I drove to a national park with my husband for a nature-filled retreat this summer. The drive was long and the hour twilight. The roads were gray and shadowed, trees forming triangular apparitions on either side.

It's taken almost 60 years, but we are finally realizing the error we made when the United States built highways through the middle of its cities, displacing and isolating hundreds of thousands of residents, and we're beginning to do something about it.

For generations, this country's transportation infrastructure served as the backbone of our economic success. We dreamed big, we built bigger, and our economy flourished. But today, our crumbling infrastructure is slowing economic growth.

New legislation could help minimize the risk, but it's not enough.