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For decades, the Interstate Highway System has been an essential link in connecting us to different communities and moving trillions of dollars of goods. In 2026, the highway system will turn 70 years old. While it marks a milestone anniversary, there are growing calls for more investment as roads are highly congested and deteriorating. How highways dramatically changed U.S. cities Click and slide to reveal how the construction of Interstate highways transformed the landscape of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Click and slide to reveal how the construction of Interstate highways transformed the landscape of the Kansas City area.Before the Interstate Highway System, most roads were unpaved, making it impossible to pass when it rained. A young Lieutenant Colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower would experience firsthand the struggles of traveling on these roads when he took part in the first U.S. Army transcontinental motor convoy in 1919. President Eisenhower would also gain an admiration for Germany's Autobahn highway network during his time as Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II. Both of these experiences would later influence Eisenhower's push for a modern highway system when he was president. After becoming president, President Eisenhower's support helped pass the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, which enacted the construction of 41,000 miles of highway, costing at the time around $25 billion. While the freshly paved roads were intended to connect communities, they also further divided communities. Planners routed some highways to cut directly through neighborhoods, destroying and uprooting communities many of which were predominantly Black and brown.Across the country, people started to participate in "highway revolts." For example, residents in San Francisco protested plans to build new freeways, arguing it would ruin communities and businesses. Their voices were heard. In 1959, the city's board of supervisors canceled seven out of the 10 planned freeways in the city.Calls for improvementAs the Interstate Highway System is about to turn 70 years old, its roads are congested and deteriorating.Most sections of the highway system's roadway still have their original foundations and need to be "completely rebuilt from the subbase up," according to a 2019 report by the Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.In order to modernize the highway system, the report calls for:Reconstructing a majority of the interstate highways and bridgesUpgrading most interchanges to improve safety and functionAdding capacity along existing corridorsConstructing new routesConverting some existing routes to interstate standardsChanging some urban roadway segments to maintain connectivity while repairing economic and social disruptionImproving highway safety featuresImproving the Interstate Highway System would require increasing the annual investment from $23 billion in 2018 to $57 billion annually over the course of the next 20 years, according to the report.It will take both the federal and state governments to find a solution in investing for the highway system's future.