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By
Wilbur H. Simonson
U.S. Bureau of Public Roads
U. S. Department of Commerce
Washington, D.C.
First Lecture at Rutgers University, College of Engineering
Spencer Miller, Jr., Lecture Series, February - April, 1952
Wilbur H. Simonson was Chief of the...
Frederick W. Cron, an engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads from 1928 to 1969, was also a historian of highway design. While living in retirement in Colorado, he saw a letter in the Denver Post advocating a scenic design for Interstate highways. Mr. Cron wrote the...
by Richard F. Weingroff
The parkway concept, intended for recreational driving, embodied many design concepts that would be integral to expressways, including wide right-of-way, control of access, elimination of grade crossings with other highways, and separated highway...
By Richard F. Weingroff
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a big supporter of toll superhighways, which he saw as a way to create jobs for the unemployed during the Depression. During World War II, he saw the concept as vital to having projects on the shelf ready...
by Richard F. Weingroff
The Federal Highway Administration has often been asked about the American practice of driving on the right, instead of the left, as in Great Britain, our "Mother Country." Albert C. Rose, who served as "unofficial historian" of the U.S. Bureau of...
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...
The U.S. numbering plan was developed in the mid-1920's by the Joint Board on Interstate Highways, which included representatives of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads (now the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)) and the State highway agencies. The idea was to identify the main interstate roads...
When the Joint Board on Interstate Highways released its report on the proposed U.S. numbered highway plan in October 1925, the report identified U.S. 2, the northernmost east-west route, from Houlton, Maine, to Bonners Ferry, Idaho. (U.S. 2 was used instead of U.S. 0 for this major route.) The...
When the Joint Board on Interstate Highways released its proposal for a U.S. numbered highway system in October 1925, it identified U.S. 95 as a route located entirely in Idaho:
From the United States-Canada line to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, Sand Point, Coeur d'Alene, Lewiston, Grangerville...
Until the mid-1920's, the Nation's main interstate roads carried names such as the Lincoln Highway, the Meridian Highway, the National Old Trails Road, the Pacific Highway, the Yellowstone Trails, and hundreds of others. The names were applied by private booster groups, each of which acted as a...