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

by Earl Swift

  [>] The economic impact ...: "Highway Construction: An Employment Generator," Public Roads 31, no. 7 (April 1961); "The Highway Billions," Fortune, September 1958.

  [>] It also devoured ...: History interviews.

  [>] AASHO and the bureau ...: AASHO, Guide for Roadside Mowing, 1962.

  [>] Turner took great pride ...: History interviews.

  [>] A 1961 bureau study ...: Charles W. Prisk, "Life-Saving Benefits of the Interstate System," Public Roads 31, no. 11 (December 1961).

  [>] Critics had decried ...: Phillips Russell quoted in "Which—or Both?" TAC, June 1930.

  [>] Over time, the bureau ...: Kemp, "Aesthetes and Engineers"; "Open Road," Time, April 12, 1963.

  [>] "Some drivers just fall asleep...": "How to Drive on a Superhighway—and How to Drive Away from It Alive," Changing Times, June 1956.

  [>] As John Steinbeck ...: Travels with Charley: In Search of America (New York: Viking Press, 1962). For more rumination of that sort, see William R. Siddall, "Transportation and the Experience of Travel," Geographical Review 77, no. 3 (July 1987); Raymond Moley, "Highway Revolution—I," Newsweek, May 4, 1964; "Ode to the Road," Time, September 10, 1965; and Charles W. Morton, "Accent on Living," Atlantic Monthly, February 1956.

  [>] The first Holiday Inn ...: John A. Jakle, Keith A. Sculle, and Jefferson'S. Rogers, The Motel in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

  [>] Howard Johnson enjoyed ...: "Howard Johnson Tries a Little Harder," Business Week, September 29, 1973.

  [>] Old Man Stuckey ...: Swift, "Stuck on Stuckey's."

  [>] And in time there appeared ...: Jakle and Sculle, Fast Food; Don Babwin, "50 Years, Billions Sold," an Associated Press report carried in the (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot of April 14, 2005. My discussion of fast-food joints was also informed by Erich Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001).

  [>] But more than that ...: "Turnpike Business Is Different," Business Week, September 6, 1952; Robert Lubar, "Interchange Ahead," Fortune, October 1958.

  [>] In a few odd places ...: My passage on South of the Border is based on a two-day reporting visit in 1996, which I made as a staff writer for the Virginian-Pilot. I interviewed Alan Schafer in his windowless back-lot office; it featured a big board on which he kept track of the billboards and was decorated with his huge collection of antique beer serving trays. Schafer himself provided the history of the place. Not only did I witness the language barrier with which the passage concludes, but I also was present when some of my fellow SOB guests attempted to rent bathing suits from the front desk.

  [>] Back in Baltimore ...: "The Inner Harbor & City Hall Plaza."

  [>] This new secret plan ...: Edward C. Burks, "Expressway Rerouting Is Proposed," Sun, July 16, 1959; "Highway Shifts to Inner Harbor" and "Route Crossing Inner Harbor Is Advanced," Sun, October 28, 1959; James'S. Keat, "New Route Urged for Expressway," Sun, January 31, 1960.

  [>] Officialdom and the business ...: "Pratt Route Backed for Expressway," Sun, July 17, 1959; "Road Gains New Backing," Sun, July 18, 1959; "Werner, Goodman Support Expressway Shift to Pratt," Sun, July 22, 1959; and "Expressway Idea Better, Barnes Says," Sun, February 1, 1960.

  [>] "Automobile driving along...": Reutter, "The East-West Expressway."

  [>] The city hired three ...: James'S. Keat, "Study Scheduled for Expressway," Sun, April 24, 1960; "State Approves City Road Plan," Sun, February 12, 1961; and McCarthy, "Baltimore's Highway Wars Revisited."

  [>] So in October 1961 ...: J.Anthony Lukas, "New Harbor Causeway Plan Given," Sun, October 12, 1961; Stephen E. Nordlinger, "Funk Approves Harbor Route for East-West Highway Across City," Sun, August 30, 1963; "Inner Harbor Road Favored," Sun, October 30, 1964; "Board Backs Leakin Park Road Route," Sun, January 13, 1965; Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; McCarthy, "Baltimore's Highway Wars Revisited." See also Scott Kozel's excellent "Roads to the Future" website, at http://www.roadstothefuture.com.

