Question: I would greatly appreciate help finding scholarly articles on the history of the American road system and (if possible) the effects of the road system on contemporary society in the United States.
Without knowing out more about your specific interests, here are some articles:
Schrag, Zachary M. (2004). "THE FREEWAY FIGHT IN WASHINGTON, D.C.: THE THREE SISTERS BRIDGE IN THREE ADMINISTRATIONS." Journal of Urban History, v.30, n.5, p.648-673.
Mohl, Raymond A. (2003, August). "Ike and the interstates: creeping toward comprehensive planning." Journal of planning history, v.2, n.3, p.237-262.
Note: Exploration of several aspects of the new interstate highway program during the Eisenhower Era of the 1950s.
Ewing, Reid. (2001, January). "From highway to my way." Planning, v.67, n.1, p.22-27.
Note: Recent trends in "context-sensitive" highway design in the U.S.
[does not appear to be directly U.S.-related, but perhaps interesting for sake of comparison:]
Khamaisi, Rassem and Shmueli, Deborah F. (2001, Winter). "Shaping a culturally sensitive planning strategy: mitigating the impact of Israel's proposed transnational highway on Arab communities." Journal of planning education and research, v.21, n.2, p.127-140.
Frank, Lawrence D. and Engelke, Peter O. (2001, November). "The Built Environment and Human Activity Patterns: Exploring the Impacts of Urban Form on Public Health." Journal of Planning Literature, v.16, p.202-218.
Jackle, John A. (2000, Summer). "Pioneer roads: America's early twentieth-century named highways." Material culture, v.32, n.2, p.1-22.
Ingley, Kathleen. (1999, April). "Sonoran synergy: moving thousands of cacti was just part of the challenge in making a road project fit into the Arizona desert." Landscape architecture, v.89, n.4, p.44,46-49.
Notes: Constructing and relandscaping an 11-mile stretch of Arizona Highway 87 that passes through Tonto National Forest, which the Forest Service required to have limited impact on views and the environment. Landscape architects: Logan Simpson Design, Tempe, and Wheat Gallaher, Tucson.
Easterling, Keller. (1999). "Interchange and container: the new orgman" Perspecta, n.30, p.[112]-[121].
(See also Easterling's book Organization space: landscapes, highways, and houses in America published by MIT Press in 1999.)
Boarnet, Marlon G. (1997, June). "Highways and Economic Productivity: Interpreting Recent Evidence." Journal of Planning Literature, v.11, p.476-486.
Norton, Peter. (1996). "FIGHTING TRAFFIC: U.S. TRANSPORTATION POLICY AND URBAN CONGESTION, 1955-1970." Essays in History, 38.
Kelly, Eric Damian. (1994, November). "The Transportation Land-Use Link." Journal of Planning Literature, v.9, p.128-145.
Quote from abstract: "Field studies demonstrate what the economists have predicted and what many theorists have feared: that, in many ways, highways shape urban areas. Yet little of that knowledge has found its way into planning practice, and land-use planning and transportation planning remain separate decision-making processes."
Taylor, Brian D. (1993, Fall.) "Why California stopped building freeways." Access: research at the University of California Transportation Center, n.3, p.28-35.
Heppenheimer, T.A. (1991, Fall). "The rise of the Interstates." American heritage of invention & technology, v.7, n.2, p.8-18.
[Robert Moses]. (1988, December). Livable city, v.12, n.2, p.1-[16].
Note: Entire issue on Robert Moses and his public works projects in New York State.
Rabin, Yale. (1980, September). "FEDERAL URBAN TRANSPORTATION POLICY AND THE HIGHWAY PLANNING PROCESS IN METROPOLITAN AREAS." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, v.451, p.21-35.
Thiel, Floyd I. and Kane, Anthony. (1977, July). "Some economic and environmental effects of highways in Japan and the United States."Traffic quarterly, v.31, no.3, p.[399]-419.
Dickey, John W. and Goldfield, David R. (1976, October). "Highways and regional development: an overview and case analysis." ITCC review, v.5 n.4 (20) p.1-22.
Llewellyn, Lynn. (1975, September). "The role of social impact assessment in highway planning." Environment and behavior, v.7, n.3, p.[285]-306.
Morehouse, Thomas A. (1969). "THE 1962 HIGHWAY ACT: A STUDY IN ARTFUL INTERPRETATION." Journal of the American Institute of Planners, v.35, n.3, p.160-168.
Moses, Robert. (1943, December). "Parks, parkways, express arteries, and related plans for New York City after the war." American city, v.57, p.53-58.
Moses, Robert. (1942, July). "What happened to Haussmann." Architectural forum, v.77, p.57-66.
I used the following databases to find them (these are mostly subscription-only, so you'll have to try to find them on the computers at a local academic or other large research library):
America: history and life (ABC-CLIO)
Avery index to architectural periodicals (RLG's Eureka)
Journal of planning literature (e-journal)
TRANweb transportation article finder (index to journal articles, conference papers, etc., produced by Northwestern University Transportation Library.)
To find more sources, try consulting a subject guide prepared by an academic librarian; guides on urban planning would probably be the most relevant. This Google searchwill lead you to some; these three are pretty solid:
Avery Library, Columbia University
MIT
University of California at Irvine
Another Radical Reference volunteer suggested the following:
Lewis, Tom. Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life. New York: Viking, 1997. (Paperback published by Penguin in 1999; there's also a documentary of the same title put out by Princeton, N.J. : Films for the Humanities & Sciences, c1997).
Lastly, if you ever need primary information, there are some urban-planning-related archives out there, and more and more information is accessible online. The entire finding aid for the Douglas Haskell papers, for example, is now available (Haskell was the editor of Architectural Forum from 1949-1964, when many highway policy decisions were being made).