Original subtitles

It's nearly 50 ,000 miles long, three times the size of the Great Wall of

with over 700 billion miles traveled every year.

But a century ago, interstate highways don't exist.

Mr. President, imagine a highway system allowing us to drive anywhere and

everywhere in America.

The first transcontinental car trip?

Took 63 days.

Today, it takes 45 hours. The road to building it is bumpy.

It runs right into the heart of the Rockies.

Requiring massive engineering.

They moved 26 million tons of soil and rock.

It's more expensive than 2 ,000 Hoover dams. It's an investment in the future

growth of the United States of America.

With enough pavement for three round trips to the moon.

The decades -long struggle leaves some ruined and some dead.

But the unsung visionaries behind the highway stop at nothing to make it a

reality. He saw road building as a holy act.

I need to fix this.

He knew why roads really mattered.

This is the untold story of America's road warriors.

It wasn't until you had a highway system that Americans felt truly free.

In the aftermath of World War I, United States automobile manufacturers quickly

switched from supporting the war effort to once again producing cars.

Car ownership quadruples from what it was before the war.

Households all over the country have cars now.

Ninety percent of roads are still just dirt, and those that aren't are paved

with a layer of loose rocks and gravel.

Roads were filled with potholes.

They were filled with tree stumps, mud during the wet seasons, dust during the

dry seasons. You needed a shovel. You needed a patch kit.

You would need all sorts of gear to get you to and from your destination. It was

an adventure.

While one road, the Lincoln Highway, stretches across the United States, most

cities aren't connected, and interstate travel must be done by ship or train.

Farmers couldn't get their produce to cities. It cost more to ship over

roads a bushel of peaches just 20 miles away than it did to ship

them on the railroad 3 ,000 miles away.

In 1916, Congress passes the Federal Aid Highway Act, which offers some of the

first national funding for roads.

but it's not nearly enough for suitable highways.

There were no national roads. Most roads were built by locals.

If you were a farmer and your farm had frontage along a road, you got out there

once a year with a bunch of your employees, and you maintained that piece

road.

In Iowa, a local highway commissioner, Thomas McDonald, is thinking bigger.

Thomas MacDonald grew up in Iowa.

He witnessed as a boy working in his father's feed and lumber store

what farmers were experiencing, their crops rotting before they could get to

market. For Thomas MacDonald, building roads is really personal.

Farmers don't have the luxury to sit around and dream of an idea. They

have to turn their ideas into reality right away or they don't have a farm

year. And I think Thomas McDonald took that attitude into his job.

And he saw his road building crusade as the only way to bring a better life to

these people.

But McDonald doesn't just want better roads.

He's obsessed with roads that connect.

allowing people and products to move anywhere in the country.

And in 1919, McDonald gets the chance to make his pitch when he's appointed

chief of the Federal Bureau of Public Roads.

This country needs a highway system, but we all know that states can't afford to

pay for it.

Building all throughout time, whether it was the Roman Empire or whether it was

Napoleon, all of those empires built from the top down. You can only overcome

local obstacles if you have a strong federal force.

The federal government needs to provide more funding.

50 -50.

It's an investment in the future growth of the United States of America.

Where do we begin?

McDonald helps convince Congress to pass the 1921 Federal Highway Act, which

dwarfs the 1916 Act, offering states nearly a billion dollars in today's

The bill requires 60 % of the funds to be spent on interstate highways, the

first step toward achieving McDonald's vision of a complete national grid.

Another new innovation, the first standardized rules of the road.

Road safety, pretty much non -existent. A lot of accidents due to cross traffic.

A lot of rear -enders that did not end happily back then. That wasn't an

accident you necessarily walked away from.

Cars kill over 20 ,000 Americans each year, with more than a billion in

damage. They realized we need to have a unified standard for the color signs

should be, how large the font should be, what shape should be.

One of the earliest stop signs was diamond -shaped, others circular, until

If you can make all stop signs the same number of sides, an octagon, then at

night you can see an octagon coming up and you can know, okay, I need to slow

down.

