Who created the Interstate System?
The concept of an Interstate system as we know it was first described in a 1939 report to Congress called Toll Roads and Free Roads. The report rejected the toll superhighway network Congress had suggested; revenue from tolls on most segments would not support the bonds issued for their construction. However, the report added that the country needed a toll-free express highway network. Thomas H. MacDonald, Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, and Herbert S. Fairbank, Chief of the agency’s Division of Information, prepared the report. The ideas expressed in the “free roads” portion of the report evolved through further study and experience before approval of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, but the Interstate System began with MacDonald and Fairbank.
