Interstate highway
A Interstate highway is literally a " main road inter-états" with the the United States, one could rather translate this term by " Highway inter-états". The inter-states term means that these highways are financed by the federal government, although they belong, are built and operated by the states in which they are located, only exception being the Woodrow Wilson Bridge of the Interstate 495 pertaining to the federal state. This system was created by Dwight D. Eisenhower at the beginning of the Années 1950, and is today about to be completed.
The system joint all the most important cities of the country. Contrary to the highways of the majority of the other industrialized countries, a great number of highways inter-states pass by the center of the cities. This fact facilitated the emergence of the suburban suburbs where the car prevails, and thus the urban spreading out, after the Second world war. These highways are thus in the center of the daily life of the Americans, whether it is in urban environment or for the long voyages.
History
The system of the interstate highway was authorized by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known under the name of National Interstate and Defense Act Highway of 1956 , thanks to the support of the principal industrial firms of car and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was influenced as much by its own experience, since it had followed the Lincoln Highway in 1919 as a young soldier, and by its appreciation of the network of highways ( Autobahn ) German. Highways were already traced at the end of the Années 1930 and belonged to the local highway systems or the states. With the increase in the automobile traffic, the need to create a national system in supplement of the United States Numbered Highways was made feel.
Although the construction of the system continues still nowadays, he was officially declared finished in 1991, although 1,5 miles of the system originally envisaged remain not built in 2005. The initial costs were of 25 billion dollars over twelve years, but 114 billion in fact was spent, after 35 years of work.
Standards
The American Association off State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) defined several standards that all the highways of the network must respect. Those became more strict with the wire of time. The speed limits are sometimes most important in a given area, and are determined by the states concerned. The limitations in rural environment vary between 100 and 130 km/h with lowest speeds in the states of the North-East, and strongest in the states of the west. The expressways are limited from 80 to 100 km/h in all the Pays.
In addition to being planned to allow the transport of the cars and Truck S, the highways inter-states are also studied for a military use and operations of civil defense, in particular the troop movements. However, in spite of what one often thinks, the network was not thought to allow atterissages planes.
One of the potential uses of defense civilian of the network is the emergency evacuation of the cities, if would take place a potential nuclear war. The network was used to facilitate the evacuations at the time of the hurricanes and other natural disasters. At the time of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, in 2005, procedure Contraflow , which makes it possible to reverse the course of the traffic on a side so that all the ways become starting ways, was used. Several Interstates of the South, of which the Interstate 16 in Georgia, the Interstate 40 in North Carolina, the Interstate 65 in Alabama, the Interstate 10, the Interstate 12, the Interstate 55 and 59 in Louisiana, and these same highways in the the Mississippi; are equipped specifically to answer this kind of situation and to be able to redistribute the traffic. One finds also this configuration on State Road 528 in central Florida.
Indication
The highways of the network are announced by a panel red, white and blue visible in top of the page. Their great majority use numbers to indicate the exits. Indication respects most of the time the Manual one Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD); but the local and regional variations often remain.
References
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Site on the network of Interstates
See too
- U.S. Road 66
External bonds
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Information on Interstate Highway
- FHWA Road Log and Finder List
- FHWA Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center - Analysis and history of the network of the Interstate Highway
- Images of all Interstates
Simple: Interstate