The Engineering That Built the World s01e03 Road Warriors Subtitles

00:00:01,520 --> 00:00:07,It's nearly 50 ,000 miles long, three
times the size of the Great Wall of

00:00:08,100 --> 00:00:13,with over 700 billion miles traveled
every year.

00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:18,But a century ago, interstate highways
don't exist.

00:00:20,420 --> 00:00:25,Mr. President, imagine a highway system
allowing us to drive anywhere and

00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:26,everywhere in America.

00:00:26,660 --> 00:00:28,The first transcontinental car trip?

00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:30,Took 63 days.

00:00:30,820 --> 00:00:35,Today, it takes 45 hours. The road to
building it is bumpy.

00:00:35,780 --> 00:00:39,It runs right into the heart of the
Rockies.

00:00:39,860 --> 00:00:41,Requiring massive engineering.

00:00:42,140 --> 00:00:45,They moved 26 million tons of soil and
rock.

00:00:45,940 --> 00:00:51,It's more expensive than 2 ,000 Hoover
dams. It's an investment in the future

00:00:51,580 --> 00:00:53,growth of the United States of America.

00:00:54,980 --> 00:00:58,With enough pavement for three round
trips to the moon.

00:00:59,340 --> 00:01:04,The decades -long struggle leaves some
ruined and some dead.

00:01:06,220 --> 00:01:11,But the unsung visionaries behind the
highway stop at nothing to make it a

00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:15,reality. He saw road building as a holy
act.

00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:16,I need to fix this.

00:01:18,510 --> 00:01:21,He knew why roads really mattered.

00:01:22,090 --> 00:01:26,This is the untold story of America's
road warriors.

00:01:26,630 --> 00:01:31,It wasn't until you had a highway system
that Americans felt truly free.

00:01:58,380 --> 00:02:03,In the aftermath of World War I, United
States automobile manufacturers quickly

00:02:03,180 --> 00:02:07,switched from supporting the war effort
to once again producing cars.

00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:11,Car ownership quadruples from what it
was before the war.

00:02:12,620 --> 00:02:15,Households all over the country have
cars now.

00:02:15,820 --> 00:02:20,Ninety percent of roads are still just
dirt, and those that aren't are paved

00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:22,with a layer of loose rocks and gravel.

00:02:23,260 --> 00:02:25,Roads were filled with potholes.

00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:30,They were filled with tree stumps, mud
during the wet seasons, dust during the

00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:34,dry seasons. You needed a shovel. You
needed a patch kit.

00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:39,You would need all sorts of gear to get
you to and from your destination. It was

00:02:39,500 --> 00:02:40,an adventure.

00:02:42,140 --> 00:02:47,While one road, the Lincoln Highway,
stretches across the United States, most

00:02:47,320 --> 00:02:51,cities aren't connected, and interstate
travel must be done by ship or train.

00:02:52,710 --> 00:02:58,Farmers couldn't get their produce to
cities. It cost more to ship over

00:02:58,990 --> 00:03:05,roads a bushel of peaches just 20 miles
away than it did to ship

00:03:05,790 --> 00:03:09,them on the railroad 3 ,000 miles away.

00:03:12,030 --> 00:03:17,In 1916, Congress passes the Federal Aid
Highway Act, which offers some of the

00:03:17,570 --> 00:03:19,first national funding for roads.

00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:22,but it's not nearly enough for suitable
highways.

00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:28,There were no national roads. Most roads
were built by locals.

00:03:28,380 --> 00:03:33,If you were a farmer and your farm had
frontage along a road, you g***t out there

00:03:33,780 --> 00:03:37,once a year with a bunch of your
employees, and you maintained that piece

00:03:37,340 --> 00:03:38,road.

00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:48,In Iowa, a local highway commissioner,
Thomas McDonald, is thinking bigger.

00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:52,Thomas MacDonald grew up in Iowa.

00:03:52,400 --> 00:03:58,He witnessed as a boy working in his
father's feed and lumber store

00:03:58,980 --> 00:04:05,what farmers were experiencing, their
crops rotting before they could get to

00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:10,market. For Thomas MacDonald, building
roads is really personal.

00:04:10,940 --> 00:04:15,Farmers don't have the luxury to sit
around and dream of an idea. They

00:04:15,460 --> 00:04:19,have to turn their ideas into reality
right away or they don't have a farm

00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:24,year. And I think Thomas McDonald took
that attitude into his job.

00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:31,And he saw his road building crusade as
the only way to bring a better life to

00:04:31,140 --> 00:04:32,these people.