  [>] The city's public works director ...: J. Anthony Lukas, "Inner Harbor Route Given City Backing," Sun, March 22, 1962.

  [>] Days before a public hearing ...: J.Anthony Lukas, "Route Hearing Warning Given," Sun, January 27, 1962.

  [>] He got a protest ...: J. Anthony Lukas, "Irate Crowd Hits Planned Expressway," Sun, January 31, 1962; and Dilts, "How Not to Run a Roadway."

  [>] It recommended no immediate action ...: James'S. Keat, "Route Given for Freeway in Part Only," Sun, June 21, 1962.

  [>] The subject was urban mass ...: Richard Weingroff, "The Battle of Its Life," Public Roads, May–June 2006; and Edward Weiner, Urban Transportation Planning in the United States: An Historical Overview (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation, 1997).

  [>] In April 1962, John F. Kennedy ...: Ibid.

  [>] And in October ...: Weiner, Urban Transportation Planning in the United States; Priscilla Dunhill, "Reconciling the Conflict of Highways and Cities," The Reporter, February 8, 1968; Thomas A. Morehouse, "The 1962 Highway Act: A Study in Artful Interpretation," AIP Journal, May 1969; and Weingroff, "The Battle of Its Life."

  [>] By the middle of 1964 ...: Peter Marudas, "Expressway Indecision Causes Blight," Sun, March 27, 1964. See also "Specter of an Unbuilt Road," Business Week, May 2, 1970; and Anthony Downs, "Community Reaction to a New Transportation Corridor and the Effects of Relocation on the Community," Relocation: Social and Economic Aspects (Washington, DC: Highway Research Board, National Research Council, 1970).

  [>] A young lawyer ...: "Ward Would Ban New Expressway," Sun, December 19, 1964; "Connector Opponents Seeking Its Removal," Sun, January 11, 1966; Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; and telephone interviews with Ward in early 2009.

  [>] In Nashville, I-40's ...: Helen Leavitt, Superhighway-Superhoax (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1970); "In the Path of Progress: Federal Highway Relocation Assurances," Yale Law Journal 82, no. 2 (December 1972).

  [>] A few hours to the west ...: Daniel A. Farber, "Saving Overton Park: A Comment on Environmental Values," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 146, no. 5 (June 1998); John R. Porter, "Citizens to Preserve Overton Park Inc. v. Volpe: Environmental Law and the Scope of Judicial Review," Stanford Law Review 24, no. 6 (June 1972).

  [>] Protest groups sprang up...: Gordon Fellman, "Neighborhood Protest of an Urban Highway," AIP Journal, March 1969.

  [>] In New Orleans...: Lewis, Divided Highways; Russell Kirk, "From the Academy: The Bureau of Public Roads, Devastator," National Review, February 21, 1967; "The War over Urban Expressways," Business Week, March 11, 1967; "Halting the Highway Men," Business Week, July 19, 1969.

  [>] When Baltimore held...: Charles V. Flowers, "Expressway Hearing Ends in Shambles," Sun, July 21, 1965.

  [>] When homeowners ...: Giguere, "...and Never the Twain Shall Meet"; James D. Dilts, "Expressway 'Victims' Fight Back," Sun, March 17, 1968.

  [>] That bum deal...: "Expressway Lag Rapped in Area Deterioration," Sun, March 9, 1967.

  [>] Across town...: Tom Ward interviews; Giguere, "... and Never the Twain Shall Meet"; John E. Woodruff, "East-West Expressway Due for Fight," Sun, February 14, 1967; Richard H. Levine, "Expressway Foes Clash with Backers," Sun, February 15, 1967.

  [>] It had been entrusted...: "We Drive Like Mad," Tempe News, March 4, 1967. The story quotes the bureau's claim that driving is the top form of outdoor recreation.

