New Highways.

By the 1950s Americans had made a firm commitment to private cars over public mass transportation such as buses and trains, even though it meant higher personal expense, traffic jams, and occasional frustrations. The dominance of the transportation field by the automobile and trucking industries was assured when Congress passed the National Highway Act in 1958. America already had 1.68 million miles of surfaced road in 1950 — up from 1.34 million in 1940 — but the highway act promised a significant improvement over even those paved roads by funding the building of wider, safer, more-modern four- to eight-lane freeways. Justified as a defense measure to speed the transport of troops in an emergency, the new freeways benefited the average American, who could shave days off cross-country auto trips by avoiding the "backroads." Also as a result, oncelegendary highways such as...