans. Besides the main Interstate system connecting the metropolitan areas of the country, the Yellow Book also included maps of the proposed urban Interstates within many of those metropolitan areas. In many cases the Yellow Book blueprints were followed pretty closely, certainly here in little old Roanoke, VA. The coarse scale of the maps perhaps led to some of the more controversial plans through urban areas, Baltimore being one of the most egregious examples with I-70 cutting through neighborhoods. He does not avoid discussing the many controversies which were inevitable in something of this size, bigger he says than the Panama Canal, Egyptian Pyramids and Great Wall combined. The voices of the increasing opposition are given significant space, most notably that of Lewis Mumford (his 1962 book 'The City in History' looks interesting). One could conclude from the increasing resistance that if they had NOT built much this system when they did, then much of it would never have been built at all given the changes in society starting in the late 60s and obstacles that are now routinely placed in the way of 'progress'. Overall I'd say 3.5 stars, tough to say up or down but since it pretty much filled a long-standing gap in my wish list, I'll go 4.

[sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Interchanges have more in common with each other than any one of them has with wherever it happens to be. The twain have met; exit a California interstate, and you'll find what you left in Connecticut -- and very little that you didn't leave in Connecticut. The interstates take a distillation of the broad American culture -- a one-size-fits-all, lowest-common-denominator reading of who we are and what we want -- wherever they go."

this was a really beautiful and informative look at the history of roads in the US, from their earliest inception as muddy bicycle paths to the mass construction of giant concrete spaghetti junctions. this book focuses strictly on highways being the product of american individualism, which is definitely true, but i think it's too quick to discount the heavy political influence that car manufacturers and Big Oil had on the restructuring of the american landscape. if you haven't read the Power Broker but are interested in how the highway destroyed urban life in america, this would be a great place to start.

[Bren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I expected a book of stories about building the interstate roads, because I'm sure there are many interesting ones.
But this book is not that. This is a story about the men who dreamed up the interstates decades before they were built, and planned the routes, and worked with the varied states' interests, and got the legislation. Also an interesting story.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engaging, accessible history of the U.S. interstate highway system. Swift does a good job of balancing the upsides and unintended consequences of this massive project. I enjoyed finally learning why I-70 suddenly dead-ends outside of Baltimore.

[Lauren Hancock · Rating 2 out of 5]

You might think that a book about how America’s interstate highway system came to be might not be very interesting. And you would be right! It is not very interesting. But I do have a greater appreciation for the enormity of the civil works project and the ways that it changed society.

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I knew very little about the creation of the highways in America. Like many people, I assumed Eisenhower played some key role since the system is named after him. In reality, the routes and plans had been made long before he came along. His involvement was minimal, if any.

Next time you are in a major city, pay attention to how the highways cut the city in half or separate it from the water. Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, Syracuse, Philadelphia. The list goes on and on and could include nearly every American city. I never really understood why the highways were built in such a destructive manner that separated the city from the waterfront or cleaved a neighborhood in half in such an arbitrary manner. After reading this book, I see that there really is no sensible reason. The men who designed and built the American highways had little understanding or regard for urban planning, environmental impact, or the effect that these massive projects would have on a city. Unless you are able to spend $22 billion to fix the mistake, such as what Boston did, then you are stuck with it.

The interstate highway system cost $130 billion dollars. According to one federal study, it will cost $225 billion dollars per year, for the next 50 years to properly maintain them. Those are shocking numbers for something I feel has done more harm than good.

As for the book itself, it spent far too much time on the men that were the driving force (pun intended) behind the highways and too little on the construction and aftermath. I suspect that was by design, as the title of the book clearly suggests, but it made it feel more like a homage to these men rather than an honest analysis and critique of their lives and the resulting aftermath of the highways they built.

[David Cooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read, but I am a transponerd. I thought the narrative structure worked pretty well -- it started with the motivations for better roads and laid out some of the early highway development and how it did (and did not) directly relate to the automobile, and by focusing on a handful of important individuals it provided a solid episodic flow. I was also pleased that in addition to covering what came before the freeway system that it also examined in part the implications of the interstate system and local interaction.

It may have overemphasized some individuals' roles through the narrative structure, but it made the story much less dry, and I was genuinely surprised by the slow and methodical path traced by the system, which we tend to think about as a pre-planned project like the Panama Canal - the way Swift lays the foundation for that really helps make his case. I also find it an interesting reminder about the influence of bureaucracy and impacts of having continuity in the federal government (including adverse impacts when it comes to the later chapters). I'm always a sucker for a good read on the folks behind the curtain in DC. It did feel maybe like Swift pushed the "Ike knew nothing" storyline a bit strongly, but I guess he felt the need to push back against the inertia.

