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Give Yourself the Green Light presents a bold vision of American mobility through expanded highways, improved roads, and more parking.

🛣️ Travel back to an era when new expressways promised freedom and progress—and see how an automobile company made its case for a nation built around driving.

Produced by the Jam Handy Organization for General Motors, this advocacy film offers a revealing look at the relationship between car culture, infrastructure, and corporate persuasion.

💬 Did America’s highway dream deliver? What would you change about the roads and transportation in your city?

👍 Like this video and subscribe to Perpetual Road for automotive history and the stories behind the roads we drive today.

🌐 PERPETUAL ROAD
https://perpetualroad.com

🎬 FILM DETAILS
• Original title: Give Yourself the Green Light
• Released: 1954
• Country: United States
• This uploaded version: approximately 22 minutes
• Production: Jam Handy Organization
• Sponsor: General Motors Corporation, Department of Public Relations
• Type: Sponsored documentary / Highway advocacy

📚 ARCHIVE SOURCE
Prelinger Archives / Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/GiveYour1954

Historical background:
https://www.acmi.net.au/works/68065--give-yourself-the-green-light/

Version note: Archive catalogs list a runtime of approximately 24 minutes. This uploaded copy runs approximately 22 minutes 17 seconds.

Presented by Perpetual Road. Original production credits belong to the filmmakers and organizations listed above.