  [>] The Atlantic Monthly made it ...: Norman Ritter, "Interstate 87," Atlantic Monthly, September 1967.

  [>] Writers for the conservative...: J. B. Jackson, "Abolish the Highways!" National Review, November 29, 1966; Kirk, "From the Academy."

  [>] In "The American Way...": Lewis Mumford, "The American Way of Death," New York Review of Books, April 28, 1966.

  [>] Turner decried the "nonsense"...: Cullison Cady, "Highways Are for People," Highway User, August 1966.

  [>] He worked for the common good: Ibid.

  [>] "We are in a period...": Transcript, Turner speech to AASHO's Committee on
Administration, October 15, 1967 (FCT).

  [>] "We've heard a lot...": "Highway Goals for 1967–68," Trucking Business, August 1967.

  [>] In Highway User he ...: Cady, "Highways Are for People."

  [>] Turner speculated that this...: History interviews. The same theory is aired in "Highway Juggernaut," New Republic, July 6, 1968.

  [>] The new secretary...: Robert B. Semple Jr., "Alan Boyd Named Transport Chief at Cabinet Level," NYT, November 7, 1966. See also Louis Dombrowski, "Boyd Seeks Transportation Balance," Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1968.

  [>] The new federal highway administrator...: John J. Hassett, "Two Will Fill Departing Whitton's Shoes," Roads and Streets, March 1967; and Dunhill, "Reconciling the Conflict of Highways and Cities."

  [>] "We have learned...": "Lowell Bridwell: Urban Highways Are the Big Challenge," ENR, March 21, 1968.

  [>] Sensing that Baltimore's...: Frank P. L. Somerville, "Architect Set for Road," Sun, October 26, 1966.

  [>] The expressway's city and state...: Michael Naver, "20 Years of Delays Peril Expressway Construction," Sun, March 19, 1965.

  [>] It took until early 1967...: "Design Team Accepts Role," Sun, May 11, 1967; "Boyd Lauds 'Team' Idea," Sun, August 1, 1967; Wolf Von Eckardt, "New Freeway Theory Tested," Washington Post, September 24, 1967; "Team Approach Sets Pattern for Road Design," ENR, September 12, 1968; "Building Roads Without Disrupting the City," Business Week, November 18, 1967; Boyce L. Kendrick, "The Bumpy Road to a Better Highway," AIA Journal, February 1969; David Allison, "The Battle Lines of Baltimore," Innovation, July 1969; "How SOM Took On the Baltimore Road Gang," Architectural Forum, March 1969; "Biggest Snarl on City Highways," Business Week, October 18, 1969; Hapgood, "The Highwaymen."

  [>] It was a tall order...: Dilts, "Changing City—'We Must Destroy You to...'"

  [>] By the summer of 1967...: Wechsler interviews.

  [>] So he responded...: Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; Giguere, "...and Never the Twain Shall Meet"; Stephen J. Lynton, "Group to Oppose East-West Route," Sun, January 21, 1968; James D. Dilts, "The Changing City: Haunted Village," Sun, October 13, 1968; Dilts, "Expressway 'Victims' Fight Back."

  [>] In early June 1967...: Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; Adam Spiegel, "Mayor Vows Fight to Aid Relocated Home Owners," Sun, September 21, 1967.

  [>] Come October...: Dilts, "Haunted Village"; Jane L. Keidel, "Higher Prices for Doomed Homes Sought," Sun, October 4, 1967.

  [>] An even bigger victory...: Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; Giguere, "...and Never the Twain Shall Meet."

  [>] But officials rejected...: Dilts, "Changing City—'We Must Destroy You to....'"

  [>] Such questions dominated...: Ibid.

  [>] A reply came from Frank...: Ibid.

  [>] The Sun jumped on the letter ... Ibid.

  [>] That summer, while busy...: Wechsler interviews; Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; Giguere, "...and Never the Twain Shall Meet"; "Mayor Meets Expressway Foes," Sun, August 15, 1968; Jane L. Keidel, "M.A.D.," Sun, August 30, 1968; and "New Civic Unit Criticizes Expressway Design Group," Sun, May 26, 1969.

