1.
Federal Highway Administration
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The Federal Highway Administration is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agencys major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program and the Federal Lands Highway Program and its role had previously been performed by the Office of Road Inquiry, Office of Public Roads and the Bureau of Public Roads. The organization has several organizations and a complicated history. The Office of Road Inquiry was founded in 1893, in 1905 that organizations name was changed to the Office of Public Roads which became a division of the United States Department of Agriculture. The name was changed again to the Bureau of Public Roads in 1915 and it was then shifted to the Federal Works Agency which was abolished in 1949 when its name reverted to Bureau of Public Roads under the Department of Commerce. With the coming of the bicycle in the 1890s, interest grew regarding the improvement of streets, the traditional method of putting the burden on maintaining roads on local landowners was increasingly inadequate. New York State took the lead in 1898, and by 1916 the old system had been discarded everywhere area, demands grew for local and state government to take charge. With the coming of the automobile after 1910, urgent efforts were made to upgrade, the American Association for Highway Improvement was organized in 1910. Funding came from automobile registration, and taxes on motor fuels, in 1916, federal-aid was first made available to improve post-roads, and promote general commerce. Congress appropriated $75 million over a period, with the Secretary of Agriculture in charge through the Bureau of Public Roads. There were 2.4 million miles of rural dirt rural roads in 1914,100,000 miles had been improved with grading and gravel, the rapidly increasing speed of automobiles, and especially trucks, made maintenance and repair high-priority item. Concrete was first used in 1893, and expanded until it became the dominant surfacing material in the 1930s, from 1917 through 1941,261,000 miles of highways were built with federal aid, and cost $5.31 billion. Federal funds totaled $3.17 billion, and state-local funds were $2.14 billion, the FHWA was created on October 15,1966. In 1967 the functions of the Bureau of Public Roads were transferred to the new organization and it was one of three original bureaus along with the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety and the National Highway Safety Bureau. The FHWA’s role in the Federal-aid Highway Program is to oversee federal funds used for constructing and maintaining the National Highway System and this funding mostly comes from the federal gasoline tax and mostly goes to state departments of transportation. FHWA oversees projects using these funds to ensure that requirements for project eligibility. The FHWA also publishes the “Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices”, the MUTCD specifies such things as the size, color and height of traffic signs, traffic signals and road surface markings. The Federal Highway Administration is overseen by an Administrator appointed by the President of the United States by, the Administrator works under the direction of the Secretary of Transportation and Deputy Secretary of Transportation
2.
United States Department of Transportation
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The United States Department of Transportation is a federal Cabinet department of the U. S. government concerned with transportation. It was established by an act of Congress on October 15,1966 and it is governed by the United States Secretary of Transportation. Prior to the Department of Transportation, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation administered the functions now associated with the DOT, the awardees include light rail projects. Other projects include both a rail extension and a subway project in New York City, and a bus rapid transit system in Springfield. The budget provided funding for all of the projects currently receiving Recovery Act funding. It also continued funding for another 18 transit projects that are currently under construction or soon will be. Following the same the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 delegates $600 million for Infrastructure Investments, the Department of Transportation was authorized a budget for Fiscal Year 2016 of $75.1 billion. e. Did not earn an overall grade
3.
Traffic sign
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Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones, later, signs with directional arms were introduced, for example, the fingerposts in the United Kingdom and their wooden counterparts in Saxony. Such pictorial signs use symbols in place of words and are based on international protocols. Such signs were first developed in Europe, and have adopted by most countries to varying degrees. Traffic signs can be grouped into several types, for example, Annexe 1 of the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals, which on 30 June 2004 had 52 signatory countries, defines eight categories of signs, A. Special regulation signs F. Information, facilities, or service signs G. Direction, position, a rather informal distinction among the directional signs is the one between advance directional signs, interchange directional signs, and reassurance signs. Advance directional signs appear at a distance from the interchange. A number of countries do not give information for the road ahead, advance directional signs enable drivers to take precautions for the exit. They often do not appear on lesser roads, but are normally posted on expressways and motorways, while each nation has its own system, the first approach sign for a motorway exit is mostly placed at least 1000 m from the actual interchange. After that sign, one or two additional advance directional signs typically follow before the interchange itself. The earliest road signs were milestones, giving distance or direction, for example, in the Middle Ages, multidirectional signs at intersections became common, giving directions to cities and towns. In 1686, the first known Traffic Regulation Act in Europe is established by King Peter II of Portugal and this act foresees the placement of priority signs in the narrowest streets of Lisbon, stating which traffic should back up to give way. One of these still exists at Salvador street, in the neighborhood of Alfama. The first modern road signs erected on a wide scale were designed for riders of high or ordinary bicycles in the late 1870s and early 1880s. These machines were fast, silent and their nature made them difficult to control, moreover their riders travelled considerable distances, the development of automobiles encouraged more complex signage systems using more than just text-based notices. One of the first modern-day road sign systems was devised by the Italian Touring Club in 1895, by 1900, a Congress of the International League of Touring Organizations in Paris was considering proposals for standardization of road signage. In 1903 the British government introduced four national signs based on shape, in 1909, nine European governments agreed on the use of four pictorial symbols, indicating bump, curve, intersection, and grade-level railroad crossing. The intensive work on road signs that took place between 1926 and 1949 eventually led to the development of the European road sign system
4.