#HighwayHistory #CarCulture #AutomotiveHistory

Category

🚗
Motor
Transcript
00:00THE END
00:43This is the American dream of freedom on wheels.
00:48An automotive age traveling on time-saving superhighways, Futurama's free-flowing channels of concrete and steel.
01:00But these wide lanes of reality actually measure out to just a few miles scattered far apart across the friendly
01:10face of our land.
01:11We have become the nation on wheels, with more motorized mobility than ever dreamed of before.
01:23Though we have the greatest highway system in all the world, it can't carry the mounting traffic of our growing
01:31greatness.
01:45We're running out of roads.
01:49We didn't dream big enough.
01:54Here's the problem, all mapped out.
01:57Three million, three hundred thousand miles of it.
02:00Unimproved.
02:02Unimproved.
02:04Improved.
02:05Paved.
02:07Superhighway.
02:09Country roads.
02:14Small city streets.
02:17Big city thoroughfares.
02:21State highways networking the nation.
02:29And here's the crisis.
02:32Two thirds of the way is now obsolete.
02:35Worn out.
02:36Inadequate in width.
02:38Inferior in condition, capacity, and safety.
03:04Sure, these were good roads thirty years ago when they were laid out.
03:09But nothing lasts forever.
03:15The waiting line forms on the right.
03:19And at the head of the waiting line is your local highway engineer.
03:25Listen to what he thinks about our roads.
03:29All over the county, our farm-to-market roads are dying of old age.
03:34Not anybody's fault.
03:36Just a matter of time.
03:38And not enough money to keep them up or make them modern.
03:42Most were built in the twenties.
03:44Along came the neglect of the war years.
03:47Beat them up and broke them down.
03:50And we've been using them more and more ever since.
03:53What we need is to invest more money in good new roads.
03:56Instead of spending so much patching up worn out ones.
04:03What do the people think who must use these roads?
04:07Ask the farmer.
04:09Sink holes and washboard.
04:12Rotted to ruination.
04:14And come every spring the bottoms drop out.
04:17And the milk truck driver.
04:20We pay for roads whether we have them or not.
04:23Only we pay more for them when we don't have them.
04:27Don't have to have hardtop.
04:30Gravel's fine when it's treated to keep down the dust.
04:33But all the gravel in the county can't keep a road from caving in
04:36if a stretch has not been crowned and graded proper for all weather wear.
04:40Soured milk.
04:42Wear and tear on equipment.
04:44Wasted time.
04:46Soaks everybody from the farmers right up to the family budget.
04:50We've grown more crops.
04:52Grown more people.
04:53Grown more cars and trucks.
04:56Trouble is, we've just not been grown enough more good roads.
05:07And your accident rate rises too, if you don't watch out.
05:16Ask the school bus driver.
05:19Yep, you have to be careful driving the kids over these roads.
05:25Sharp curves, soft shoulders, narrow bridges,
05:30railroad crossings.
05:36Spring rains wash out these roads.
05:39And winter frosts rip them up.
05:41So you can count on no school those days.
05:45Other times, you don't know what to expect.
05:50Ask the small town merchant.
05:53Our town has a population of 4,002.
05:57Except on weekends.
06:00On Friday night and Saturday, congestion hits our main arteries like a heart attack.
06:07But customers pass us by if they can't find a place to stop.
06:13What brings up store sales today is parking space.
06:17It's as important to volume as shelf space and display windows.
06:23Best investment a town can make.
06:27Lots of parking.
06:31In small town and suburb, in cities of all sizes, the situation is the same.
06:37All snarled up.
06:42The best investment has yet to be made.
06:46Ask Mrs. America.
06:50Every day it gets worse shopping.
06:52It's not just a matter of getting through the congestion.
06:55It's impossible to find a place to park.
07:23It's impossible to find a place to park.
07:25To run out and sharp.
07:27To try and kill.
07:40To try and build.
07:41To try and build.
07:43So let it away be.
07:43To try and build it in all.
07:43That says no.
07:44To be a place for thequéers of theinnen川.
07:44You can find a place for the where here.
07:44And here it?
08:29What can I do?
08:34Morning and night, around the clock, the sound of our times keeps blasting.
08:44For a way out of the bottleneck.
08:48Three quarters of everything for American families travels at some time on the backs of our 10 million trucks.
08:56And what are you planning for dinner, Mother?
08:59Here it is, expensively bottlenecked.
09:06Hey, pal, what's to do?
09:09Just keep rooting around.
09:11Load and unload, buddy.
09:12That's what to do like a bunch of sheep.
09:16With 54 million vehicles on our streets and roads today, 50% more than before the war, by 1975, they
09:26say we will be driving 85 million.
09:31Five o'clock, USA.
09:39Starved for the life of a traveling salesman.
09:42Late for every appointment.
09:46This is an ulcer route.
09:57Will you stop honking, Mac?
09:59We ain't going nowhere.
10:02This is Agony Alley.
10:06Morning rush and evening wait.
10:09Fight your way home from work.
10:12You think you got it made.
10:14Good job.
10:16Carnally paid for.
10:17So you get a little home in the suburbs.
10:20Away from the city smoke.
10:23Out from the shadows of the factory.
10:25Into the sun and clean air.
10:29Raise a few kids, some flowers and vegetables.
10:32The big dream coming true.
10:36But it backfires into a pipe dream.
10:40Ha!
10:41Exhaust pipe dream.
10:43Every night it takes longer to get home.
10:46Wasting more time in gasoline.
10:48No wonder everybody's acting so nervous.
10:52What's a citizen going to do?
10:55What can a citizen do?
11:00To help find out, a Better Highways contest was recently conducted.
11:06Purpose?
11:07Arouse nationwide thinking on how to plan and pay for the safe and adequate highways we need.
11:13Highway experts wrote essays along with tens of thousands of others who already recognized the highway dilemma
11:22as one of our nation's most critical problems.
11:33I am privileged to present the winner of the Grand National Award, Robert Moses of New York.
11:45Robert Moses, New York City Construction Coordinator, is a world-famous highway planner, a man who knows his business.
11:58No stroke of genius, no brilliant device, no magic, will suddenly produce roads commensurate with cars.