Most stop signs were painted yellow, and then they came up with paint that would

be reflective.

That's when it became standard across the country for everyone to use an

octagonal red stop sign.

Driving isn't just unsafe.

It's also confusing.

Roads were disconnected. They were barely known about.

There weren't any maps, really, to speak of. There were no numbers telling you

where to go.

To sort out the chaos, in 1926, McDonald establishes the numbered highway system

to make cross -country travel easier.

They started on the East Coast, where most people lived.

North -south highways are odd numbers, and east -west highways are even.

And then the smallest numbers started in the northeast and worked their way out.

Roads also become a huge source of employment in America.

For McDonald, that's a win.

Now this is a man who would roll into town and be greeted like a king.

He'd be put up at the best hotels, he'd be given food.

Everybody wanted his attention because they wanted roads.

For the next few years, progress is slow and steady.

Over 10 ,000 miles of highway are laid down, but it's still a far cry from the

interstate highway system McDonald envisions.

McDonald isn't satisfied.

He has yet to realize his goal of cities actually connected. The big idea, the

big picture, it has not yet come together.

And by the end of the decade, McDonald faces a setback that could kill his plan

for good.

The stock market crash of 1929 not only results in the loss of jobs for millions

of Americans, but it also shifts Americans.

economic priorities.

No longer are people interested in mass produced modern conveniences. There's no

money for that.

With highway building grinding to a halt, the dream McDonald has spent a

working on looks to be over.

Unless he can get the attention of the most powerful man in the world.

It's now 1938, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt battles the Great

Depression with a series of sweeping governmental reforms to get the economy

moving again.

FDR coming into the White House at the darkest days of the Depression saw the

need for employment, and there's no better way to put people to work than

building a road.

So the road -building efforts become this... way to prime the pump for FDR.

After over a decade of waiting, McDonald sees an opportunity to keep his grand

plan alive.

FDR and McDonald both wanted to link the country together with highways, but

they had very different ideas about how to do it.

FDR's idea was to have three east -west highways, seven north -south highways,

and they would all just be straight as a ruler.

McDonald was looking for something much more dynamic.

Mr. President, I've been developing this for 20 years.

Imagine a highway system that goes beyond a couple of transcontinental

Imagine a system where every state has their own highway, allowing us to drive

anywhere and everywhere in America.

There would be east -west highways, north -south highways, but there would

be connecting roads and belt roads. So you could get around the country without

ever leaving the interstate.

Roosevelt approves $25 million for a difficult first project to prove

ideas can work.

Building a 160 -mile stretch of highway right through the Appalachian Mountains.

Just getting from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, 200 miles, would take

seven hours.

These mountains were very rugged.

There were stoplights, little two -lane roads, sometimes in bad condition. This

was not an easy drive.

Dubbed the Pennsylvania Turnpike, this modern road will connect Harrisburg to

Pittsburgh.

It's successful.

It will be the first step in making McDonald's 20 -year dream a reality.

It was a difficult project to build, but it was important to build because

Pennsylvania was the geographic connector between the Midwest and the

An even bigger challenge is the deadline.

Planners estimate a three - to four -year construction period, but Roosevelt

wants it done in just 20 months.

Roosevelt wanted it finished in time for the 1940 presidential election

because he wanted to win Pennsylvania.

Cove Mountain, Tuscarora Mountains, Scrub Ridge, Sideling Hill.

A lot of mountains to build through, Tom.

The world isn't flat and straight, but our roads have to be, right?

If you can't do it, I'll find someone who can.

Am I clear?

These mountainous areas were difficult to get materials to and from, were

difficult to chisel through, to blast through.

Chiseling or blasting could take years.

But engineers come up with an innovative solution.

The railroads left behind several tunnels of a canceled rail line running

through Pennsylvania.

Thomas McDonald sees this and says, wow, we could actually build a road on this

thing. We could reuse these tunnels and save some time.

It's a lucky break.

But as crews work to widen and reinforce the tunnels, their luck takes a turn.

A 14 -ton rock falls from the ceiling of a tunnel, killing four men.