  [>] Wechsler was elected...: Telephone interviews with Art Cohen in early 2009; Wechsler interviews.

  [>] The Design Concept Team remained...: "Southern Leg of East-West Expressway Is Proposed to Bypass Downtown Area," Sun, August 23, 1968; "Busting a Bottleneck," editorial, Sun, August 26, 1968; and Jane L. Keidel, "U.S. Aide Faults East-West Paths," Sun, December 13, 1968.

  [>] Just before Christmas...: Cohen interviews; David Runkel, "Preservationist Route Backed by Schaefer," Sun, December 16, 1968; "Expressway Choice," editorial, Sun, December 24, 1968; John B. O'Donnell Jr., "Mayor's Route Choice Averts Harbor Span, Bypasses Rosemont," Sun, December 24, 1968.

  [>] The National Park Service...: "Park Service Opposes High Span Near Fort," Sun, March 20, 1969; Joy Aschenbach, "Ft. McHenry in Battle Over Proposed Bridge," Washington Star, July 19, 1971.

  [>] In early August 1969...: Cohen interviews; "Expressway Opponents Vilify Officials," Sun, August 7, 1969; "Rosemont Hearings," editorial, Sun, August 8, 1969; Jane L. Keidel, "An Expressway Bridges a Gulf Between People," Sun, August 17, 1969; Reutter, "The East-West Expressway"; and Giguere, "...and Never the Twain Shall Meet."

  [>] She later recalled...: U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, speeches of December 15, 2006, and March 17, 2007 (transcripts supplied by the senator's office).

  [>] "You did one good thing...": Keidel, "An Expressway Bridges a Gulf Between People."

  [>] So exhilarating ...: "Negro Militants Vow War Against Rosemont Route," Sun, August 12, 1969; Keidel, "An Expressway Bridges a Gulf Between People."

  [>] The first was the Dakota ...: John Volpe, essay in Art Education 23, no. 7 (October 1970). See also Cal Queal, "The Road That Goes Back 130 Million Years," Denver Post, June 29, 1969.

  [>] Another, bigger challenge ...: "Continental Divide to Be Underpassed," Dallas Morning News, December 9, 1963; Jack Foster, "Pioneer Highway Tunnel Holed Through," Denver Post, December 4, 1964; Dick Thomas, "Divide Tunnel Dream Finally Coming True," Rocky Mountain News, September 27, 1970; Andy Roger, "Breakthrough," Denver Post, March 1, 1972; "Lady Engineer Given Task Atop Tunnel," Denver Post, November 14, 1972.

  [>] And in California's Mojave ...: H. C. Prentice, "Application of Nuclear Explosives for a Mountain Pass Highway and Railroad," Engineering with Nuclear Explosives: Proceedings of the Third Plowshare Symposium, April 21, 22, 23, 1964; J. G. Fry, R. A. Stane, and W. H. Crutchfield, "Preliminary Design Studies in a Nuclear Excavation—Project Carryall," and H. H. Zodtner, "Operations and Safety Problems Associated with a Nuclear Excavation Project," HRB Record 50 (1964).

  [>] Turner drew flak ...: "Interstate System Accident Research," Public Roads 32, no. 11 (December 1963); "Fatal Collisions with Fixed Objects on Completed Sections of the Interstate Highway System, 1968," Public Roads 36, no. 1 (April 1970); and "Fatal Accidents on Completed Sections of the Interstate Highway System, 1968–70," Public Roads 36, no. 10 (October 1971).

  [>] That jibed with the observations ...: Cullison Cady, "Highway Hazards," Highway User, August 1967.

  [>] "It is sometimes difficult...": Ibid.

  [>] "It is a fundamental...": Phyllis Dee Lovoca, "'We Have to Look at Both Sides,'" Highway User, September 1967. See also Turner's letter to the Washington Post, August 20, 1970, and the highway history interviews.

