The planned Spaghetti Junction expansion. Note how it surrounds the baseball stadium on the right and overshadows waterfront park on the bottom. Would Ike Like?

"Stuck in traffic in Washington, D.C. in 1959, President Eisenhower was shocked to learn that the delay was being caused by Interstate Highway construction. Surely the Interstates were being built between cities, not in them. The President demanded to know who was responsible for this state of affairs, only to be told he was; it was the result of legislation he had signed three years earlier. Aghast, Eisenhower attempted to get the federal government out of the urban freeway business. But it was too late: the program had built up momentum that not even he could halt.

Fifty years later, many planners and urbanists are still asking Eisenhower's question: Why did the United States, unlike every other developed country, choose to mass-produce freeways in cities?"

From: Paved With Good Intentions.