TRANSPORTATION

A comprehensive transportation system is necessary to any developed country because it allows for the efficient movement of people and goods from one location to another. A nation's economic strength and military power are directly related to the efficiency of the nation's transportation system because it promotes domestic and international trade and provides access to valuable natural resources. Thus, when the United States slumped economically because of the Great Depression, the construction and improvement of its transportation systems were important for the country's eventual recovery. The spending and work relief programs initiated by the New Deal to help alleviate the Depression had among their targeted benefits a significant improvement in the nation's transportation system.

From 1933 to 1939, the Public Works Administration (PWA), administered by Harold Ickes, provided the money and supervision for federal agencies and local governments to construct roads, dams, airports, bridges, subways, tunnels, and harbors. The PWA also lent money to states and municipalities for similar projects. About one-third of all PWA funds were allotted for transportation projects, with the greatest amount—over $750 million—going for highways and roads. For example, the PWA lent $80 million to the Pennsylvania Railroad so it could electrify its New York to Washington route. The state of Oregon used PWA funds to build the Oregon Coastal Highway. Some of the PWA's other major projects included the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson River, the Skyline Drive in Virginia, and the Overseas Highway from Miami to Key West in Florida. In addition, the PWA helped to install streetlights, traffic signals, and other transportation-related equipment throughout the country.

From 1935 to 1943 the Works Progress Administration (in 1939 it was renamed the Work Projects Administration, WPA), headed by Harry Hopkins, was one of the primary New Deal programs that addressed the nation's transportation needs. According to writer Edward Robb Ellis, quoted in T. H. Watkins's The Great Depression, the WPA, "built 651,087 miles of highways, roads and streets; constructed, repaired or improved 124,031 bridges; erected 125,110 public buildings; created 8,192 parks; built or improved 853 airports." Some of its more notable projects were New York City's La-Guardia Airport and Chicago's Lake Shore Drive.

Transportation projects during the Great Depression provided much-needed jobs for unemployed workers across the country. In the process, New Deal construction made major contributions toward significantly improving the nation's infrastructure for a modern system of transportation. The roads, bridges, airports, and other transportation-related facilities that were built by the PWA, the WPA, and other New Deal agencies during the Depression helped prepare the country for World War II and for its role as the world's leading industrialized nation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernstein, Irving. A Caring Society: The New Deal, the Worker, and the Great Depression—A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941. 1985.

Biles, Roger. A New Deal for the American People. 1991.

Biles, Roger. The South and the New Deal. 1994.

Braeman, John; Robert H. Bremner; and David Brody, eds. The New Deal, Vol. 2: The State and Local Levels. 1975.

Nash, Gerald D. The Crucial Era: The Great Depression and World War II: 1929–1945, 2nd edition. 1992.

Patterson, James T. The New Deal and the States: Federalism in Transition. 1969.

Public Works Administration Division of Information. America Builds: The Record of PWA. 1939.

Watkins, T. H. The Great Depression: America in the 1930s. 1993.