President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. In 1956, the law declared that the construction of the major roads would commence, and was "essential to the nation."
The bill created at 41,000-mile “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways”, which would " eliminate unsafe roads, inefficient routes, traffic jams and all of the other things that got in the way of 'speedy, safe transcontinental travel.'”