The Roads that Built America

The Roads that Built America PDF Author: Dan McNichol
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 9781402734687
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
The year 2006 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Interstate System, the most incredible road system in the world. Created by Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose WW II experiences taught him the necessity of a superhighway for military transport and evacuation in wartime, today's Interstate System is what connects our coasts and our borders, our cities and small towns. It's made possible our suburban lifestyle and caused the vast proliferation of businesses from HoJos to Holiday Inns. And if you order something online, most likely it's a truck barreling along an interstate that gets the product to your door. Written by bestselling author Dan McNichol, The Roads that Built America is the fascinating story of the largest engineering project the world has ever known.

The Roads that Built America

The Roads that Built America PDF Author: Dan McNichol
Publisher: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
ISBN: 9781402734687
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
The year 2006 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Interstate System, the most incredible road system in the world. Created by Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose WW II experiences taught him the necessity of a superhighway for military transport and evacuation in wartime, today's Interstate System is what connects our coasts and our borders, our cities and small towns. It's made possible our suburban lifestyle and caused the vast proliferation of businesses from HoJos to Holiday Inns. And if you order something online, most likely it's a truck barreling along an interstate that gets the product to your door. Written by bestselling author Dan McNichol, The Roads that Built America is the fascinating story of the largest engineering project the world has ever known.

Divided Highways

Divided Highways PDF Author: Tom Lewis
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780140267716
Category : Interstate Highway System
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In Divided Highways, Tom Lewis tells the monumental story of the largest engineered structure ever built: the Interstate Highway System. Here is one of the great untold tales of American enterprise, recounted entirely through the stories of the human beings who thought up, mapped out, poured, paved - and tried to stop - the Interstates. Conceived and spearheaded by Thomas "the Chief" MacDonald, the iron-willed bureaucrat from the muddy farmlands of Iowa who rose to unrivaled power, the highway system was propelled forward through the pathbreaking efforts of brilliant engineers, argued over by politicians of every ideological and moral stripe, reviled by the citizens whose lives it devastated, and lauded as the greatest public works project in U.S. history.

Killer on the Road

Killer on the Road PDF Author: Ginger Strand
Publisher: Univ of TX + ORM
ISBN: 029274210X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
True crime meets cultural history in this story of how America’s interstate highway system opened a world of mobility and opportunity . . . for serial killers. Starting in the 1950s, Americans eagerly built the planet’s largest public work: the 42,795-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Before the concrete was dry on the new roads, however, a specter began haunting them: the highway killer. He went by many names: the “Hitcher,” the “Freeway Killer,” the “Killer on the Road,” the “I-5 Strangler,” and the “Beltway Sniper.” Some of these criminals were imagined, but many were real. The nation’s murder rate shot up as its expressways were built. America became more violent and more mobile at the same time. Killer on the Road tells the entwined stories of America’s highways and its highway killers. There’s the hot-rodding juvenile delinquent who led the National Guard on a multistate manhunt; the wannabe highway patrolman who murdered hitchhiking coeds; the record promoter who preyed on “ghetto kids” in a city reshaped by freeways; the nondescript married man who stalked the interstates seeking women with car trouble; and the trucker who delivered death with his cargo. Thudding away behind these grisly crime sprees is the story of the interstates—how they were sold, how they were built, how they reshaped the nation—and how we came to equate them with violence. Through the stories of highway killers, we see how the “killer on the road,” like the train robber, the gangster, and the mobster, entered the cast of American outlaws, and how the freeway—conceived as a road to utopia—came to be feared as a highway to hell. “Strand . . . Explores the connection between America’s sprawling highway system and the pathology of the murderers who have made them a killing ground. . . . The grim stories of murder on the highway may do for road trips what Jaws did for surfing. An interesting detour into a true-crime niche.” ―Kirkus Reviews “Strand’s cross-threaded tales of drifters, stranded motorists, and madmen got its hooks into me. Reading Ms. Strand’s thoughtful book is like driving a Nash Rambler after midnight on a highway to hell.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times “A titillating, clever volume that mixes the sweeping sociological assertions of an urban-studies textbook with the chilling gore of true-crime stories.” —Bookforum “Ginger Strand is in possession of a sharp eye, a biting wit, a beguiling sense of fun—and a magnificent obsession.” —Bloomberg

