A freeway is a wide, high-speed road designed for cars and trucks to travel long distances quickly and safely. Freeways have multiple lanes in each direction, and unlike regular streets, they have no traffic lights, stop signs, or crosswalks. Drivers enter and exit through special ramps rather than turning at intersections.

In some parts of the country, people call these roads highways or interstates instead. The interstate system, built starting in the 1950s, connects cities across America with over 48,000 miles of freeway.

Freeways transformed how Americans live and work. Before freeways existed, long car trips meant driving through every small town along the way and stopping at countless traffic lights. A journey that takes two hours on a freeway might have taken five or six hours on old roads. Freeways made it possible for people to live in suburbs far from cities, for trucks to deliver goods faster across the country, and for families to take road trips to distant places. The freeway system became one of the largest engineering projects in history and changed the landscape of America forever.