At present, the total length of highways in the United States is 6.85 million kilometers, which is still the first in the world. The expressway is 108,000 kilometers, lower than China and ranks second in the world.
Highway construction in the United States can be divided into the classical highway period and the modern highway period. The classical highway period refers to the gravel road built during the British colonial period and the American Industrial Revolution, also known as the road. The modern highway period refers to the cement and concrete roads built after the second industrial revolution, and the roads we are talking about now mostly refer to the latter kind of highways.
U.S. Highways
The construction of modern highways in the United States is bounded by 1955 and can be divided into two periods. Before 1955 it was mainly a general highway, the climax of its construction was franklin in the 1930s. During Roosevelt's New Deal. In response to the Great Depression brought about by the economic crisis of 1929-1933, Franklin. Under the guidance of Roosevelt's New Deal, the United States carried out large-scale infrastructure construction, and road construction was one of the priorities. During Roosevelt's New Deal, the United States initially built a nationwide road network.
American general highways
The second period was the highway construction boom of the late 1950s-1970s, beginning with Eisenhower's interstate highway program. Highways in the United States first appeared in 1937, when California built an 11.2-kilometer-long highway. Later, in the late 1930s and early 1950s, a number of highways were built.
But the real large-scale construction of highways was after the outbreak of the Cold War. During Eisenhower's administration, in order to promote economic development and show the superiority of capitalism to socialist countries, the interstate highway program was launched in 1956. Prepare to build 42,800 miles (68,880 kilometers) of highways across the United States, forming a vast network of highways.
Network of interstate highways
The Interstate Highway Program was introduced by Eisenhower and went through presidents such as Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon before finally being completed in the 1970s. Since then, the United States has successively built a number of highways, and together with the highways built before 1956, the total length of highways in the United States exceeds 100,000 kilometers.
However, the highways in the United States were built earlier, and after decades of use, most of them are already dilapidated. Many of the early highways were cement roads, rather than concrete roads, and had lower load carrying capacity. Therefore, in the United States, there are also many calls to update the highway system. However, due to limited funds and DOMESTIC POLITICS, they are basically empty talk and rarely really implemented.