Road surface marking
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Road surface marking is any kind of device or material that is used on a road surface in order to convey official information, they are commonly places with road marking machines. They can also be applied in other facilities used by vehicles to mark parking spaces or designate areas for other uses, Road surface markings are used on paved roadways to provide guidance and information to drivers and pedestrians. Uniformity of the markings is an important factor in minimizing confusion and uncertainty about their meaning, however, countries and areas categorize and specify road surface markings in different ways — white lines are called white lines mechanical, non-mechanical, or temporary. Road surface marking can also indicate regulation for parking and stopping, there is continuous effort to improve the road marking system, and technological breakthroughs include adding retroreflectivity, increasing longevity, and lowering installation cost. Mechanical devices may be raised or recessed into the road surface, most are permanent, some are movable. Cats eye, invented by Percy Shaw in the 1930s, Cats eyes equip many major routes in the British Isles and they consist of four reflective lenses mounted in a durable white rubber housing, two facing fore and two facing aft. The housing is mounted within a cast iron shoe, which the rubber housing sinks in to when driven over and this provides protection from snow ploughing and allows the lenses to be self-cleaning—they pass a rubber blade when depressed. The lenses are available in a variety of different colours, mainly white, yellow/orange, green, red, Botts dots, named for the California Caltrans engineer Elbert Botts, who invented the epoxy that keeps them glued down, are one type of a mechanical non-reflective raised marker. Generally they are used to mark the edges of traffic lanes, Botts dots are also used across a travel lane to draw the drivers attention to the road. They are frequently used in this way to alert drivers to toll booths and they are normally only used in warm climates since snow plows usually remove them along with the snow. Rumble strips are used for the same purpose. A rumble strip can be a series of troughs that is ground out of the asphalt. Other alternatives, similar to the Botts dots, use raised strips, a specific form of raised strips using thermoplastic is called profile thermoplastic markings. The markings are created by fusing thermoplastic to the pavement and create alternating elevation and recession pattern and this can be done as inverted-profile markings or raised-profile markings. Inverted-profile markings are created by pressing a cog rolling over the markings while they are wet to make them corrugated, raised-profile markings are created by extruding extra thickness of thermoplastic at a specific interval to create bumps. Raised-profile markings are known as convex traffic lines. Uses of rumble strips can be across the direction or along the travel direction. Their main way of function is creating a strong vibration when driven over that will alert a driver to various upcoming hazards both by sound and the vibration of the vehicle
5.
Traffic light
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The worlds first, manually operated gas-lit traffic signal was short lived. Installed in London in December 1868, it exploded less than a month later, Traffic control started to seem necessary in the late 1890s and Earnest Sirrine from Chicago patented the first automated traffic control system in 1910. It used the words STOP and PROCEED, although neither word lit up, Traffic lights alternate the right of way accorded to users by displaying lights of a standard colour following a universal colour code. In the typical sequence of phases, The green light allows traffic to proceed in the direction denoted, if it is safe to do so. The amber light warns that the signal is about to change to red, in a number of countries – among them the United Kingdom – a phase during which red and yellow are displayed together indicates that the signal is about to change to green. A flashing amber indication is a warning signal, in the United Kingdom, a flashing amber light is used only at pelican crossings, in place of the combined red–amber signal, and indicates that drivers may pass if no pedestrians are on the crossing. The red signal prohibits any traffic from proceeding, a flashing red indication is treated as a stop sign. In some countries traffic signals will go into a flashing mode if the Conflict Monitor detects a problem, the signal may display flashing yellow to the main road and flashing red to the side road, or flashing red in all directions. Flashing operation can also be used during times of day when traffic is light, before traffic lights traffic police controlled the flow of traffic, a well-documented example being that on London Bridge in 1722. Three men were given the task of directing traffic coming in, each officer would help direct traffic coming out of Southwark into London and he made sure all traffic stayed on the west end of the bridge. A second officer would direct traffic on the east end of the bridge to control the flow of people leaving London and going into Southwark. The main reason for the light was that there was an overflow of horse-drawn traffic over Westminster Bridge which forced thousands of pedestrians to walk next to the Houses of Parliament. The design combined three semaphore arms with red and green gas lamps for use, on a pillar. The gas lantern was manually turned by a police officer. The signal was 22 feet high, at night a red light would command Stop and a green light would mean use Caution. Although it was said to be successful at controlling traffic, its life was brief. It exploded on 2 January 1869, as a result of a leak in one of the gas lines underneath the pavement, injuring or killing the policeman who was operating it. In the first two decades of the 20th century semaphore traffic signals, like the one in London, were in use all over the United States with each state having its own design of the device, One good example was from Toledo, Ohio in 1908
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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
7.