12:11We have fallen far behind.
12:15The remedies are neither easy nor cheap nor immediately realizable.
12:25But the task you have set is not beyond the capacity of the aroused American people.
12:34And you may be sure that they will not stop short of the goal.
12:41Mr. Moses went on to propose a 10-year construction program to cost $5 billion a year.
12:50He stressed there was no one new solution for the entire nation,
12:56but rather a combination of many solutions.
13:01And there is a solution for each community within its own capacity to accomplish.
13:34A good parking space is any space.
13:37Close enough.
13:40A good road is any road able to carry its daily traffic flow safely and adequately.
13:47And it doesn't have to cost a million dollars a mile to be a good investment.
13:51Every stretch of farm and factory to market road earns profits for all the nation.
13:57And it's just good American enterprise to put part of the profits back in the business.
14:05Our road builders now have the know-how to pour miracles of concrete through the air if supported by the
14:15proper financing.
14:17They can lift traffic up over city congestion with elevated highways raised by an aroused public.
14:26The Gowanus Expressway speeds over a densely populated area of Brooklyn without disturbing life below to deliver through traffic to
14:37the underwater tunnel to Manhattan.
14:41Connecting from the north, the four-story street will soon be open with promenade for pedestrians on top,
14:48local traffic on the bottom, and two one-way expressways in between.
14:52Here is four-story proof that our modern highway planners with imagination and public support can solve our traffic problems.
15:06We can have our superhighways in the sky, fabulous, futuristic forms, like this Hollywood freeway interchange,
15:16which sorts flowing traffic eight ways at once.
15:22If we start now to give our engineers the go sign to design dreams instead of detours.
15:34This spectacular two-deck viaduct snaking along the docks of Puget Sound through Seattle's busiest section
15:42has cut a 20-minute traffic battle to three minutes' travel time.
15:48And more miles are on the way.
15:51The people of the state of Washington are using all of an increased gasoline tax and auto license fund
15:58for the faster development of a better roads program.
16:04Many people favor toll roads, like the New Jersey Turnpike, financed by a bond issue, another way to raise funds.
16:12It's already paying itself off way ahead of schedule, proving that many of us who drive will pay extra by
16:20the mile
16:21and pay every trip to travel a good road.
16:27Many states already have toll roads, and more are now under construction or in the planning stage.
16:38Any roadway must keep pace with the changing character of its community, dream big, and act boldly.
16:47No, the best road of yesterday can become the worst road of today just a few miles down the way.
16:57Pittsburgh is moving mountains and even relocating a railroad yard to get out of its traffic jam.
17:05County, city, and state tax money is matching federal funds to pave the way.
17:13When this boldly planned parkway is completely open to traffic, the Greater Pittsburgh Airport,
17:20instead of being an hour away, will be only a 15-minute ride from the center of the city.
17:28As has been done in other cities, Pittsburgh is digging a $4 million hole in the heart of the city
17:35to provide underground storage for thousands of cars.
17:40Above the surface, a beautiful park will camouflage the busy activity below.
17:47Or, if not underground, then stacked layer upon layer in modern fireproof structures,
17:55engineered for easy access and maximum use of downtown space.
18:04In San Francisco, the Bay Shore Freeway is getting in shape for tomorrow's traffic.
18:10As part of California's new 10-year, $750 million highway program,
18:17financed by state tax on gasoline and auto license fees.
18:24Chicago is moving a city to build an eight-mile-long expressway
18:29from the city limits to Michigan Avenue,
18:33wide as a city block into the heart of the loop,
18:36an eight-lane miracle which will send traffic through the middle of the main post office building
18:42like a special delivery letter.
18:48Chicagoans raised their share of the $92 million cost by a bond issue,
18:53interest in retirement to be paid for by future revenue from motor fuel taxes
18:58backed up by property taxes.
19:02Borrowing money to finance expansion is traditional with Americans.
19:06The time and money saved more than repays your investment.
19:11If you wait to pay as you go, you may not go at all.
19:20Detroit is borrowing funds to build more miles of expressway
19:24and build them today instead of years from now.
19:29The number of an average of enhanced highway
19:30will be worth saving and is capital out of the length of snow.
19:35It would fit in the parking lot
19:35with a resonance of roads and cars behind the street from nowhere.
19:4222 years ago, it has been increasing,
19:56with a shooting ofастs,
19:59cross-traffic, pedestrians, left-turn menace, and dangerous intersections.
20:07Spacious roads of divided lanes where free-flowing traffic can save time, tires, gas, as well as lives.
20:18But the way of the green light isn't only on an expressway.
20:23The green light must shine along improved neighborhood streets.
20:29On the Sunday way to church and the pleasure drive to Water's Edge and Sun,
20:38the go-ahead must be fought for on the side streets.
20:44We must fight for it at every crossroad, widening out congested intersections,
20:53rounding square corners for the wheels of the automotive age.
20:58We must boldly attack bottleneck and traffic jam with left-turn lanes and modern interchanges,
21:08service roads and better loading facilities.
21:17Free ourselves from the ulcer route and from no place to park.
21:26Look, roads are dying of old age, and come every spring, the bottoms drop out.
21:33Yep, you have to be careful driving the kids over these roads.
21:44Our American dream of Futurama on wheels can come true.
21:51Our highway engineers know the way.
21:55It's ours for the asking, if we'll ask, and pay our way.
22:03Freedom of the road is as old as the first man, and as new as this moment.
22:10Once we fought for it, through forest and river, wild animals.

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