Federal government of the United States
The Federal Government of the United States is the national government of the United States, a republic in North America, composed of 50 states, one district, Washington, D. C. and several territories. The federal government is composed of three branches, legislative and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U. S. Constitution in the Congress, the President, and the courts, including the Supreme Court. The powers and duties of these branches are defined by acts of Congress. The full name of the republic is United States of America, no other name appears in the Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party. The terms Government of the United States of America or United States Government are often used in documents to represent the federal government as distinct from the states collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term Federal Government is often used, the terms Federal and National in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the federal government.
Because the seat of government is in Washington, D. C, Washington is commonly used as a metonym for the federal government. The outline of the government of the United States is laid out in the Constitution, the government was formed in 1789, making the United States one of the worlds first, if not the first, modern national constitutional republics. The United States government is based on the principles of federalism and republicanism, some make the case for expansive federal powers while others argue for a more limited role for the central government in relation to individuals, the states or other recognized entities. For example, while the legislative has the power to create law, the President nominates judges to the nations highest judiciary authority, but those nominees must be approved by Congress. The Supreme Court, in its turn, has the power to invalidate as unconstitutional any law passed by the Congress and these and other examples are examined in more detail in the text below. The United States Congress is the branch of the federal government.
It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate, the House currently consists of 435 voting members, each of whom represents a congressional district. The number of each state has in the House is based on each states population as determined in the most recent United States Census. All 435 representatives serve a two-year term, each state receives a minimum of one representative in the House. There is no limit on the number of terms a representative may serve, in addition to the 435 voting members, there are six non-voting members, consisting of five delegates and one resident commissioner. In contrast, the Senate is made up of two senators from each state, regardless of population, there are currently 100 senators, who each serve six-year terms
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices
These specifications include the shapes and fonts used in road markings and signs. In the United States, all control devices must legally conform to these standards. The manual is used by state and local agencies as well as construction firms to ensure that the traffic control devices they use conform to the national standard. While some state agencies have developed their own sets of standards, including their own MUTCDs, the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices advises the FHWA on additions and changes to the MUTCD. However, each highway had its own set of signage, usually designed to promote the highway rather than to assist in the direction, in fact, conflicts between these automobile clubs frequently led to multiple sets of signs—sometimes as many as eleven—being erected on the same highway. They reported their findings to the Mississippi Valley Association of Highway Departments and these suggestions included the familiar circular railroad crossing sign and octagonal stop sign.
In 1927, the American Association of State Highway Officials, or AASHO, published the Manual and Specifications for the Manufacture, standard Road Markers and Signs to set standards for traffic control devices used on rural roads. This was followed by the Manual on Street Traffic Signs and Markings, the MUTCD was first released in 1935, and set standards for both road signs and pavement markings. In 1966, Congress passed the Highway Safety Act, P. L. 89-564,72 Stat,885, which is now codified at 23 U. S. C. §401 et seq. The penalty for noncompliance was a 10% reduction in funding, in turn, taking advantage of broad rulemaking powers granted in 23 U. S. C. §402, the Department simply adopted the entire MUTCD by reference at 23 C. F. R, what was formerly a quasi-official project became an official one. States are allowed to supplement the MUTCD but must remain in substantial conformance with the national MUTCD, most of the repainting to the 1971 standard was done between 1971 and 1974, with a deadline of 1978 for the changeover of both the markings and signage.