Highway
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A highway is any public road or other public way on land. It is used for roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks, It is not an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or a translation for autobahn, autoroute. In North American and Australian English, major such as controlled-access highways or arterial roads are often state highways. Other roads may be designated county highways in the US and Ontario and these classifications refer to the level of government that maintains the roadway. In British English, highway is primarily a legal term, everyday use normally implies roads, while the legal use covers any route or path with a public right of access, including footpaths etc. The term has led to several related derived terms, including highway system, highway code, highway patrol, the term highway exists in distinction to waterway. Major highways are named and numbered by the governments that typically develop. Australias Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world at over 14,500 km or 9,000 mi, China has the worlds largest network of highways followed closely by the United States of America. Some highways, like the Pan-American Highway or the European routes, some major highway routes include ferry services, such as U. S. Route 10, which crosses Lake Michigan. Traditionally highways were used by people on foot or on horses, later they also accommodated carriages, bicycles and eventually motor cars, facilitated by advancements in road construction. In the 1920s and 1930s, many nations began investing heavily in progressively more modern highway systems to spur commerce and these features are typically present on highways built as motorways. The general legal definition deals with right of use not the form of construction, the status of highway on most older roads has been gained by established public use while newer roads are typically dedicated as highways from the time they are adopted. In England and Wales, a highway is also known as The Queens Highway. The core definition of a highway is modified in various legislation for a number of purposes, scots law is similar to English law with regard to highways but with differing terminology and legislation. What is defined in England as a highway will often in Scotland be what is defined by s, Highways generally have a route number designated by the state and federal departments of transportation. Smaller roads may be termed byways, modern highway systems developed in the 20th century as the automobile gained popularity. The worlds first limited access road was constructed on Long Island New York in the United States known as the Long Island Motor Parkway or the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, construction of the Bonn–Cologne autobahn began in 1929 and was opened in 1932 by the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer. In the USA, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921 enacted a fund to create a highway system
8.
American Automobile Association
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The American Automobile Association is a federation of motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a member service organization, with 55.6 million members in the United States. AAA provides services to its members, including roadside assistance and others and its national headquarters are in Heathrow, Florida. Those individual motor clubs included the Chicago Automobile Club, Automobile Club of America, Automobile Club of New Jersey, the Automobile Club of Buffalo joined in 1903. In 1904, the AAA merged with the very first American automobile organization, the first AAA road maps were published in 1905. AAA began printing hotel guides in 1917, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which conducts studies on motorist safety, was established as a separate entity in 1947. AAA created an organization called the Racing Board, and later known as the Contest Board, in 1902 to officiate the Vanderbilt Cup international automobile race in Long Island, New York. The Racing Board sanctioned the Indianapolis 500 and awarded national racing championships in 1905,1916, 1920–1941, after the 1955 Le Mans disaster, AAA decided that auto racing distracted from its primary goals, and the United States Automobile Club was formed to take over the race sanctioning/officiating. In 2005, AAA re-entered racing as a sponsor of ISC-owned tracks, in 2006, AAAs foray into racing expanded when it made a three-year commitment to sponsor Roush Racings number 6 car on the NASCAR Nextel Circuit. In 1935, AAA published Sportsmanlike Driving, the first course outline for high school teachers, in 1936, AAA published the first driver education curriculum for use in high schools. AAA has updated its driver training courses throughout the years and many clubs currently offer their own driving schools, knowing that vehicles pose a hazard to pedestrians, in 1936 AAA began a pedestrian safety program with a grant from the Automotive Safety Foundation. AAA went on to commission and publish a study of pedestrian safety for the purpose of reducing pedestrian fatalities and injuries. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety was established as an entity in 1947. AAA has also provided services to the U. S. government in times of war, during the 1940s, AAA offered its services to the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense in anticipation of becoming involved in World War II. Reductions in manufacturing because of the war increased the need for conservation in automobiles, in 1944, AAA’s Keep em Rolling campaign sponsored a cross-country tour featuring cars equipped with synthetic tires. The tour demonstrated the reliability of tires made with synthetic rubber, AAA also assisted in the development of a manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and their operation during wartime. In 1946, AAA launched a campaign called Take It Easy, subsequently, fatalities dropped 20 percent below the pre-war figure. In the 1960s, AAA helped draft the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, setting safety standards for automobiles, tires, and equipment
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