Freeways have changed our way of life and given birth to new industries - Fifty years ago from a hospital room, President Dwight Eisenhower changed America with a flick of his wrist, sending it speeding down an on-ramp toward the future of an automobile-oriented society. In signing the bill that created the nation's interstate highway system, Ike not only kick-started a nationwide freeway construction boom. He also fueled the country's then-burgeoning car culture, which helped drive family car vacations, suburban sprawl, long-distance commutes and frontage-road commercial districts laden with fast-food franchises and chain motels. "It was no less than the...