A small town learns that it is to be bypassed by a new freeway that is due for construction. In a meeting attended by local government officials, town residents, state highway officials and politicians, a film-within-a-film on the 1956 Federal Aid-Highway Act (which enabled financing and construction for the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways) is shown, and the residents become convinced of the importance and efficacy of this planned national expressway system. The film ends as it began, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new stretch of highway.