After seeing the dangers of trying to tunnel through these mountains, the

with loss of life, the issues with worker safety, they decided to change it

cut, and it was a major operation.

But facing a 1 ,500 -foot hurdle named Clear Ridge, it will be the largest ever

attempted on U .S. soil.

They would cut through a rock ridge, take that debris, and fill in a valley

behind it. And it was a constant ebb and flow that the Pennsylvania Turnpike was

starting to master.

The clear ridge cut is called Little Panama after the Panama Canal. The size

scope of how much material needed to be gouged out of the mountain for the road

to go through.

Over several weeks, crews remove enough earth to fill more than two Rose Bowl

stadiums. creating a mile -and -a -half -long cut.

Once through the mountains, highway paving units pumped out 3 .5 miles of

concrete daily.

They have 10 ,000 guys working on this road around the clock to get it done.

On October 1, 1940, one month before the election, the turnpike opens, and

Roosevelt goes on to win an unprecedented third term.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike was a huge accomplishment because the engineering

so challenging, but also because they built it so fast.

It was possible to build thousands of miles of highway around the country in a

reasonable amount of time.

Under the interstate program, all these highways would look essentially the

same. No grade would be more than 3%. The turns were banked. There were no

railroad crosses or road crosses or stoplights. You could only enter the

on ramps through interchanges. It's a whole new concept in road design.

What's that?

Oh, that's the entrance to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Haven't you ever been over it? No.

Oh, it's wonderful.

It's a dream highway.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike delivers itself in 1940 as a picture in people's

of what's possible. And the future is now. The future is being built.

McDonald's next step is building highways in Ohio and New York that will

to the Turnpike in Pennsylvania.

But in 1941, another crisis upends the plan.

The Japanese invasion of Pearl Harbor ushers in World War II.

And road building is about to become a crucial player in the war effort.

It's a wake -up call in that moment that Americans have to take seriously their

ability to protect American cities, to protect American citizens by thinking

about building an infrastructure as a means of defense for the homeland.

McDonald's interstate system is put aside in favor of a defense plan, and

President Roosevelt duns McDonald with his next task, building the first

to and from the area of the country that's most vulnerable to attack.

Alaska.

With a bold, sneak attack.

Japan has pulled America into World War II.

The U .S. military fears Japan could attack the West Coast and the whole

through Alaska and needs a plan.

Today you might think of Alaska as this faraway corner of the continent, but in

strategic terms, in World War II, it was a very important location.

America is really ill -prepared to defend the Alaskan mainland because

still no road to Alaska.

The only way to back up the military there would be by ship or by plane.

The Alaskan highway is critically important to America's interests during

War II.

It falls on Thomas MacDonald to recruit the right person for the job.

Frank Turner was raised in Texas.

His father worked for the railroad.

They were absolutely dirt poor.

Didn't have running water, no electricity.

Frank got himself to college and became a civil engineer and worked his way

up.

He can find efficiencies to actually get roads built under budget, on time.

And Thomas MacDonald sees this and says, that's my guy.

Just 90 days after Pearl Harbor, work begins.

The route from Canada to Fairbanks is 1 ,700 miles long and must be finished in

just eight months.

That's more than ten times the length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in less than

half the time.

You're talking about building a road that's about the distance of Washington,

.C. to Denver, except that you're building it through rugged Alaskan

that's frozen most of the year.

Work crews labor away in temperatures as cold as 70 below zero, working in

places with names like Suicide Hill, where 32 soldiers are killed

after their transport truck overturns.

Road builders on this Alaskan project were faced with extreme conditions,

freezing, thawing, cold, mud, lack of supplies, lack of materials, lack of

shelter even.

The farther you go into the wilderness, the tougher it is to get supplies to

that leading edge of your construction.

With supplies dwindling, it goes from bad to worse.

Three months into the project.

The U .S. military meets its worst fear.

Early in the war, two islands in the Aleutian chain were invaded by Japan.

500 Japanese special forces quickly established seaplane and submarine bases

two Aleutian islands off the coast of Alaska.

It's the first time since the War of 1812.

