The Dwight D.

Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly

known as the Interstate Highway System or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network
of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States.
The system extends throughout the contiguous United States and has routes in Hawaii, Alaska,
and Puerto Rico.
The United States Congress first funded roadways through the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, and
began an effort to construct a national road grid with the passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act of
1921. In 1926, the United States Numbered Highway System was established, creating the first
national road numbering system for cross-country travel. The roads were state-funded and
maintained, and there were few national standards for road design. United States Numbered
Highways ranged from two-lane country roads to multi-lane freeways. After Dwight D.
Eisenhower became president in 1953, his administration developed a proposal for an interstate
highway system, eventually resulting in the enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.
Unlike the earlier United States Numbered Highway System, the Interstates were designed to be an
all-freeway system, with nationally unified standards for construction and signage. While some older
freeways were adopted into the system, most of the routes were completely new construction,
greatly expanding the freeway network in the United States. Particularly in densely populated urban
areas, these new freeways were often controversial as their building necessitated the destruction of
many older, well-established neighborhoods; as a result of the many freeway revolts during the
1960s and 1970s, several planned Interstates were abandoned or re-routed to avoid urban cores.
Construction of the original Interstate Highway System was proclaimed complete in 1992, despite
deviations from the original 1956 plan and several stretches that did not fully conform with federal
standards. The construction of the Interstate Highway System cost approximately $114 billion
(equivalent to $558 billion in 2021). The system has continued to expand and grow as additional
federal funding has provided for new routes to be added, and many future Interstate Highways are
currently either being planned or under construction.
Though much of their construction was funded by the federal government, Interstate Highways are
owned by the state in which they were built. With few exceptions, all Interstates must meet specific
standards, such as having controlled access, physical barriers or median strips between lanes of
oncoming traffic, breakdown lanes, avoiding at-grade intersections, no traffic lights and complying
with federal traffic sign specifications. Interstate Highways use a numbering scheme in which
primary Interstates are assigned one- or two-digit numbers, and shorter routes which branch off of
longer ones are assigned three-digit numbers where the last two digits match the parent route. The
Interstate Highway System is partially financed through the Highway Trust Fund, which itself is
funded by a federal fuel tax. Though federal legislation initially banned the collection of tolls, some
Interstate routes are toll roads, either because they were grandfathered into the system or because
subsequent legislation has allowed for tolling of Interstates in some cases.
As of 2020, about one-quarter of all vehicle miles driven in the country used the Interstate Highway
System,[3] which had a total length of 48,756 miles (78,465 km).[2]