Comments were accepted until July 31,2008, the new edition was published in 2009. Proposed additions and revisions to the MUTCD are recommended to FHWA by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, the NCUTCD recommends interpretations of the MUTCD to other agencies that use the MUTCD, such as state departments of transportation. NCUTCD develops public and professional awareness of the principles of safe traffic control devices and practices, the NCUTCD is supported by twenty-one sponsoring organizations, including transportation and engineering industry groups, safety organizations, and the American Automobile Association. Each sponsoring organization promotes members to serve as voting delegates within the NCUTCD, compared to the Vienna Convention, the MUTCD stresses a consistent color scheme and relatively large, verbose warning signs. MUTCD guide signs tend to be less verbose than their equivalents in Vienna Convention countries, the MUTCD has become widely influential outside the United States, for example, the use of yellow stripes to divide opposing traffic has been widely adopted throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Many U. S. states produce their own standards, which take the form of either a manual or supplement to the federal MUTCD
Lowell K. Bridwell
Lowell K. Bridwell was an American journalist. He was a correspondent for the Associated Press and the Ohio State Journal from 1946 to 1950 and he was director of the Federal Highway Administration from 1967 to 1969. He was born on June 14,1924 in Westerville and his father worked for the Anti-Saloon League. After World War II, he briefly attended Ohio State University in the late 1940s and early 1950s, married Margaret Bridwell and he was a Scripps-Howard reporter in Columbus, Ohio Cincinnati, Ohio. During his time as a reporter in the 1950s he wrote stories about first local and national interest. Years later, Lowell became well known as the reporter who wrote an exposé debunking Walter Williams and he worked at the Federal Highway Administration from March 23,1967 until the end of the Johnson administration on January 20,1969. During this time billions of dollars of funds were used to build Americas highways from coast to coast. From 1972 to 1981, Bridwell was the director of the Westside Highway Project.
Between 1981 and 1984, he was appointed Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation and he died on November 21,1986 in Columbia, Maryland. Lowell K. Bridwell bio via Department of Transportation
Rodney E. Slater
For the British Musician, see Rodney Slater. Rodney Earl Slater was the United States Secretary of Transportation under U. S. President Bill Clinton, Slater graduated from Eastern Michigan University in 1977, and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1980. Slater became an assistant to the State Judiciary Committee of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention in 1979–80. He was appointed to state government positions in Arkansas by Bill Clinton. Positions included assistant to the governor between 1983 and 1987, and member of the Arkansas State Highway Commission between 1987 and 1993, Slater was the director of governmental affairs for Arkansas State University during that time. After Clinton was elected president,1993 Slater became the first African-American Director of the Federal Highway Administration, in 1997, Slater was appointed to be the Secretary of Transportation. He was the second African American to hold that post, Slater was able to muster bipartisan support in congress for his projects including, Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, making a record $200 billion investment in surface transportation.
He is a partner in James Lee Witt Associates, a management firm headed by former Federal Emergency Management Agency director James Lee Witt. Slater serves on the boards of Delta Air Lines. He has been appointed to join the board of WS Atkins as a non-executive director effective 9 September 2011, as of December 3,2014 Slater was appointed to serve as special counsels to Takata Corporation in support with Takatas dealings on the 2013 airbag recall issues they are facing. They will advise the Company as they address the current challenges Takata faces, list of African-American United States Cabinet Secretaries Appearances on C-SPAN
National Highway System (United States)
Altogether, it constitutes the largest highway system in the world. Individual states are encouraged to focus federal funds on improving the efficiency, the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 provided that certain key routes such as the Interstate Highway System, be included. The National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 is a United States Act of Congress that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 28,1995, the legislation designated about 160,955 miles of roads, including the Interstate Highway System, as the NHS. Aside from designating the system, the act served several other purposes, the act created a State Infrastructure Bank pilot program. Ten states were chosen in 1996 for this new method of road financing and these banks would lend money like regular banks, with funding coming from the federal government or the private sector, and they would be repaid through such means as highway tolls or taxes. In 1997,28 more states asked to be part of the program, ohio was the first state to use a state infrastructure bank to start building a road.
