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1905 |
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Office of Public Roads
The Office of Public Roads (OPR) is established, successor to the Office of Road Inquiry established in 1893. OPR’s director, Logan Waller Page, who would serve until 1919, helps found the American Association of State Highway Officials and lobbies Congress to secure the Federal Aid Highway Program in 1916, giving states matching funds for highways.
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1910 |
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Asphalt manufactured from oil-refining byproducts
Gulf Oil, Texas Refining, and Sun Oil introduce asphalt manufactured from byproducts of the oil-refining process. Suitable for road paving, it is less expensive than natural asphalt mined in and imported from Venezuela. The new asphalt serves a growing need for paved roads as the number of motor vehicles in the United States soars from 55,000 in 1904 to 470,000 in 1910 to about 10 million in 1922.
Garrett Morgan, an inventor with a fifth-grade education and the first African-American in Cleveland to own a car, invents the electric, automatic traffic light.
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1913 |
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First highway paved with portland cement
The first highway paved with portland cement, or concrete, is built near Pine Bluff, Arkansas, 22 years after Bellefontaine, Ohio, first paved its Main Street with concrete. Invented in 1824 by British stone mason Joseph Aspdin from a mix of calcium, silicon, aluminum, and iron minerals, portland cement is so-named because of its similarity to the stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the English coast.
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1917 |
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Wisconsin adopts road numbering system
Wisconsin is the first state to adopt a numbering system as the network of roads increases. The idea gradually spreads across the country and replaces formerly named trails and highways.
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1919 |
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MacDonald appointed head of federal Bureau of Public Roads
Thomas MacDonald is appointed to head the federal Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), successor to OPR. During his 34-year tenure he helps create the Advisory Board on Highway Research, which becomes the Highway Research Board in 1924 and the Transportation Research Board in 1974. Among other things, BPR operates an experimental farm in Arlington, Virginia, to test road surfaces.
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1920 |
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Yellow traffic lights
William Potts, a Detroit police officer, refines Garrett Morgan’s invention by adding the yellow light. Red and green traffic signals in some form have been in use since 1868, but the increase in automobile traffic requires the addition of a warning signal.
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1923 |
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Uniform system of signs
State highway engineers across the country adopt a uniform system of signage based on shapes that include the octagonal stop sign.
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1925 |
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Numbering system for interstate highways
BPR and state highway representatives create a numbering system for interstate highways. East-west routes are designated with even numbers, north-south routes with odd numbers. Three-digit route numbers are given to shorter highway sections, and alternate routes are assigned the number of the principal line of traffic preceded by a one.
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1927 |
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Holland Tunnel
Completion of the Holland Tunnel beneath the Hudson River links New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey. It is named for engineer Clifford Holland, who solves the problem of venting the build-up of deadly car exhaust by installing 84 electric fans, each 80 feet in diameter.
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1930s (Late) |
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Air-entrained concrete introduced
Air-entrained concrete, one of the greatest advancements in concrete technology, is introduced. The addition of tiny air bubbles in the concrete provides room for expansion when water freezes, thus making the concrete surface resistant to frost damage.
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1932 |
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Autobahn opens
The opening of a 20-mile section of Germany’s fledgling autobahn, regarded as the world’s first superhighway, links Cologne and Bonn. By the end of the decade the autobahn measures 3,000 kilometers and inspires U.S. civil engineers contemplating a similar network. Today the autobahn covers more than 11,000 kilometers.
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1937 |
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Route 66 completed
The paving of Route 66 linking Chicago and Santa Monica, California, is complete. Stretching across eight states and three time zones, the 2,448-mile-long road is also known as "The Mother Road" and "The Main Street of America." For the next half-century it is the country’s main thoroughfare, bringing farm workers from the Midwest to California during the Dust Bowl and contributing to California’s post-World War II population growth. Officially decommissioned in 1985, the route has been replaced by sections of Interstate-55, I-44, I-40, I-15, and I-10.
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1937 |
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Golden Gate Bridge
The Golden Gate Bridge opens and connects San Francisco with Marin County. To construct a suspension bridge in a region prone to earthquakes, engineer Joseph Strauss uses a million tons of concrete to hold the anchorages in place. Its two main towers each rise 746 feet above the water and are strung with 80,000 miles of cable.
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1940 |
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Pennsylvania Turnpike
The Pennsylvania Turnpike opens as the country’s first roadway with no cross streets, no railroad crossings, and no traffic lights. Built on an abandoned railroad right of way, it includes 7 miles of tunnels through the mountains, 11 interchanges, 300 bridges and culverts, and 10 service plazas. By the mid-1950s America’s first superhighway extends westward to the Ohio border, north toward Scranton, and east to Philadelphia for a total of 470 route miles.