U .S. soil has been occupied by a foreign power.

And so there's a race to make sure that America can defend that region.

In a matter of months, the number of Japanese troops grows to 5 ,000, and

is feeling the pressure.

It's possible the Japanese could mount an invasion of the American West Coast

and potentially the entire continent.

Turner is given 10 ,000 men who work on the highway almost 24 -7 to finish

before winter.

You could only build a few months out of the year. So they had pressure to build

for national security. They also had all the challenges of building in the

wilderness of Alaska.

Despite brutal conditions, the 1 ,700 -mile highway is finished in November.

Turner makes the eight -month deadline.

And with this new military pipeline, the Japanese are driven from the illusions.

Frank Turner's career -defining moment was the Alaskan project.

At $138 million, it's nearly two and a half times the cost of the Pennsylvania

Turnpike and the most expensive U .S. construction project of World War II.

But the importance of highways to the war effort isn't limited to the

In Europe, Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower is also seeing firsthand the

value of better roads.

The German Autobahn is far and away better than any highway system in the

States. Known as Hitler's Highway, Germany used it to wage blitzkrieg

its European neighbors.

Eisenhower was possibly the greatest logistics genius in military history, so

he knew why roads really mattered.

And never is it more on display than after D -Day, during the Battle of

Eisenhower took roads and made them one way, two lanes, one direction, towards

Germany. They were fighting on the east, Eisenhower was coming in from the west,

and he gets across.

The Rhine gets onto an autobahn, and he gets ahead of the retreating Germans

on their own roads.

It was the autobahn that cemented it for him that we would need broader ribbons

across the land. We would need an autobahn back in the United States.

By 1945, the war is over.

And the U .S. will emerge as a superpower.

Dwight D. Eisenhower serves as Army Chief of Staff under Truman, then the

Supreme Commander of NATO.

And on November 4, 1952, he wins the presidential election in a landslide.

Eisenhower enters the White House in a moment of...

You see that in the slogan, We Like Ike. He's a popular president who's coming

in in a moment of enormous economic prosperity for the United States.

Americans have this opportunity to purchase homes in suburbia, to drive

automobiles of every color. And so it becomes a priority of the Eisenhower

administration to help facilitate that by dealing with the problem of America's

roads.

In 1945,

there were about 25 million registered cars.

By 1953, that number almost doubles to 46 million. But

only half of the roads were paved.

This doesn't work.

With President Eisenhower making highways a new priority, Thomas

primed to finally fulfill his interstate dream.

Secretary Weeks.

Eisenhower decided that he wanted a different head of the Bureau of Public

Roads.

The roads America needed, that was changing.

Sometimes you need a fresh set of eyes to look at the problem.

Eisenhower's new highway boss, McDonald's old protege, Frank Turner.

Hello?

It's almost like Frank Turner got a battlefield promotion.

This engineering accomplishment is going to need a brilliant mind, and Frank

Turner is that person.

Finish this for me?

By 1956, Frank Turner is a year into his new job as the head of the Bureau of

Public Roads, and he's pushing for an interstate highway system that runs

through every major city in America.

When Turner was concerned, what he saw in the 19th century with railroads is

railroads would skip a town and then that town would die.

We were going to run the superhighway right into the city.

But Congress is balking at the $2 .4 trillion price tag.

So he needs a way to prove the economic benefits and creates a written sales

pitch for over 100 cities in 41 states.

It's dubbed the Yellow Book.

The yellow book comes out showing each major city in the United States that

would be receiving an interstate system. And it was a way to get mayors,

congressmen, people in the cities excited about the interstate system.

It's not just an engineering plan, it's a business plan. And it's to show how

each one of those people's needs and desires are going to be fulfilled enough

so. that they'll buy into the project.

The Yellow Book is a game changer.

Turner's bill passes, and in June, Eisenhower signs the Federal Highway Act

1956.

The 1956 Interstate Highway Bill is by far the largest the country had

ever seen.

We're talking about over $100 million per year in perpetuity until the

finished.

None of this would have happened without Utah.

I think that Thomas McDonald saw Frank Turner as a younger version of himself.

