United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
When the Joint Board on Interstate Highways issued its proposal on the U.S. numbered highway system in October 1925, the report identified the main interstate highways that would be included. U.S. 29 was among them, with the route described as: From Gastonia, North Carolina, to Spartanburg, South Carolina, Greenville, Anderson, Hartwell, Georgia, A
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The Rambler has long followed a simple rule: if you have to go outside to write about it, don't write about it. The Rambler violated that rule only once, in June 1989, and this website has decided to blow the whistle on him despite his protests. A junior school class in England had been given the assignment of writing to a celebrity and asking for
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge carries the Capital Beltway, I-95/495, across the Potomac River. Although President Woodrow Wilson's life was filled with many accomplishments and distinctions, he is not known for links to the Potomac River or for crossing it. So why is the bridge named after him?
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The novelist John Steinbeck and CBS Newscaster Charles Kuralt knew and wrote about roads. Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939, is a classic of road literature; its description of Dust Bowl refugees driving to California along U.S. 66 has given the route an enduring nickname ("The Mother Road"). Kuralt, in his CBS news feature "On the
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
In transportation, predictions are a common practice at the project level (such as loading over a 20-year design life, expected noise levels, and environmental and air quality impacts) and the theoretical level as experts try to figure out where transportation is headed. (Usually, it isn't.) In this feature, the Highway History page has given the R
...
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
In July 1988, the FHWA cosponsored a conference called Scenic Byways '88: A National Conference to Map the Future of America's Scenic Roads and Highways. IN preparation for the conference, the FHWA published Scenic Byways as a guide and reference for participants. It contained the following background information.
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The National Road, in many places known as Route 40, was built between 1811 and 1834 to reach the western settlements. It was the first federally funded road in U.S. history. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson believed that a trans-Appalachian road was necessary for unifying the young country. In 1806 Congress authorized construction of the roa
...
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
After reading this article (Where was the First Walk/Don't Walk Sign Installed?), several people commented on the reference to the "scramble," during which all traffic at an intersection is halted so pedestrians can cross in any direction, including diagonally. The readers suggested that Henry A. Barnes, who had been traffic commissioner in Denver,
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
Many of our Nation's roadways were once dirt and mud paths until the early to mid–1800s. A modern movement at that time called for the building of wooden roads, a great improvement in transportation. These planks-boards-were laid over the roadway on log foundations in various lengths, but most were eight feet long. Built for wagons, the width of th
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
Canals have a long history of providing drinking water, irrigation, and opportunities for travel. In the United States, canal building began in the 1790s to connect the 16 States to western lands for commerce and families seeking to relocate further west. Packet boats, which provided transportation in the canals, have played an important role in Am
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
In honor of National African American History Month, the Office of Civil Rights and Office of Public Affairs would like to recognize Victor H. Green, a Harlem-based postal carrier and author of the “Green Book,” as one of the many transportation pioneers of color who shaped American history.
United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
An article in the September 1946 issue of Contractors and Engineers Monthly described the original Blue Star planting project in New Jersey: Blue Star Drive Planned as Memorial for Service People; Slopes Flattened or Stabilized With Trees, Living tribute to service men and women of New Jersey advanced further this spring when over 6,000 flowering-d
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The bloodiest battle of the Civil War took place on September 17, 1862, on Antietam Creek near the small town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. Four hours of intense fighting took place on an old sunken road that separated two farms. A staggering 23,100 men were wounded, killed or missing in action after the Union and Confederate Armies collided in the near
...
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
The Rambler explains the controversies and arguments in the creation of the Interstate System, particularly the concerns of Colorado and Utah, which led to I-70 terminating in Cove Fort, Utah.
2023-06-30
|
FHWA Highway History Website Articles
|
PDF
Charles Henry Davis, who established the National Highways Association in 1911, traveled across the U.S. promoting his Four-Fold Highway System. As a part of the promotion, Davis was issued license plate number 25 from each U.S. state, territory, and dependency as well as Canadian and South American providences and territories. Mr. Steve Hachenberg
...
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving a Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS)/National Transportation Library (NTL)
Web-based service.
Thank you for visiting.
You are about to access a non-government link outside of
the U.S. Department of Transportation's National
Transportation Library.
Please note: While links to Web sites outside of DOT are
offered for your convenience, when you exit DOT Web sites,
Federal privacy policy and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation
Act (accessibility requirements) no longer apply. In
addition, DOT does not attest to the accuracy, relevance,
timeliness or completeness of information provided by linked
sites. Linking to a Web site does not constitute an
endorsement by DOT of the sponsors of the site or the
products presented on the site. For more information, please
view DOT's Web site linking policy.
To get back to the page you were previously viewing, click
your Cancel button.