Paving the Way: New York Road Building and the American State, 1880-1956

摘要

One of the most significant engineering achievements of the twentieth century was the creation of a network of hard-surfaced highways across America. Bruce Seely's Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers (1987) has dealt with this road-building effort, focusing primarily on the federal Bureau of Public Roads. Mark Rose's Interstate: Express Highway Politics, 1939-1989 (1990) has outlined the history of the federal interstate highway system. Now Michael Fein has shifted the focus to state endeavors. His contribution is a much-needed and welcome addition to the literature. The nation's highways are the property of the states, which are responsible for their construction and maintenance. States, not the federal government, reacted first to the demand for better roads, embarking on state-aid highway programs more than two decades before the federal government's belated Highway Act of 1916.