Reddit Reddit reviews The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways

We found 7 Reddit comments about The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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American History
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U.S. State & Local History
The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways
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7 Reddit comments about The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways:

u/thebigbadwulf1 · 7 pointsr/todayilearned

For more on this topic, I recommend checking out [The Big Roads by Earl Swift.] (https://www.amazon.com/Big-Roads-Visionaries-Trailblazers-Superhighways/dp/0547907249) It tells the story of the early American highways and how they evolved into what we have today. Read the wikipedia page for The Lincoln Highway,and [Thomas Macdonald] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Harris_MacDonald) though and you have a quick summary of what the book contains. Thank you.

u/retrobologna · 3 pointsr/Atlanta

I also recommend The Big Roads by Earl Swift. It's the history of the entire US highway system, from the days of cart paths to present day [2011]. It's a bit dry, but if you find "Georgia Department of Transportation Office of Environment/Location Project Task Order No. 94 Contract EDS-0001-00(755)" interesting, then I suspect you'll like this book too.

u/Firsmith · 2 pointsr/MapPorn

For those interested in the subject, this book: The Big Roads is a great read

u/geeltulpen · 2 pointsr/civilengineering

This book has made rounds around my office and is highly recommended. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0547907249/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_maE5Cb8XGXGSY

u/tendonut · 2 pointsr/raleigh

Urban planning, especially roads, is one of my weird obsessions. It's one of the most fascinating things I've ever encountered.

I'm currently reading The Big Roads, a book about the history of the road system in the country. https://www.amazon.com/Big-Roads-Visionaries-Trailblazers-Superhighways/dp/0547907249

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And after that, I move onto this: https://www.amazon.com/Grid-Average-Neighborhood-Systems-World/dp/1609611381

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On The Grid actually uses Raleigh as the subject matter. I'm excited for it.

u/blunatic · 2 pointsr/explainlikeimfive

This sounds a lot like, fittingly enough, the origins of the U.S. Highway/Interstate system.

I picked up this book recently...In the beginnings of the highway system in the U.S., many of the first carmakers/engineers/investors realized pretty quickly that without the proper infrastructure to drive your fancy new cars on, nobody would buy their cars. So they pushed--similar to Google's situation-- and found themselves trying to devise who would fund the initial road building. The result was a mishmosh of federal government, state government, and private funding (many of the aforementioned automakers themselves) that put money into the first roads.

I foresee the same thing happening here if Google's plan goes smoothly: more people see that we need faster internet and can point to cities like Kansas City as examples, the same people raise hell with their local area and demand better service options, and boom: we're all on the fast road of fiber.

u/W00DERS0N · 1 pointr/MapPorn

Yup, I know South Carolina held out for a reallllly long time.

EDIT: Also, there's a book called The Big Roads which is a great look at building the system.