Thinking about roads

I love to drive the back highways, the old federal and state highways that used to be the main streets of America. And I want to know the history of them. There's a wonderful Web site called U.S. Highways where you can get information about a highway by its number, or look up the history of a storied road like the Dixie Highway, whose routes pass through or near some places I've spent time.
Or you can look up highways by state: here's NCRoads.com, where I can read about the highways traveling through my part of the country. I looked up the state highway closest to me, NC 294, and discovered what I feared: that the road is due for an expensive widening and straightening soon. Finding out the history is fun, but the future is depressing. The site says: "Another perfectly good rustic backroad safety-sanitized for your boredom. At least you've got a few years left to drive it the way it is."