A true believer in road building. He saw road building as a holy act.

And Turner will stop at nothing to achieve his vision.

He came to visit his parents in their house in Texas.

The house...

fell right in the path of a highway that Frank Turner was to build.

His mother came out and said, Frank, isn't there something you can do?

He said, there is, but I won't. You'll have to move.

Nearly 30 years since McDonald first conceived it, the interstate as we know

is finally on its way.

The new bill will create a network of 40 ,000 miles of multi -lane divided

highways, and every American city with a population of more than 50 ,000 will be

linked.

The steel required for the interstate system is enough to build 500 aircraft

carriers.

The pavement alone could cover three round trips to the moon.

Congress wants the massive system finished in only 12 years, and they're

on a revolutionary new way of funding it.

You know, the way it was financed, there wasn't like an overall budget

initially. It was financed with gas taxes. It was a pay -as -you -go

you'd wind up with a certain amount of income into the highway trust fund each

year that you could draw from.

And you couldn't draw more.

Within a year, Turner begins construction on a crucial remaining

interstate plan.

Four coast -to -coast highways, including a 2 ,500 -mile southern route

replace the iconic Route 66.

Named Interstate 40, it begins in Oklahoma before spreading out to Raleigh

the east and Barstow to the west. But after six years of construction, it hits

major obstacle.

Cutting west -southwest makes a clear path to here.

But how do we get through that?

We could nuke it?

There's a program called Operation Plowshares, which is designed to find

civilian uses for nuclear detonations.

Hey, if we want to literally eradicate a mountain to build a dam or to put a

highway through, why not use, you know, a controlled nuclear blast?

In California's Mojave Desert, Frank Turner is in a race against the clock.

He's halfway through Congress's deadline to finish the entire 40 ,000 -mile

interstate system within 12 years.

But standing in his way, the 3 ,800 -foot Bristol Mountain Range.

We could nuke it?

I'm not sure Congress will go for dropping a bomb on a mountain.

They just passed a test ban treaty with the Soviets.

But it would get the job done.

There are a lot of people who were involved in the development of nuclear

weapons who really wanted to prove that nuclear weapons could have a positive,

peaceful application.

With the press of a button.

Turner could vaporize 68 million cubic yards of mountain, creating a 15 -mile

shortcut in the roadway and reducing building costs by 36%. They had actually

designed the reviewing stand where the dignitaries could watch the explosions.

Fortunately, thank God, somebody from the agricultural department got a hold

this and said...

Do you realize that it will obliterate crop production for probably 10 years?

In total, the U .S. government spends almost $800 million studying nuclear

weapons for civil engineering.

Along with highways, they consider nukes to widen the Panama Canal and build a

harbor in Alaska.

All are eventually scrapped.

Without nukes, Turner settles for a longer route around the mountains.

to complete I -40.

But 600 miles to the northeast, he encounters a range far too big to

These mountain ranges form an almost unbroken chain along the whole west

of North America.

The Rocky Mountains.

You've got to go through a section of the Rockies, which is basically part of

the Continental Divide. And so the Continental Divide is essentially this

ridge that goes all the way from the top of North America and Alaska all the way

down through South America.

Think of it maybe like the forehead of a Klingon.

The original map of the interstate system showed I -70 ending in Denver.

Then the federal government showed the design to the military, and the military

said, ah, but if you route the highway down south, it cuts 200 miles off

Denver and Los Angeles, a strategic route that just was too delicious not to

want to have.

At an altitude of 11 ,000 feet, crews start work on the highest highway tunnel

in the world.

attempting to burrow through 1 .7 miles of granite, talc, and clay.

The rock they were drilling through wasn't very good rock.

It was loose, there were faults, it could easily cave in.

When the type of rock condition changes abruptly, it can cause instability, it

can cause collapse, which can lead to loss of life.

Let me see those accident reports.

Landslide.

Avalanche.

Two fires.

Cave -in.

We should be protecting our men, not putting them in danger.

I need to fix this.

With only a year left to finish the entire highway system, Turner and his

engineers quickly innovate a unique solution.

