History of US Roads

[spuwho]

Wonder how and why the country came to develop our roads?

Who came to the decision that roads should be "free for all" to use?

How did they develop the way to pay for roads? There wasn't always a gas tax?

The Federal Highway Administration has a brief rundown of how American roads came to be and the political process and pains it went through to not only get built, but to get ongoing funding.

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/freight.htm

Did you know that highway planners never intended for trucks to be a major user? They thought railroads would handle all long distance freight! A critical blunder by road planners in 1944 and 1953 has had ramifications to modern transportation, even to today.  That there were political blockades in Congress, questions of constitutionality, even the original name of the highway bill was controversial as it sounded too aligned with the "socialist" movement of FDR. Blockades of highway funding proposals by the truckers almost derailed the whole road plan from the start.

It's a good read if you want perspective on highway funding and to see how they try to "pay their way"