An advantage to this method was completing projects faster, state laws, all urban areas with a population of over 50,000 and about 90% of Americas population live within 5 miles of the network, which is the longest in the world
Victor Mendez
Mendez was previously Director of the Arizona Department of Transportation, beginning in November 2001. Mendez started at ADOT in 1985 as a transportation engineer and he was named deputy state engineer with ADOTs Valley Transportation Group, where he provided leadership for the Phoenix areas multibillion-dollar freeway system. He worked his way up the agency, becoming Deputy Director in 1999, as Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, Mendez encouraged the adoption of innovations in highways and supported international cooperation. In 2011, he signed the first Memorandum of Cooperation with the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories, Mendez earned a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas at El Paso and an MBA from Arizona State University. Before joining ADOT, Mendez worked for the U. S. Forest Service as an engineer in Oregon, on May 15,2014 President Obama submitted his nomination to the Senate. On July 24,2014 Mendez was confirmed by voice vote as the Deputy Secretary of Transportation
Fuel tax
A fuel tax is an excise tax imposed on the sale of fuel. In most countries the tax is imposed on fuels which are intended for transportation. Fuels used to power vehicles, and/or home heating oil which is similar to diesel are taxed at a different. The fuel tax receipts are often dedicated or hypothecated to transportation projects so that the tax is considered by many a user fee. In other countries, the tax is a source of general revenue. Sometimes, the tax is used as an ecotax, to promote ecological sustainability. Fuel taxes are often considered regressive taxes, taxes on transportation fuels have been advocated as a way to reduce pollution and the possibility of global warming and conserve energy. Proponents advocate that automobiles should pay for the roads they use, international pump prices for diesel and gasoline for November 2010 are available at http, //web. archive. org/web/20110315151539/http, //www. gtz. de, 80/en/themen/29957. htm. Price history from surveys taken in November of even years are available.
Price differences mostly reflect differences in tax policy, chinese gasoline taxes have increased the most among the top twenty CO2-emitting countries over the period 2003-2015. In China, fuel tax has been a contentious issue. This has been one of the instances in which the legislature has asserted its authority. In Hong Kong, leaded petrol is taxed at $6.82 per litre, the tax on Euro V diesel is $0. In India, the pricing of fuel varies by state, though central taxes still are part of the price of fuel. The Central and state governments taxes make up half of petrols pump price. The Central govt has different taxes, which amount to about 24–26% of the final cost, the states taxes vary, but on average end up making about 20–25% of the final cost. As a result, approximately 50% of the pump cost goes to the government in the form of different taxes, for example, in Bengaluru, Karnataka as of May 16,2011, price of petrol is ₹71.09 per litre. Out of this, ₹17.06 go to Govt of India in the form of excise, ₹16.63 is collected by state government in the form of sales tax and entry tax
United States Secretary of Transportation
The United States Secretary of Transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation, a member of the Presidents Cabinet, and thirteenth in the Presidential Line of Succession. The post was created with the formation of the Department of Transportation on October 15,1966, johnsons signing of the Department of Transportation Act. The Secretary of Transportation oversees eleven agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, in April 2008, Mary Peters launched the official blog of the Secretary of Transportation called The Fast Lane. The first Secretary of Transportation was Alan Stephenson Boyd, nominated to the post by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, ronald Reagans second Secretary of Transportation, Elizabeth Dole, was the first female holder, and Mary Peters was the second. Gerald Fords nominee William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr, neil Goldschmidt was the youngest secretary, taking office at age thirty nine, while Norman Mineta was the oldest, retiring at age seventy four.
The salary of the Secretary of Transportation is $199,700, elaine Chao, who served as Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush, was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump on November 29,2016. On January 31,2017 the Senate confirmed her appointment by a vote of 93-6, the most recent Secretary of Transportation to die was William T. Coleman, Jr. on March 31,2017. The most recently serving Secretary of Transportation to die was Andrew L. Lewis, general Biographical Sketches of the Secretaries of Transportation. Specific Official website The Fast Lane, the blog of the Secretary The Department of Transportation Act
Intelligent transportation system
They are considered a part of the Internet of things. Recent governmental activity in the area of ITS — is further motivated by a focus on homeland security. Many of the proposed ITS systems involve surveillance of the roadways, funding of many systems comes either directly through homeland security organisations or with their approval. Further, ITS can play a role in the mass evacuation of people in urban centers after large casualty events such as a result of a natural disaster or threat. Much of the infrastructure and planning involved with ITS parallels the need for security systems. In the developing world, the migration from rural to urbanized habitats has progressed differently, many areas of the developing world have urbanised without significant motorisation and the formation of suburbs. A small portion of the population can afford automobiles, but the automobiles greatly increase congestion in these multimodal transportation systems and they produce considerable air pollution, pose a significant safety risk, and exacerbate feelings of inequities in the society.