They had to design a special machine that would hold up the roof of the

It was called the shield.

It's almost five stories tall. When it's constructed, it's very expensive, over

a million dollars.

It's the Hail Mary Pass that's going to get the engineers from one side of the

mountain to the other.

In September of 1969, the fate of I -70 and Frank Turner's career rests on

the success of the Shield.

What hap -

By the late 60s, only 25 ,000 miles of the proposed 40 ,000 -mile interstate

system have been built. And Chief Engineer Frank Turner's highway budget

almost twice his 1956 estimate.

Despite being over budget and behind schedule, some cities are seeing

significant growth.

Places that were town, like Albuquerque, Dallas, Phoenix.

They are now able to become these massive metropolises, surrounded

by these interconnected suburbs that can be traversed in a matter of hours

or even minutes.

Between 1950 and 1970, Denver has doubled its population, Houston has

tripled, and Phoenix is ten times its size.

Places like Arizona and New Mexico that had been pretty off the beaten track

before interstates became popular destinations.

In fact, in the 1960s, the number of people visiting the Grand Canyon

This changes the way we eat.

Fast food chains pop up. This changes the way we stay. Hotel chains pop up.

interstate. changed the economic geography of the country.

And one of the first businesses to really pick up on this was McDonald's.

Instead of putting their restaurants in the middle of the downtown areas, they

would locate them by the highway off -ramp.

While cities east of the Rockies are enjoying the benefits of the new

highways,

Frank Turner is on a deadline to connect them to the West Coast.

He's made a big bet on a $7 million drill named The Shield to finally get I

through the mountains.

Only 70 feet in, it gets stuck. It's just incapable of getting through this

massive mountain.

The weight of the mountain above is too much.

If Turner wants his direct route through the Rockies, he's got to find a way to

keep it from collapsing.

There is no other way.

We have to go through the mountain.

So, now we try the multiple

drift technique.

The multiple drift technique is where you have a main tunnel, and around that

main tunnel, smaller drift holes are drilled and then filled with concrete to

beef up the surrounding rock.

So the probability of cave -ins is reduced because these multiple drifts

surround the main tunnel create a protective layer.

Using the multiple drift technique, crews successfully tunnel a two -mile

highway through the Rockies.

Dubbed the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel, when it opens in 1973, it's the highest

tunnel in the world.

Now, suddenly, the western side of the United States is open as well, because

this path from Denver through the Rocky Mountains opens up all sorts of

development. Think of tourism. Think of skiing.

After this accomplishment, Turner retires, but work on the interstate

on.

Congress continues to spend highway dollars, but the economic boom isn't

by all communities equally.

The story of the highway system is complicated.

It was something we needed to do as a country, but also it was done on terms

that excluded a lot of people. Much of the interstate infrastructure in the

United States, where it passes through cities, is going to be built over the

heads and through the houses of... African -American and other low -income

residents. And those Americans ultimately see communities that have

-won and built out of decades of migration, turmoil, and struggle erased

overnight in the name of progress and planning.

So we look back now on a mixed legacy.

But there is no question that America would not have developed into the world

-leading economy we are today if we hadn't made that choice to invest in a

highway system.

Finally completed in 1995.

Almost 30 years late and $100 billion over budget, the interstate highway

gives Americans more choices on where and how to live.

It brings together what had been small pathways, trails, smaller roadways

into a standardized system of signage and construction from coast

to coast.

We're talking about 47 ,000 miles.

of highway 55 000 bridges

while this engineering marvel bears

eisenhower's name there are other lesser -known figures perhaps more deserving

of such recognition americans think that they remember that eisenhower is the

one that came up with this idea and nothing could be further from the truth

The story of American highways is a story of disciplined bureaucrats,

who thought big not because they were getting rich or that their names were

going on it. Men like McDonald, Turner, they were really committed to the idea

of improving transportation as the key to improving the lives of Americans.

Someday, thousands of years from now, Archaeologists are going to look back on

the America of the 20th century, and even though the pavement may be long

the interstate highway system will be there forever.