The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways was actually the idea of an earlier president, according to this history of highways posted on The Infrastructurist.
Earl Swift, author of "The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways", explains.
"The bureau instead proposed a more ambitious web of highways in and between cities, arguing that it might not only ease the country's worsening urban traffic, but replace its slums. Voila: We had a rough blueprint for today's Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
Thing is, that White House meeting took place in 1938. Eisenhower was in the Philippines at the time, working for Douglas MacArthur. He wouldn't take the oath of office for another 15 years.
The guy who drew those lines on the map was Franklin Roosevelt."
Read the full story: The Secret History of America’s Interstate Highway System
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One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
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