White House: $53 billion for high speed rail system!

[Richard]

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/excess.cfm

Not to deviate from the OP subject ,but the wheels do turn slow when it comes to big gov.

[Hermod]

The modern highway system in this country was built in the 1950s, when Eisenhower was president. He saw the Autobahn in Germany during WWII and thought it was a great idea, so he modeled our highway/interstate system after that. Long after the Depression.

It goes further back than that. As a young officer right after WW One, Ike was part of the experimental strategic movement of a column army vehicles over a significant distance. He experienced the roads at the time and felt that the US needed a strategic highway system of good roads.