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  • Paving the Way: New York Road Building and the American State, 1880–1956
  • Jon C. Teaford (bio)
Paving the Way: New York Road Building and the American State, 1880–1956. By Michael R. Fein. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008. Pp. viii+316. $39.95.

One of the most significant engineering achievements of the twentieth century was the creation of a network of hard-surfaced highways across America. Bruce Seely’s Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers (1987) has dealt with this road-building effort, focusing primarily on the federal Bureau of Public Roads. Mark Rose’s Interstate: Express Highway Politics, 1939–1989 (1990) has outlined the history of the federal interstate highway system. Now Michael Fein has shifted the focus to state endeavors. His contribution is a much-needed and welcome addition to the literature. The nation’s highways are the property of the states, which are responsible for their construction and maintenance. States, not the federal government, reacted first to the demand for better roads, embarking on state-aid highway programs more than two decades before the federal government’s belated Highway Act of 1916. In addition, states built the first limited-access highways, having broken ground for thousands of miles of turnpikes and thruways before passage of the federal Interstate Highway Act of 1956. The story of highway development in the United States is primarily a tale of state initiative. Fein recognizes this and presents a thorough account of the transformation in road building in the Empire State.

Fein begins by discussing the local road-building regime of the late nineteenth century. Responsibility for roads was largely in the hands of town highway commissions. Local officials known as pathmasters supervised maintenance crews comprised of town residents who were required to devote a few days each year to roadwork. Amateurs, not experts, governed the system, and the goal was passable local thoroughfares rather than an interconnected network of state highways.

In the 1880s and 1890s the emerging corps of bicyclists embarked on a campaign that would eventually destroy this system of amateur, local control. Dedicated to touring the countryside on their cycles, they rebelled against the negligence and incompetence of town authorities. In New York their protests resulted in a state-aid road act in 1898 which promised state funds for the construction of rural highways. Not until the passage of a [End Page 486] $50-million bond issue in 1905 did state funding have a large-scale impact. This infusion of cash enhanced by a second $50-million bond issue in 1912 produced thousands of miles of highways, ensuring New York the best roads in the nation.

Persistent charges of political corruption marred this record of achievement and encouraged lawmakers to enhance the authority of nonpartisan, expert engineers at the expense of sullied politicians. Guiding New York’s road-building program for most of the years from 1919 to 1939, Col. Frederick S. Greene was the preeminent example of the new class of engineer-administrators. Backed by Governor Al Smith, Greene ushered in a new era of professional, bureaucratic control.

The decade after World War II marked a massive expansion of state spending on highways. Most notably the legislature created the New York State Thruway Authority to construct a costly multi-lane superhighway from New York City to Buffalo. Controlled by highway engineers who seemingly had little regard for disgruntled residents in the path of the project, the authority represented the final triumph of the professional bureaucracy. New York had completed its shift from amateur, local control to professional centralization.

Fein ably traces this transformation and correctly emphasizes the role of state highway engineers. Yet his study could have benefited from a larger perspective. He fails to make sufficiently clear that the events in New York State were part of a larger national pattern. Administrative reorganization and professionalization of state government were not ideas unique to Al Smith. During the 1920s governors across America were pursuing the same goals. Moreover, New York’s emerging highway engineers were not acting alone. The American Association of State Highway Officials was promoting the agenda of the engineer-administrator throughout the nation. Fein’s story is...

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