Question

What was one result ovtue creation of the interstate highway system?

Answer 1

On June 29, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The bill created a 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” that would, according to Eisenhower, eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of “speedy, safe transcontinental travel.” At the same time, highway advocates argued, “in case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net [would] permit quick evacuation of target areas.” For all of these reasons, the 1956 law declared that the construction of an elaborate expressway system was “essential to the national interest.”

Answer 2

More Americans were now able to move to the suburbs.

Population growth after World War II was a cause of expansion of cities into suburbs. The prices of homes in suburbs were more affordable to middle class families, due to lower land prices and new building practices like tract housing. With the growth of the suburbs, improvement of roadways became a priority. The Federal-Aid Highway Act passed in 1956 advanced and enabled further growth of the suburbs surrounding city centers.