[HEADSHOT] When Franklin Roosevelt became President in 1933, the United States was in the depths of the Great Depression, with a nationwide unemployment rate of 24.9 percent. Roosevelt is famous for having said during his inauguration speech, “…let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
The New Deal
During his first 100 days in office, he pushed 15 major bills through Congress, which were all designed to get people back to work. The programs established by these bills became known as the New Deal. Among them was the National Industrial Recovery Act, which established the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, later renamed the Public Works Administration (PWA).
The PWA was intended to put Americans to work on large-scale public works projects such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. The PWA funded over 11,000 road projects during its 10 years of operation, including iconic projects such as New York’s Triborough Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel in New York, the Overseas Highway to Key West, Florida, electrification of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the Northeast Corridor, and the construction of numerous airports. [Triborough Bridge in New York City. Source: Library of Congress] [Overseas Highway, Florida Keys. Source: Library of Congress. ]
Although the New Deal programs created during Roosevelt’s first 100 days helped to stop the free fall of the American economy, by 1935 the nationwide unemployment rate was still at 20.1 percent, and it was felt that the PWA program was too slow in delivering employment benefits. So on May 6, 1935, President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
As opposed to the PWA, which was intended to build larger projects through contracts with private firms, the WPA engaged in smaller projects in cooperation with local governments. The WPA only hired people on relief who were paid directly by the federal government. It built, improved, or renovated 1,050 airports, surfaced 639,000 miles of roads, installed nearly 1 million miles of sidewalks, curbs, and street lighting, and built, repaired or refurbished 124,031 bridges. Among the largest projects funded by the WPA was La Guardia Airport in New York. Both the PWA and WPA helped fund the first freeway constructed in the western United States, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which connected Los Angeles with Pasadena in California. Today we still benefit from the many transportation projects that were constructed by the PWA and WPA.
[La Guardia Airport in New York City. Source: Library of Congress ] [Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles. Source: Library of Congress]
Co-Father of the Interstates
Although the most wide-ranging elements of President Roosevelt’s transportation legacy were the projects funded and built through his New Deal programs, he is also well known for his role in some of the early planning for what eventually became the Interstate Highway System. In the mid-1930s (as noted in the book, The Drive for Dollars: How Fiscal Politics Shaped Urban Freeways and Transformed American Cities) there was considerable interest by the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) and the War Department, as well as by members of Congress, in the German Autobahn system.
On February 8, 1938, President Roosevelt summoned Thomas MacDonald, Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), to the White House. The President drew blue lines on a United States map, three east-west lines and five north-south lines, and asked MacDonald to study the feasibility of building a network of toll superhighways in those corridors. (A picture of Roosevelt’s map, curated by the National Archives, is shown below.) The president also wanted MacDonald to look into condemning mile-wide rights of way and later selling off the property along the new highways at a profit to help pay for the highways. [Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles. Source: Library of Congress ]
Co-Father of the Interstates
Although the most wide-ranging elements of President Roosevelt’s transportation legacy were the projects funded and built through his New Deal programs, he is also well known for his role in some of the early planning for what eventually became the Interstate Highway System. In the mid-1930s (as noted in the book, The Drive for Dollars: How Fiscal Politics Shaped Urban Freeways and Transformed American Cities) there was considerable interest by the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) and the War Department, as well as by members of Congress, in the German Autobahn system.
On February 8, 1938, President Roosevelt summoned Thomas MacDonald, Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), to the White House. The President drew blue lines on a United States map, three east-west lines and five north-south lines, and asked MacDonald to study the feasibility of building a network of toll superhighways in those corridors. (A picture of Roosevelt’s map, curated by the National Archives, is shown below.) The president also wanted MacDonald to look into condemning mile-wide rights of way and later selling off the property along the new highways at a profit to help pay for the highways. [Map of President Roosevelt’s Proposed Toll Superhighways. Source: Source: National Archives. ]
MacDonald submitted a report, Proposed Direct Route Highways, to President Roosevelt a little more than two months later on April 16, 1938. The report concluded, “A national system of direct route highways designed for continuous flow of motor traffic, with all cross traffic on separated grades, is seriously needed and should be undertaken.” However, it also concluded that tolls and excess condemnation as means to finance such a network was impractical. The report was never made public.
A few weeks later Congress included a provision in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 asking the BPR for a report on a similar toll “superhighway” network consisting of three east-west routes and three north-south routes, and it gave the BPR until the following February to produce a report. BPR prepared a much more detailed and comprehensive report entitled, Toll Roads and Free Roads, which President Roosevelt transmitted to Congress on April 27, 1939. It concluded that such a network would not generate enough revenue in tolls to pay for itself.
However, the BPR included a second portion of the report in which it advocated that a 27,000-mile intercity network of non-tolled grade-separated, limited access highways be built to the same standards as had been proposed for the toll road system. This “Master Plan for Free Highway Development” later became the basis for the Interstate Highway System.
Two years after publication of Toll Roads and Free Roads, on April 14, 1941, President Roosevelt appointed the National Interregional Highway Committee.
Anticipating World War II, the President saw a major highway construction program as a jobs-creating program that could help prevent the country from sliding back into economic depression after the war was over. The committee produced a report, Interregional Highways, which was published in 1944. As shown below, it recommended a system of 33,920 miles, plus an additional 5,000 miles of auxiliary urban routes to connect nearly every metropolitan area with a population over 100,000.
[Figure from the 1944 Interregional Highways report. ]
This recommended network became the blueprint for the Interstate Highway System. The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1944 created, but did not fund, the National System of Interstate Highways. Although it would not be until 1956 that Congress would fund the Interstate system, some have argued that President Roosevelt deserves the title of “Father of the Interstate” as much as President Eisenhower does.
Aviation
President Roosevelt also left his mark on civil aviation, and particularly on aviation safety. The first air traffic control centers were established by a group of airlines in 1934. Responsibility for air traffic control was taken over by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Air Commerce in 1936, although local authorities continued to operate airport towers. In 1938 President Roosevelt signed the Civil Aeronautics Act, which established an independent Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA), with a three-member Air Safety Board that would conduct accident investigations and recommend ways of preventing accidents. The legislation also gave the CAA power to regulate airline fares and determine the routes individual carriers served.
In 1940, President Roosevelt split the CAA into two agencies, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, which retained the CAA designation and went back to the Department of Commerce, and the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). The new CAA retained responsibility for air traffic control, airman and aircraft certification, safety enforcement, and airway development. CAB responsibilities included safety rulemaking, accident investigation, and economic regulation of the airlines.
CAA took over responsibility for operation of airport towers on the eve of World War II. It evolved over the next three decades to eventually become the Federal Aviation Administration with the establishment of the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1968. President Roosevelt also became the first U.S. president to travel by airplane on U.S. official business, when he flew in a Boeing 314 Flying Boat named the Dixie Clipper to a World War II strategy meeting with Winston Churchill at Casablanca, Morocco.
[Roosevelt and Churchill (seated) at their Casablanca conference in January 1943. Source: National Museum of the U.S. Navy. ]
President Franklin Roosevelt was the longest serving president in U.S. history and led the United States through the Great Depression and World War II. He leaves an enduring legacy that we benefit from to this day in many aspects of our lives, including in transportation.
Neil Pedersen is a member of Eno’s Board of Advisors. He has had a long career in transportation, including serving as executive director of the National Academies’ Transportation Research Board (TRB) and as Maryland State Highway Administrator.
