Urban Transportation Planning History
Our research on transportation planning history focuses on the role of finance arrangements in shaping the design of urban freeways. Finance arrangements placed state and federal highway engineers in the driver’s seat, so to speak, and their professional prejudices to favor high-speed, high-geometry facilities sited on the basis of traffic flows is reflected in our modern urban freeways. These developments came at the expense of an alternative vision of freeway development, advocated by local engineers and planners, which saw freeways as an important planning tool that must be used very carefully.
A Tale of Two Visions: Harland Bartholomew, Robert Moses, and the Development of the American Freeway. Published in the Journal of Planning History 4(1): 3-32.
For sixty years, engineers and planners have debated the freeway’s role in the city. Engineers have tended to view freeways strictly in traffic service terms. Planners, on the other hand, have long viewed freeways no
