[Home]History of Road Transport

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Revision 19 . . (edit) December 9, 2001 6:45 am by Taw [format fix]
Revision 18 . . October 6, 2001 1:31 pm by (logged).24.214.xxx [added material on highway design development]
Revision 17 . . September 14, 2001 8:30 am by Simon J Kissane
  

Difference (from prior major revision) (minor diff, author diff)

Changed: 1c1
The first forms of Road Transport were horses or oxen carrying goods over dirt tracks that often followed game trails. As commerce increased, the tracks were often flattened or widened to accomidate the activities. With the advent of the Roman Empire, there was a need for armies to be able to travel quickly for one area to another, and the roads that existed were often muddy, which greatly delayed the movement of large masses of troops. To resolve this issue, the Romans built great roads. The Roman roads used deep roadbeds of crushed stone as a underlaying layer to insure that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from the crushed stone, instead of becoming mud in clay soils. The legions made good time on these roads and some are still used millennia later.
The first forms of Road Transport were horses or oxen carrying goods over dirt tracks that often followed game trails. As commerce increased, the tracks were often flattened or widened to accomidate the activities. With the advent of the Roman Empire, there was a need for armies to be able to travel quickly for one area to another, and the roads that existed were often muddy, which greatly delayed the movement of large masses of troops. To resolve this issue, the Romans built great roads. The Roman roads used deep roadbeds of crushed stone as a underlaying layer to insure that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from the crushed stone, instead of becoming mud in clay soils. The legions made good time on these roads and some are still used millennia later.

Added: 6a7,8
At the time of the Industrial Revolution, and because of the increased commerce that came with it, improved roadways became imperative. The problem was rain combined with dirt roads created commerce miring mud. A Scotsman named MacAdam designed the first modern highways. He developed an inexpensive paving material of soil and stone aggragate (aptly known as Macadam), and he embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to cause water to drain away from the surface (and hence the birth of the term highway.)


Added: 9a12,18

With the development, mass production, and popular embrace of the automobile, faster and higher capacity roads were needed. In the 1920's limited access highways appeared. Their main characteristics were dual roadways with access points limited to (but not always) grade-separated interchanges. Their dual roadways allowed high volumes of traffic, the need for no or few traffic lights along with relatively gentle grades and curves allowed higher speeds.

The first limited access highways were Parkways, so called because of their often park-like landscaping and, in the Metropolitan NYC area, they connected the region's system of parks. In the 1930's came the German Autobahns, which brought higher design standards and speeds. In this decade, the US started building toll roads to similar high standards.

In the late 1940's and early 1950's, after WWII interupted the evolution of the highway, the uS resumed building toll roads. They were to still higher standards and one road, the NY State Thruway, had standards that became the prototype for the US Interstate Sytem. The American Interstate Road System uses 12 foot lanes, wide medians, a maximum of 4% grade, and full access control. This system was started in the mid-1950's, and created a continental sized network meant to connect every population center of 50,000 people or more.


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