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1944 |
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Federal Aid Highway Act
The Federal Aid Highway Act authorizes the designation of 40,000 miles of interstate highways to connect principal cities and industrial centers.
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1949 |
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First concrete pavement constructed using slipforms
The first concrete pavement constructed using slipforms is built in O’Brian and Cerro Counties, Iowa.
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1952 |
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Walk/Don’t Walk signal
The first "Walk/Don’t Walk" signal is installed in New York City.
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1952 |
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Chesapeake Bay Bridge
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the world’s largest continuous over-water steel structure, opens, linking Maryland’s eastern and western shores of the bay. Spanning 4.35 miles, the bridge has a vertical clearance of 186 feet to accommodate shipping traffic. In 1973 another span of the bridge opens to ease increasing traffic. By the end of the century, more than 23 million cars and trucks cross the bridge each year.
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1956 |
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New Federal Aid Highway Act
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a new Federal Aid Highway Act, committing $25 billion in federal funding. Missouri is the first state to award a highway construction contract with the new funding. The act incorporates existing toll roads, bridges, and tunnels into the system and also sets uniform interstate design standards.
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1956 |
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Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens
Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens, connecting New Orleans with its north shore suburbs. At 24 miles it is the world’s longest over-water highway bridge. Made up of two parallel bridges, the causeway is supported by 95,000 hollow concrete pilings sunk into the lakebed. It was originally designed to handle 3,000 vehicles per day but now carries that many cars and trucks in an hour.
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1960s |
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Reflective paint for highway markings developed
Paint chemist and professor Elbert Dysart Botts develops a reflective paint for marking highway lanes. When rainwater obscures the paint’s reflective quality, Botts develops a raised marker that protrudes above water level. Widely known as Botts’ Dots, the raised markers were first installed in Solano County, California, along a section of I-80. They have the added benefit of making a drumming sound when driven over, warning drivers who veer from their lanes.
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1962 |
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Pavement standards
The AASHO (American Association of State Highway Officials) road test near Ottawa, Illinois, which subjects sections of pavements to carefully monitored traffic loads, establishes pavement standards for use on the interstate system and other highways.
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1964 |
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Chesapeake Bay Bridge- Tunnel opens
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel opens, connecting Virginia Beach and Norfolk to Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Its bridges and tunnels stretch 17.6 miles shore to shore and feature a pair of mile-long tunnels that run beneath the surface to allow passage above of commercial and military ships. In 1965 the bridge-tunnel is named one of the "Seven Engineering Wonders of the Modern World" in a competition that includes 100 major projects.
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1966 |
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Highway Safety Act
The Highway Safety Act establishes the National Highway Program Safety Standards to reduce traffic accidents.
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1973 |
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Interstate 70 opens west of Denver
Interstate 70 in Colorado opens from Denver westward. It features the 1.75-mile Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel, the longest tunnel in the interstate program.
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1980s and 1990s |
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Introduction of the open-graded friction course
Introduction of the open-graded friction course, allowing asphalt to drain water more efficiently and thus reducing hydroplaning and skidding, and Superpave, or Superior Performing Asphalt Pavement, which can be tailored to the climate and traffic of each job, are among refinements that improve the country’s 4 million miles of roads and highways, 96 percent of which are covered in asphalt. By the end of the century, 500 million tons of asphalt will be laid every year.
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1986 |
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Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore opens
The Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore opens and at 1.75 miles is the longest and widest underwater highway tunnel ever built by the immersed-tube method. The tunnel was constructed in sections, then floated to the site and submerged in a trench. It also includes a computer-assisted traffic control system and communications and monitoring systems.
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1987 |
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Sunshine Skyway Bridge completed
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge is completed, connecting St. Petersburg and Bradenton, Florida. At 29,040 feet long, it is the world’s largest cable-stayed concrete bridge. Twenty-one steel cables support the bridge in the center with two 40-foot roadways running along either side of the cable for an unobstructed view of the water.
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1990s |
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Big Dig begins
Work begins in Boston on the Big Dig, a project to transform the section of I-93 known as the Central Artery, an elevated freeway built in the 1950s, into an underground tunnel. Scheduled for completion in 2004, it will provide a new harbor crossing to Logan Airport and replace the I-93 bridge across the Charles River.
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1993 |
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Interstate system praised
Officially designated the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways, the interstate system is praised by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the "Seven Wonders of the United States" and "the backbone of the world’s strongest economy."
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1993 |
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Glenn Anderson Freeway/Transitway opens
The Glenn Anderson Freeway/ Transitway, part of I-105, opens in Los Angeles, featuring a light rail train that runs in the median. Sensors buried in the pavement monitor traffic flow, and closed-circuit cameras alert officials to accidents.
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