High population density could be supported by a system of walking, bicycle transportation, buses. Other parts of the world, such as China, India. In these areas a motorised infrastructure is being developed alongside motorisation of the population, predictive techniques are being developed to allow advanced modelling and comparison with historical baseline data. Some of these technologies are described in the following sections, various forms of wireless communications technologies have been proposed for intelligent transportation systems. Radio modem communication on UHF and VHF frequencies are used for short. Short-range communications of 350 m can be accomplished using IEEE802, the range of these protocols can be extended using Mobile ad hoc networks or Mesh networking. Longer range communications have been proposed using infrastructure networks such as WiMAX, Global System for Mobile Communications, long-range communications using these methods are well established, unlike the short-range protocols, these methods require extensive and very expensive infrastructure deployment.
There is lack of consensus as to what business model should support this infrastructure, auto Insurance companies have utilised ad hoc solutions to support eCall and behavioural tracking functionalities in the form of Telematics 2.0. Recent advances in vehicle electronics have led to a move towards fewer, a typical vehicle in the early 2000s would have between 20 and 100 individual networked microcontroller/Programmable logic controller modules with non-real-time operating systems. The current trend is toward fewer, more costly microprocessor modules with hardware memory management, the new embedded system platforms allow for more sophisticated software applications to be implemented, including model-based process control, artificial intelligence, and ubiquitous computing. Perhaps the most important of these for Intelligent Transportation Systems is artificial intelligence, floating car or probe data collected other transport routes
Thomas Harris MacDonald
Thomas Harris Chief MacDonald was an American civil engineer and politician with tremendous influence in building the countrys interstate highway system. He served as chief of the Iowa State Highway Commission, chief of the Bureau of Public Roads from 1919 to 1939 and he directed national road policy for 34 years, serving under seven different US Presidents. During his time, he supervised the creation of 3.5 million miles of highways, later, he personally directed the creation of the Alaskan Highway, and helped the countries of Central America in building the Inter-American Highway. Was a force as powerful as his counterpart at the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, yet was virtually unknown to most Americans. Born a Scotsman in a Leadville, Colorado log-cabin to John MacDonald and Sarah Elizabeth Harris, his family returned to Poweshiek County, Iowa when he was young. His father was a partner in T. Harris & Company, a grain and lumber dealer founded by his maternal grandfather, lumber traveled in wooden wagons which were unusable in the spring and fall mud.
Most people of the era saw railroads as the solution, and he received his bachelors degree in civil engineering in 1904. In 1907, he married Elizabeth Dunham of Ames, after graduating from college, he was named Assistant in Charge of Good Roads Investigation for the Iowa State Highway Commission. He became chief engineer and Iowa highway commissioner, overseeing a budget of just $5,000 a year. He was soon named President of the American Association of State Highway Officials and he demanded a salary increase from $4,500 to $6,000 and remained an AASHO board member. He insisted on adoption of the most liberal policy possible under the laws, in order to get actual construction work under way as early. MacDonalds power was such that when visiting towns he was given the finest hotel accommodations, free food and drink, in 1920, an impostor took advantage of this to swindle the citizens of Blackwell, Oklahoma by taking advantage of their hospitality and passing bad checks. MacDonald was cool with a severe stare, when you were in Mr.
MacDonalds presence you were quiet. You spoke only if he asked you to, reports one subordinate, to characterize what I would call royalty. And he was fanatical about his cause, next to the education of the child, he wrote, road building was the greatest public responsibility. MacDonalds collected addresses fill fifteen volumes and many of them argue, despite mounting evidence, that roads would never take away from railroads. Such politically convenient claims, often at odds with the facts, the HEB wrote materials for schools, held nationwide contests, published booklets, and had a speakers bureau. He worked closely with the industries that would benefit from roads to extend his Federal budget and he persuaded Congress to grant him the authority to sign contracts with the states
