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Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life. By Tom Lewis. (New York: Viking, 1997. xiv, 354 pp. Cloth, $27.95, ISBN 0-670-86627-X. New York: Penguin Books, 1999. xiv, 354 pp. Paper, $13.95, ISBN 0-14-026771-9.)
As I sit down to write this review, a talk show host from a radio station in San Francisco is discussing commuting time with his callers, many of whom are venting frustrations with the snarled bay area freeways. Several callers indicate that they spend between two and four hours each workday in their automobiles for their daily commute.
This dilemma could have been avoided, Tom Lewis suggests, if public officials had anticipated the social and economic consequences of the interstate highway system that changed forever the nation's urban environment....