Divided Highways:
Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life

Tom Lewis

New York: Penguin, 1997; ISBN: 0-14-026771-9; Pp. xiv, 354, notes, bibliography

Review © 2005 Branislav L. Slantchev

When I came to the U.S. in 1993, many things impressed me but few were so immediate and so lasting as the roads. Bulgaria is admittedly a small country but we were much more limited in our geographical aspirations anyway. Even though one could cross the entire country in less time it takes to drive through half of Texas, we did not travel all that much because we had so few roads, and almost none of them were decent. When I landed in New York City, its awful avenues looked pretty much as the lunar surface that are the streets of Sofia. It was only when I finally got on an interstate that I saw what the movies had not done justice to. In my years here, I have now traveled almost to every corner of this country, driving across its vast expanse several times. The interstates never cease to amaze me and I have yet to become inured to them in the way most Americans seem to be. And that's taking into account that I live in Southern California now.

When Mr Lewis' book came highly recommended, I decided it was high time I actually learned something about the 41,000 mile system that I have so gladly been using. I had hoped for an exciting story, complete with heroes and villains, about what must surely have been a gargantuan undertaking. I had hoped for a narrative of the politics of decisions, along perhaps with some of the gritty details about eminent domain that could not have pleased everyone. And in the end, I had hoped for a social analysis of the impact of the system on American life. Although Mr Lewis proved a bit lite on the analysis, his masterful history-telling provides for one captivating read. If one is looking for a gripping account of what happened, this is the book. If one is interested in analysis, then one should look elsewhere. This is a popular book, not a scholarly one.

In the first part of the book, Mr Lewis gives the background to the evolution of road building in America. In particular, the focus is on the three alternative ways of approaching it that emerged during the interwar era. Chapter 1 tells the story of Thomas McDonald, chief of the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) from 1919 to 1953, and his vision to extend convenient transportation to the rural areas. Mr Lewis paints McDonald in exceedingly sympathetic colors (the man seems inhuman, with nary a failing) but whatever the truth there, the Chief's skillful management resulted in a productive synergy between public and private interests that spurred road development, turning his bureau from a relatively insignificant affair into a prosperous and influential fiefdom. The BPR (now, the Federal Highway Administration) set the stage for managing American roads: it would create the common standards and then disburse the funds to state authorities (rather than federal ones) so they can construct the actual highways. Of course, this would entail all the corruption that the traffic could bear, as the author shows.

In Chapter 2, Mr Lewis focuses on Robert Moses who built parkways that transformed New York City, at least for the middle classes. Moses is decidedly more recognizable in his ruthless pursuit of his projects as well as blindness to the other options, especially toll roads. Chapter 3, which details the creation of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, also provides a nice counter to the two other competing visions and in an important way serves as a blueprint for what was to come. Built in 1941 without help from the BPR, the turnpike relied on tolls to finance its operation and maintenance, something that was contrary to BPR practice. Whereas the BPR model of state primacy would endure, the Turnpike model of "if you build it, they will use it" would be just as persistent.

Of course, we would not have seen the highway system without the Second World War. For one, it created mammoth government-run projects that would dwarf anything that private capital could compete with (and, as Mr Lewis demonstrates with the Rockefeller private road fiasco in New York, even the richest could not afford the maintain roads by themselves). In addition, Americans started moving en masse, many leaving their rural areas for the cities with their incessant demand for high wartime production. When the GIs came home, they suddenly found themselves with money for housing and opportunities for education, all courtesy of the grateful government. This gave many Americans the first opportunity to move into the middle class, or in other words, to buy a nice suburban home chock-full with modern appliances. All these processes created a pent-up demand for mobility as people both wanted to work in cities but without living in them. With the power of the national security state, this demand could be met, which is what the Eisenhower administration did in 1953 when it created the interstate highway system.

Designed ostensibly at least in part for military reasons, the system would accelerate the trends that had appeared in American society during the post-Depression period. Mr Lewis lovingly traces the construction of the roads, the stunning feats of engineering (the I-70 tunnel through the Continental Divide at 11,158 feet in Colorado, pp. 255-57) and the astonishing hubris (the plan to blow up the Bristol Mountains in Mojave, California with 22 nukes, p. 170). I would have liked to see a bit more about the financing, especially the fuel taxes, and perhaps a bit more about the struggle between the "highwaymen" and locals who could not have been very happy about getting their pretty neighborhoods ruined by ugly concrete and noisy traffic. Mr Lewis does dwell a bit on the latter and his account of the struggle to prevent an elevated expressway along the waterfront in New Orleans (Chapter 8) is masterful in its depictions of characters and organizational acumen.

All this is nice, but the book is somewhat poorly organized. In fact, I may have given an overall impression of structure where little exists. Mr Lewis prefers a chronological narrative, which is fine, but he also seldom provides much context in which to assess the processes that he's describing. He has simply taken on too much and would have done much better had he concentrated on a handful of aspects (e.g., political and social, or perhaps cultural and demographic, but not all together). As an European, I wondered why there is almost no discussion of urban mass transit. We shall be seeing the problems of urban sprawl for years to come, after all, mass transit only works when it is convenient, and it is only convenient where everything is in the same place, like Manhattan and Boston, not like San Diego where I have to drive 10 miles to the nearest bookstore. Of course, the highways have encouraged this, but one wonders why the alternatives were never seriously pondered.

Mr Lewis also engages in frequent asides that are amusing and informative but frequently quite distracting. For example, he talks about the experience of blacks (pp. 269-70) and about the discrimination on the road, complete with guides that listed gas stations that would serve them. However, what sounds like a beginning of an interesting analysis ends up being a melodramatic aside: we are told about one Miss Staple whose parents drove her to Alabama in 1960 and how she got hysterical on the trip (without saying why). Similarly, only a few pages (pp. 271-74) are dedicated to the impact of mobility on women, surely something that is as profound as perhaps their wartime work in the industry. Mr Lewis frequently talks about how the interstates were built in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods because the lack of political clout of their residents meant no opposition could coalesce to stop them. But I have to wonder: after all, disenfranchisement is not limited to race or ethnicity and in 1953, almost the entire country was white. In other words, I would have preferred to see more about state and federal dealings with people who were not willing to sell their property or who were not keen on being subjected to the explosive noise pollution and growth that comes with the highways.

These quibbles aside, Mr Lewis has written a highly readable book that succeeds in providing an outline that needs to be fleshed out and filled with more analytical works by others.

June 14, 2005