The Big Roads

The Big Roads PDF Author: Earl Swift
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 054754913X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Discover the twists and turns of one of America’s great infrastructure projects with this “engrossing history of the creation of the U.S. interstate system” (Los Angeles Times). It’s become a part of the landscape that we take for granted, the site of rumbling eighteen-wheelers and roadside rest stops, a familiar route for commuters and vacationing families. But during the twentieth century, the interstate highway system dramatically changed the face of our nation. These interconnected roads—over 47,000 miles of them—are man-made wonders, economic pipelines, agents of sprawl, uniquely American symbols of escape and freedom, and an unrivaled public works accomplishment. Though officially named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, this network of roadways has origins that reach all the way back to the World War I era, and The Big Roads—“the first thorough history of the expressway system” (The Washington Post)—tells the full story of how they came to be. From the speed demon who inspired a primitive web of dirt auto trails to the largely forgotten technocrats who planned the system years before Ike reached the White House to the city dwellers who resisted the concrete juggernaut when it bore down on their neighborhoods, this book reveals both the massive scale of this government engineering project, and the individual lives that have been transformed by it. A fast-paced history filled with fascinating detours, “the book is a road geek’s treasure—and everyone who travels the highways ought to know these stories” (Kirkus Reviews).

All Roads Lead to the American City

All Roads Lead to the American City PDF Author: Peter Swirski
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 9622098622
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163

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Book Description
All Roads Lead to the American City provides an original view of the urban culture in America seen through its irrevocable ties with the cities and roads. Examining the history, cinema, literature, cultural myths and social geography of the United States, the book puts some of the greatest as well as the "baddest" American cities under the microscope. Taking the role of the roads that crisscross and connect the cities as their shared point of reference, these essays explore ways to understand the people who live, commute, work, create, govern, commit crime and conduct business in them.Cities, for the most part, are America. Their values and problems define not only what the United States is, but what other nations perceive the United States to be. Roads and transportation, on the other hand, and their impact on the American culture and lifestyle, form not only the integral part of the historical rise-and-shine of the modern city, but a physical release from and a cultural antidote to its pressure-cooker stresses. Tracing the boundless variety and complexity of these twin themes, All Roads Lead to the American City is built around an interlinked series of essays on the urban culture in America. Juxtaposing the city and the road, it looks alternatively at cities as historical, geographical, social and cultural centres of life in the land, and at roads as physical as well as metaphorical arteries that lead in and out of the city.

The Eisenhower Interstate System

The Eisenhower Interstate System PDF Author: John Murphy
Publisher: Chelsea House
ISBN:
Category : Interstate Highway System
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
Examines the construction of the interstate highway system.

The American Highway

The American Highway PDF Author: William Kaszynski
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 9780786408221
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Minnesota-based writer and photographer Kazynski traces the transformation of the US from a network of places connected by rutted wagon trails to a maze of highways connected to other highways. He describes and illustrates road and bridge construction and the new roadside culture that threw up motels, restaurants, gas stations, and scenic perspectives.

Roads Were Not Built for Cars

Roads Were Not Built for Cars PDF Author: Carlton Reid
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1610916891
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Cyclists were written out of highway history in the 1920s and 1930s by the all-powerful motor lobby:Roads Were Not Built For Cars tells the real story, putting cyclists center stage again. Not that the book is only about cyclists. It will also contains lots of automotive history because many automobile pioneers were cyclists before becoming motorists. A surprising number of the first car manufacturers were also cyclists, including Henry Ford. Some carried on cycling right through until the 1940s. One famous motor manufacturing pioneer was a racing tricycle rider to his dying day.

Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads

Assessing and Managing the Ecological Impacts of Paved Roads PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309100887
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
All phases of road developmentâ€"from construction and use by vehicles to maintenanceâ€"affect physical and chemical soil conditions, water flow, and air and water quality, as well as plants and animals. Roads and traffic can alter wildlife habitat, cause vehicle-related mortality, impede animal migration, and disperse nonnative pest species of plants and animals. Integrating environmental considerations into all phases of transportation is an important, evolving process. The increasing awareness of environmental issues has made road development more complex and controversial. Over the past two decades, the Federal Highway Administration and state transportation agencies have increasingly recognized the importance of the effects of transportation on the natural environment. This report provides guidance on ways to reconcile the different goals of road development and environmental conservation. It identifies the ecological effects of roads that can be evaluated in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of roads and offers several recommendations to help better understand and manage ecological impacts of paved roads.

The Road Taken

The Road Taken PDF Author: Henry Petroski
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632863626
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A renowned historian and engineer explores the past, present, and future of America's crumbling infrastructure. Acclaimed engineer and historian Henry Petroski explores our core infrastructure from both historical and contemporary perspectives, explaining how essential their maintenance is to America's economic health. Petroski reveals the genesis of the many parts of America's highway system--our interstate numbering system, the centerline that divides roads, and such taken-for-granted objects as guardrails, stop signs, and traffic lights--all crucial to our national and local infrastructure. A compelling work of history, The Road Taken is also an urgent clarion call aimed at American citizens, politicians, and anyone with a vested interest in our economic well-being. Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling, and Petroski reveals the complex and challenging interplay between government and industry inherent in major infrastructure improvement. The road we take in the next decade toward rebuilding our aging infrastructure will in large part determine our future national prosperity.