Origins of Metropolitan Transportation Planning and the Urban Stakes of Interstate Highway Funding, 1956–1962

Speaking before Congress in April 1962, President John F. Kennedy called for an overhaul of federal transportation programming. Heeding his call, Congress passed the 1962 Federal-Aid Highway Act later that year, the first legislation to make federal highway aid contingent on metropolitan transportation planning. This article traces the roots of the 1962 planning mandate through the development of research and techniques in the emerging field of transportation planning to craft a history of methods in travel demand forecasting or what the 1962 act referred to as the three C's of metropolitan transportation planning: a mandate for continuing, comprehensive, and coordinated planning efforts. Tracing this history sheds new light on the urban stakes of Interstate highway legislation in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the role of cities in advocating for Interstate highway funding. The National Committee on Urban Transportation was an important catalyst of both methods in transportation planning and highway legislation.