Interstate Highway System: Celebrating 50 Years of the Eisenhower Highway Project, plus Archives of Public Roads Publication (CD-ROM)

This electronic book on CD-ROM provides the full story of the American Interstate Highway System, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Contents include history, frequently asked questions, art, memories, interstate myths, the freight and the interstate, and much more. The Interstate System has been called the Greatest Public Works Project in History. From the day President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the Interstate System has been a part of our culture-as construction projects, as transportation in our daily lives, and as an integral part of the American way of life. Every citizen has been touched by it, if not directly as motorists, then indirectly because every item we buy has been on the Interstate System at some point. As he looked back on his two terms in office, former President Dwight D. Eisenhower said of the Interstate System that, "More than any single action by the government since the end of the war, this one would change the face of America." The impacts of the Interstate System remain controversial, but it did, as President Eisenhower predicted, change the face of America-not simply by altering the landscape during construction, but by supporting changes that transformed our society in the second half of the 20th century. The first decade of Interstate construction was the most intense period of road building in history. Half of the Interstate System as then designated was open by the end of 1966, and by the 1970s, enough Interstate roadway was on the ground that the changes President Eisenhower had predicted began to occur. The Interstate System was essentially complete by the 1980s. Interstate motorists faced few gaps as they traveled around the country. Even with such a massive, transformational public work, its impacts on the country are hard to separate from the effects of other events swirling through society, sometimes in harmony with the Interstates, and sometimes not. One of the more dramatic changes since the 1950s involves the geographic distribution of our population. Transportation consultant and demographics expert Alan Pisarski described the population shifts in a chapter on "US Roads" in Millennium Book, (International Road Federation, 2001). He explained that "There has been a pronounced "sunbelt shift" to population, with over 90% of national growth in the eighties going to the South and the West, at the expense of the older, more settled regions of the Midwest and Northeast. The South and West now have more than 56% of the nation's population." In addition to the coverage of the Interstate Highway System, there is an archive of issues of "Public Roads" Magazine, the bimonthly magazine of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Reading Public Roads is the easiest way to keep up-to-date on developments in federal highway policies, programs, and research and technology. More specifically, the magazine "covers" advances and innovations in highway/traffic research and technology, critical national transportation issues, important activities and achievements of FHWA and others in the highway community, specific FHWA program areas, and subjects of interest to highway industry professionals. Each issue contains standard departments that include information on topics of general interest, notices of recent publications in research and development and in technology applications, Internet-related information applicable to transportation professionals, programs and courses offered by the National Highway Institute, and a calendar of major conferences and special events. Public Roads also emphasizes the continuing commitment of FHWA to be a world leader in promoting highway research and technology transfer.