Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways?

[marmar]

Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways?
A new book argues that the expansion of the US roadway network has exacted social and environmental costs that far outweigh the benefits.

By David Zipper
July 8, 2025 at 8:00 AM EDT


(Bloomberg CityLab) “The Interstate Highway Act literally brought Americans closer together,” President Bill Clinton said in 1996, referencing the bill that launched the 47,000-mile federal highway network. “We were connected city-to-city, town-to-town, family-to-family, as we had never been before. That law did more to bring Americans together than any other law this century.”

In his new book, Overbuilt , Erick Guerra, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, offers a markedly less rosy assessment of the US highway system. By blasting their way through cities, Guerra argues, interstate designers sacrificed urban wealth and quality of life, particularly within low-income neighborhoods.

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Much of your book concerns the interstate system, which many people believe President Dwight Eisenhower — a World War II general — designed to enhance military logistics. To what extent is that story accurate?

It’s a convenient narrative, but I don’t think that was a primary motivator for the system that was built. If the interstates were built purely for military purposes, they would have circumvented cities instead of going right through them. If you’re going through cities, you have congestion, which makes it harder to move large vehicles.

But the highway engineers responsible for planning the interstate system recognized that that cities were where there was a demand for traffic. Those sections were going to fund the entire system through gas tax revenues. .................(more)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-07-08/in-overbuilt-a-case-to-reverse-the-us-highway-building-machine?srnd=phx-citylab