Ike and the Interstates: Creeping toward Comprehensive Planning

Abstract

This article explores several aspects of the new interstate highway program during the Eisenhower Era of the 1950s. Federal Interstate legislation left state highway engineers in control of routing and constructing the big new roads that were certain to shape future metropolitan growth patterns. Planning professionals soon criticized the road builders' failure to integrate highway building with metropolitan land use planning, as well as their lack of interest in mass transit alternatives and relocation housing for those displaced by interstate highway construction. Urban renewal legislation required comprehensive planning and relocation provisions, but Eisenhower's economic advisers resisted parallel mandates for the Interstates. Within the Eisenhower administration, however, several key figures were pushing for metropolitan planning, mass transit, and relocation housing. White House domestic adviser Robert E. Merriam and public works planning adviser John S. Bragdon argued the merits of comprehensive planning and uniform requirements for federal construction programs. The stage was set for structural change, policy initiatives that came together in the Highway Act of 1962 and subsequent legislation in the sixties.