Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
In the time since the first National Work Zone Awareness Week (NWZAW) took place in 2000, kickoff events have been a key component of these annual campaigns highlighting the importance of safe driving in road construction areas. An early and notable example of these events was the one held in April 2001 in Washington, D.C.... Continue Reading →
April 12, 2010 King Mohammed VI of Morocco inaugurated the construction of a major highway in that North African country. This highway, which is officially designated as A4 motorway, was completed in 2015. Based in the northern section of Morocco, A4 motorway covers 107 miles (173 kilometers) between the town and municipality of Berrechid in... Continue Reading →
Over the past several decades, changeable message signs have taken on an increasingly significant role at highway construction areas across the United States. These electronic traffic control signs (also widely known as variable or dynamic message signs) are now extensively used to alert drivers as they approach work zones to proceed more slowly and carefully... Continue Reading →
April 8, 2013 The first segment of the PHX Sky Train, a small-scale automated transit system transporting people within and also to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona’s capital and largest city, was opened to the public. Construction on this 1.7-mile (2.7-kilometer) segment of the PHX Sky Train had begun in 2008.... Continue Reading →
April 7, 1973 In the Philippines, construction began on the Roman Superhighway in the province of Bataan on the island of Luzon. This highway was named after Pablo Roman, Sr., who had served as one of that region's members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines. The Roman Superhighway was completed and opened in... Continue Reading →
April 6, 2015 A station officially designated as Nemocnice Motol (Hospital Motol) was inaugurated as a new stop for passengers using the Prague Metro, the rapid transit system that serves the Czech Republic’s capital city. This surface station is located in the cadastral area known as Motol, which lies within the city’s municipality of Prague... Continue Reading →
April 5, 1899 A bridge near the community of Clifden in the southernmost part of New Zealand’s South Island made its debut. (At the time, New Zealand was a British colony; it became a dominion of the British Empire in 1907 and achieved full autonomy in 1947.) The Clifden Suspension Bridge, which is 365.8 feet... Continue Reading →
April 4, 1985 A vessel named Samuel Risley was officially commissioned as a Canadian Coast Guard ship (CCGS). This vessel, measuring 229.8 feet (69.7 meters) in length, had been built by Vito Steel Boat & Barge Limited and was launched in 1984 at that company’s shipyard in the British Columbia city of Delta. CCGS Samuel... Continue Reading →
April 1, 1938 On the southeastern coast of Scotland, the steam ferry SS South Steyne was launched in Leith by the shipbuilding company Henry Robb, Ltd. This vessel was built for Australia’s Port Jackson and Manly Steamship Company and its ferries operations in Sydney. (The South Steyne owes her name to a section of Manly Beach,... Continue Reading →
Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1951. She earned a B.S. degree in earth sciences from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1973 and a Ph.D. in geology from Dalhousie University in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia in 1978. It was also in 1978 that Sullivan formally became one... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 