we call it freedom of the american road it's simply because we americans always have light plenty available roam freedom to come and go as legally in this country of ours the first thing we found was that you can't talk about highways without talking about traffic and safe driving till we've found that there are many experienced highway and traffic safety experts who are doing a great service to the public what they need is public understanding and supports but the most important thing we discovered was that already many private citizens and states and communities across the nation have gotten together to tackle their local problem with rails like steps we prevent a feel of their stories in this motion picture we do so with pride for hair it seems to me israel democracy in action and now for a firsthand report let's go to our traffic safety and fast growing california where highway problems have multiplied with the increase of population of travel this is san francisco see how it is located on the northernmost tip of the peninsula it's only access from the north is the golden gate bri from the east the bay bridge been trying to do the job a newspaper should do to keep the community alert we've written editorials headline the accident we publish photographs here take a look at some of the as after the paper hit the stands the time switchboard was swamped with calls hundreds of letters po the palo alto chamber of commerce called an emergency meeting editor cogswell kept punching away with the editorials the times was keeping the pot boiling almost overnight i weigh commissioner peterson had five additional the parole cars out on base your and for each patrolman put on there was one reduced speed limits were posted as hazardous points traffic lights were installed a dangerous intersection minor access road sure freeway the people got the idea that in addition to better traffic control they needed to solve the basic problem a badly overruled highway radio and t v stations in san francisco itself took up the campaign petitions were circulated at the hospital times reporter francis moffat on the left there tried to get the signatures of four people injured in an auto crash the entire hospital staff signed up petition to extend the six lane freeway sign here please and they did thirty thousand of them in the big towns and the small ones in sunnyvale san carlos mountain view los altos belmont oh signed and sealed and ready to be delivered two weeks later a delegation of citizens presented the petitions to governor walker on this public support was what the state officials needed within thirty days the legislature acted here it is  your freeway a highway of modern design six lanes instead of one stretch of the american road made safer because the community took constructive action what you have just seen was accomplished in one thousand fifty two but the job was not finished it still goes on as a matter of fact what happened here in palo alto stimulated many california communities to similar efforts and today california has a state highway program that is one of the most advanced in the nation elsewhere there are highway problems of another kind that have to be solved like traffic congestion for example ever been downtown in that six o'clock bumper to bumper madness called a traffic jam it's worse than our older cities and so far our report on how one big city is successfully solving it let's go east across the country to pittsburgh where the  pittsburghers new with the traffic problem couldn't be solved with out of the same time rebuilding the very heart of the city they allegheny conference on community development went to work on the problem in nineteen forty three its roster had names from every section of pittsburgh life a mile and interests the steel industry and the unions edged a high in some company department stores on the governments of the city as well as of the surrounding towns th pittsburgh or was tempted to thank well there we go again i began to be impressed by nine hundred forty five that was the year when the city realized that was of course behind the paperwork on the planet you can't use halfway measures bulldozer was people the members of the allegheny county they had to overcome the old in grown attitudes of resignation of an adult that so gigantic a change could actually be accomplished and they did and prove it could pay if you know pittsburgh you'll recognize this it's the old downtown point district dead and gone now and no one to mourn for it and this is the plan the new now coming to life there's a new horizon now looking toward the allegheny a new landscape new towers a new  along the new expressway that's part of the same master plan for pittsburgh you can drive smoothly and safely in and out of the city now and so you can say that the american road as it goes through pittsburgh is being opened up is being made in palo alto you saw public support could help solve the problem of a dangerous and overloaded highway in pittsburgh it was a downtown traffic congestion that was strangling a great metropolitan area now let's look at what community action did for boston boston as the hub of the very complex highway system in new england all roads lead to boston and boston has kept growing swelling the towns around it today its metropolitan area extends over forty two cities and towns with a population of two and one half million once country roads of the outlying communities adequate side actually took over an hour at the statehouse was a highway on paper which could have alleviated the traffic congestion lack of public support had kept it in the files around the rim of greater boston all the way down to death with its last section now nearing completion today john smith of gloucester can leave his family in the morning and travel safely and quickly over a modern express highway to his job because the road like magic arteries increased values in two adjacent land travels fast property whose value has increased a hundred times over along this highway have sprouted seven great industrial centers occupied by some of the country's leading manufacturer and other centers are now being developed new well the new revenues have come to the old new england towns along the highway and not to forget our mr smith and thousands more like him areas arriving at his place of work without once having had to fight the boston plan when the people of that county pushed all the construction of one twenty eight in order to relieve traffic congestion i didn't know they were going to ring boston with a golden semicircle and that's what highway one twenty eight is called today boston's golden  e you're seeing what improved highways from traffic control mean to a metropolitan area but all good roads are part of one great pattern the interstate system that serves the whole nation the great primary roads that connect the cities and then the roads that feed into the system we need good secondary roads to serve the rural population of small towns of america for that story we go to north carolina fly north carolina but only a how this investment is paying off