Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City

Abstract

This richly researched monograph contributes much to our understanding of the condition of modern urban America. Peter D. Norton, a historian of American technology, reminds us that Americans have lived with urban traffic issues for more than a century. By 1930, when nearly 30 million automobiles were registered, traditional two-way city streets began to give way to four- and six-lane boulevards. In 1956 the Eisenhower administration proposed a grand solution: the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. Nearly everyone agreed with government and industry experts that this unprecedented public works project would end urban traffic congestion and promote passenger safety. Only a very few voices of dissent could be heard as the legislation was rushed through a pliant Congress. Long forgotten were the plaintive words of the urbanologist Lewis Mumford: “The most charitable thing to assume about the [legislation] is that they hadn't the faintest notion of what they were doing” (Richard Davies, Age of Asphalt, 1975).