00:04:32,300 --> 00:04:35,But McDonald doesn't just want better
roads.

00:04:35,500 --> 00:04:38,He's obsessed with roads that connect.

00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:42,allowing people and products to move
anywhere in the country.

00:04:48,820 --> 00:04:53,And in 1919, McDonald gets the chance to
make his pitch when he's appointed

00:04:53,960 --> 00:04:56,chief of the Federal Bureau of Public
Roads.

00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:02,This country needs a highway system, but
we all know that states can't afford to

00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:03,pay for it.

00:05:03,450 --> 00:05:07,Building all throughout time, whether it
was the Roman Empire or whether it was

00:05:07,730 --> 00:05:12,Napoleon, all of those empires built
from the top down. You can only overcome

00:05:12,970 --> 00:05:16,local obstacles if you have a strong
federal force.

00:05:16,710 --> 00:05:19,The federal government needs to provide
more funding.

00:05:20,470 --> 00:05:21,50 -50.

00:05:22,830 --> 00:05:27,It's an investment in the future growth
of the United States of America.

00:05:30,890 --> 00:05:32,Where do we begin?

00:05:39,500 --> 00:05:45,McDonald helps convince Congress to pass
the 1921 Federal Highway Act, which

00:05:45,100 --> 00:05:50,dwarfs the 1916 Act, offering states
nearly a billion dollars in today's

00:05:51,260 --> 00:05:56,The bill requires 60 % of the funds to
be spent on interstate highways, the

00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:01,first step toward achieving McDonald's
vision of a complete national grid.

00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:06,Another new innovation, the first
standardized rules of the road.

00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:16,Road safety, pretty much non -existent.
A lot of accidents due to cross traffic.

00:06:16,820 --> 00:06:20,A lot of rear -enders that did not end
happily back then. That wasn't an

00:06:20,160 --> 00:06:21,accident you necessarily walked away
from.

00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:27,Cars kill over 20 ,000 Americans each
year, with more than a billion in

00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:33,damage. They realized we need to have a
unified standard for the color signs

00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:37,should be, how large the font should be,
what shape should be.

00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:46,One of the earliest stop signs was
diamond -shaped, others circular, until

00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:52,If you can make all stop signs the same
number of sides, an octagon, then at

00:06:52,440 --> 00:06:56,night you can see an octagon coming up
and you can know, okay, I need to slow

00:06:56,340 --> 00:06:57,down.

00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:02,Most stop signs were painted yellow, and
then they came up with paint that would

00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:03,be reflective.

00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:07,That's when it became standard across
the country for everyone to use an

00:07:07,220 --> 00:07:09,octagonal red stop sign.

00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:12,Driving isn't just unsafe.

00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:15,It's also confusing.

00:07:16,200 --> 00:07:19,Roads were disconnected. They were
barely known about.

00:07:19,500 --> 00:07:23,There weren't any maps, really, to speak
of. There were no numbers telling you

00:07:23,240 --> 00:07:23,where to go.

00:07:23,920 --> 00:07:29,To sort out the chaos, in 1926, McDonald
establishes the numbered highway system

00:07:29,740 --> 00:07:31,to make cross -country travel easier.

00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:35,They started on the East Coast, where
most people lived.

00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:40,North -south highways are odd numbers,
and east -west highways are even.

00:07:41,140 --> 00:07:45,And then the smallest numbers started in
the northeast and worked their way out.

00:07:49,660 --> 00:07:52,Roads also become a huge source of
employment in America.

00:07:54,180 --> 00:07:56,For McDonald, that's a win.

00:07:56,940 --> 00:08:00,Now this is a man who would roll into
town and be greeted like a king.

00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:04,He'd be put up at the best hotels, he'd
be given food.

00:08:04,780 --> 00:08:07,Everybody wanted his attention because
they wanted roads.

00:08:12,300 --> 00:08:16,For the next few years, progress is slow
and steady.

00:08:17,260 --> 00:08:22,Over 10 ,000 miles of highway are laid
down, but it's still a far cry from the

00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:25,interstate highway system McDonald
envisions.

00:08:25,980 --> 00:08:27,McDonald isn't satisfied.

00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:34,He has yet to realize his goal of cities
actually connected. The big idea, the

00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:36,big picture, it has not yet come
together.

00:08:36,820 --> 00:08:42,And by the end of the decade, McDonald
faces a setback that could kill his plan

00:08:42,179 --> 00:08:43,for good.

00:08:47,740 --> 00:08:54,The stock market crash of 1929 not only
results in the...