Overall, this was a quick and informative read. And in response to some of the latter discussions in the book around the planning of city infrastructure, it has also made me want to seek out a more comprehensive history of redlining and other such issues around the development of cities, so if anyone has any good recommendations there, let me know!

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 attempted to plan and build roads and understood how poor roads affected commerce and travel for Americans. Dwight Eisenhower, as an Army Officer from Kansas tried to move a series of Army vehicles from Washington to San Francisco in 1919, learning how bad the roads were, how the vehicles broke down under stress and vowed to do something to improve America's road system. Later as a Army General, he would see the Autobahn that Hitler built in Germany and was inspired for something similar in the US. As president, he was able to gather the plans, experts, road builders to build the superhighway system. FDR was able to support road building during the Depression and plan for post war soldiers to have employment. This book is an exciting and moving story of these men and how America changed for the car culture. Ultimately people would object to highway building around cities but the story of how and why the road building was necessary is very moving.

[Simon J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps this is a tangent more than a review. Anyway: I have noticed, yon these many years, that those who scheme for benefit of The People (whether sincere or not) are indifferent to the implications of their schemes for actual people. Usually, in the post-FDR era, technocrats are cast as the heroes, and "politics" as villainy. Doubtless the technocrats assume their customary place, but it is noticeable—and refreshing—that the technocrats' decrying of "politics" per se happens only at that point in thee story when black communities possess political muscle sufficient to stop the technocrats. The professionals, naturally, make their plans for The People, only great plans, only for the common good, and those whom Swift (tongue perhaps in cheek) calls "the highwaymen" are no exception. "Politics" is what happens when individual people and small communities interrupt the far-sighted plans of the professionals. Whether that's good or bad probably depends a lot on whether it's your home they're bulldozing or someone else's.

Last thought: I am left with a desire to find an especially flat, straight, in a word efficient piece of interstate and name it for Lewis Mumford.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning look at the massive undertaking of the United States Interstate system, the people who birthed it, fought it, and massaged it over the course of its creation. Up until I read this book, I believed many of the myths of the interstate system, some of which are mentioned in the book, but the best part for me was the introduction to Joseph Wiles, who fought against the interstate going through his neighborhood in west Baltimore.

The thing about a book like this is that its historical value is impressive and it may seem niche, but the story of the interstate system covers an immense amount of chronological time. I don't know what I originally thought, but the interstates didn't just spring up overnight in 1956, and to understand how they did come to fruition, and why they are where they are, and their importance, you just have to read this book.

[Alexa Hazelton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to look at the roads I drive everyday now without thinking about this book and remembering some of the facts that are spelled out.
120 years ago doesn't seem that far away when we think about how much has changed with respect to our mode of transportation.
It is easy to say that Ike is the person most responsible for the interstate system we use on the regular. But did you know he was unaware of all the planning and research that went into the plan? Instead he though his edict to figure out this road issue was something no-one had been thinking about prior to his words. History does not give credit to the men who were the thinkers, planners and researchers that helped shape our country's largest civil engineering project.
Great book

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 it because of numerous revolts by the common citizen. Continuous reading of these themes became a major bore.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) I was interested in the engineering and history of highways and interstates, but this focused a lot more on people, politics, and (toward the end) racial, environmental/mass transit, and urban-planning issues. I guess those are valid concerns, but not really interesting to me.

There were a few good stories in here, but it's so long...but transport infrastructure is important, and this seems to be well researched. I would have preferred a bit tighter editing and a more clear message, but still good.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was interested in this subject, but I didn't realize it was so dry. Not sure if that was really the case or the author didn't really capture the drama that was behind the scenes. At any rate, I got tired of it and put it down after about half the book.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the intent and rigor of this book, but it's painful to read. The facts are interesting, but they're buried in a morass of legal decisions & unnecessary detail. A good reference perhaps but not a book you'll want to read sequentially.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Big Roads by Earl Swift is a history of the United States highway system from the earliest toll roads to the modern day interstate system.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2017/comm...

[Philbeert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great historical read especially for anyone in the transportation industry.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a lot of interesting information in this book but the author goes into way too much detail about the governmental bureaucracy involved in building the American superhighway system.

[Grayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always been curious about how our highway system came about. This book answered that question thoroughly. It's well worth reading.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has some interesting facts, but is overlong. Would only recommend to people truly interested in civil engineering and the like.