“Motorways of little value”

“Though he was impressed by the construction methods, grade separations and superb engineering, MacDonald saw little justification for Hitler’s 2,000mi of reichsautobahnen that Dr Todt and his laborers were creating. Despite the propaganda that went with the superhighway, he thought it of little practical value.” (Tom Lewis “Divided Highways” Viking 1997, p24.) And he strongly opposed them in the US. Of course the states were already building ‘superhighways’ (motorways) despite the federal roads’ chief’s dismissive view, beginning with various parkways in NY, CT, VA, MA and IL. Los Angeles first freeway was the Passadena Fwy (CA-110) known as the Arroyo Seco Pwy when it opened in 1940, the same year as the Penn Pike’s first section between the outskirts of Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. MP-67 to MP-226, this 256km (159mi) segment was America’s first major interurban motorway, and its success made the case for the interstate system. All previous US motorways had been intra-urban or fringe-urban. The federal Bureau of Public Roads resisted a national system of motorway standard roads under their famous ‘chief’ Thomas MacDonald. Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower and other elected officials however disagreed and eventually got their way. The important historical fact is that the interstate system was built despite FHWA and its predecessors, not because of them.