Interstate Highway System Research Paper

The Interstate Highway System also known as "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" is a large-scale system. It has been development and perfected in the 20th Century. This large-scaled system was developed in the efforts of making transportation safer, and more efficient for people driving throughout the United States. Hughes presents phases of development for technological systems which include invention, development, innovation, technology transfer, technological style, growth and momentum. Looking back at how this large-scale system developed, it has exhibited the phases of development presented by Hughes.

In the early stages of roads were made of packed dirt or mud. The invention of the Model T that Henry Ford presented

President Roosevelt and congress were interested in the idea of creating highways that would connect the U.S from one coast to another. 6 route highway network was the initial idea that was brought up with Roosevelt. President Eisenhower in his state of union addressed the issue of needing a better highway system. He wanted to prevent spending millions of dollars on patching a non-efficient system. From his experience in Germany during World War 2, he noticed how well-developed highway systems could be. In a letter from President Eisenhower to the governors, he expressed how he wanted to get rid of “five "penalties" of the nation's obsolete highway network: the annual death and injury toll, the waste of billions of dollars in detours and traffic jams, the clogging of the nation's courts with highway-related suits, the inefficiency in the transportation of goods, and "the appalling inadequacies to meet the demands of catastrophe or defense, should an atomic war come."” Eisenhower’s speech made a huge impact because the governors had considered asking the federal government to step away from the Interstate Highway

President Johnson signed two acts on September 9, 1966. One was the Nation Traffic and the other was Highway Safety Act. This allowed the federal government to enforce traffic laws and regulations. This was important because it helped minimize the traffic accidents. The Federal Highway Administration also known as FHWA has been a focused on technology transfer and innovation. FHWA works with “State and local agencies, private industry, universities, and others in the national and international highway communities” so they can assess and work on technology and products for highways.

The interstate Highway System was greatly influenced by the time the idea came to development. For example, when Eisenhower was in office, one of the reasons he wanted a more developed Interstate system was because of his concern of being able to get people out of a city fast and efficient in case of an atomic bomb. Later, with President Johnson we saw how the traffic laws and regulations were important to not only make the Interstate system safer but it also helped make it more