  [>] Turner's boss...: "Lowell Bridwell: Urban Highways Are the Big Challenge," ENR, March 21, 1968.

  [>] Congress likewise amplified...: Richard Weingroff, "Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969," at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/nepa/01.cfm#c; "Giving People a Voice on Highways," Business Week, December 14, 1968; John D. Morris, "Public Will Get a Voice on Roads," NYT, October 23, 1968.

  [>] To state officials...: Weingroff, "Addressing the Quiet Crisis"; and Ronald G. Shafer, "Volpe, Nominee for Transportation Post, Is Tilting with Agency on Highway Policy," Wall Street Journal, December 12, 1968.

  [>] American Road Builder called him...: Editorial, American Road Builder, March 1969.

  [>] Engineering News-Record called him...: "The Old Pro Speaks," ENR, May 15, 1969. See also "Francis Turner Sworn In as Federal Highway Administrator," Transport Topics, March 24, 1969.

  [>] Label him a darling...: Jim Turner interview. Turner's confirmation hearing is preserved, in transcript, as Serial No. 91–3, "Hearing Before the Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 91st Congress" (FCT).

  [>] The Boston area, already...: "A Belt for Boston's Waist," Fortune, March 1966.

  [>] To satisfy the preservationists...: James D. Dilts, "Fells Point: A Dickensian Part of Baltimore Is Imperiled by the East-West Expressway," Sun, February 12, 1967; Edgar L. Jones, "That Road: Up Again from the Grave," Sun, August 28, 1970; and "Corridor May Claim 100 Fells Point Houses," Sun, December 18, 1970.

  [>] Money in general...: James D. Dilts, "Expressway: Now, It's Money," Su
n, May 24, 1971.

  [>] The bureau's first nod...: Weingroff, "Addressing the Quiet Crisis"; Morehouse, "The 1962 Highway Act"; "Environmental Analysis and Reporting in Highway System Planning," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 121, no. 4 (April 1973); and the act, at http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/nepa/regs/nepa/nepaeqia.htm.

  [>] As Richard Weingroff...: 2009 e-mail exchanges with Weingroff.

  [>] In April 1969...: Weingroff, "Addressing the Quiet Crisis."

  [>] Smog had burned eyes...: Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles (New York: Overlook Press, 2008).

  [>] Big roads played hell...: Richard T. T. Forman and Lauren E.Alexander, "Roads and Their Major Ecological Effects," Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 29 (1998); Richard T. T. Forman and Robert D. Deblinger, "The Ecological Road-Effect of a Massachusetts Suburban Highway," Conservation Biology 14, no. 1 (February 2000).

  [>] Rural interstates presented...: D. J. Oxley, M. B. Fenton, and G. R. Carmody, "The Effects of Roads on Populations of Small Mammals," Journal of Applied Ecology 11, no. 1 (April 1974); Bill Thomas, "Those Other Traffic Victims," Dodge News Magazine, April 1972; and Ronald M. Kozel and Eugene D. Fleharty, "Movements of Rodents Across Roads," Southwestern Naturalist 24, no. 2 (July 31, 1979).

  [>] Against this backdrop...: James D. Dilts, "Expressway Design Hearing Is Tonight," Sun, May 25, 1971; James D. Dilts, "Hearing Held on Park Section of Highway," Sun, May 26, 1971; Edgar L. Jones, "Bulldozers at the Edge of a Rare Old Forest," Sun, September 24, 1971.

  [>] They came armed...: Farber, "Saving Overton Park"; Porter, "Citizens to Preserve Overton Park Inc. v. Volpe."

  [>] Now VOLPE and its allies...: "Conservationists Sue Officials to Keep I-70 out of Leakin, Gwynns Falls Parks," Sun, October 13, 1971; Isaac Rehert, "Leakin Park Expressway Given Its Day in Federal Court," Sun, January 25, 1972; James D. Dilts, "Judge Blocks Park Route for Road, Orders Hearing," Sun, June 9, 1972; "Court Upholds Leakin Route," Sun, January 10, 1973.