Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 18, 1970 The Audubon Parkway in western Kentucky was formally opened as a toll road. The inaugural ceremony for this newest addition to Kentucky’s parkways network took place on a windy Friday afternoon at a toll plaza located 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) west of the city of Owensboro. Approximately 300 people attended the event,... Continue Reading →
December 11, 1922 The Nevada State Department of Highways (forerunner of the present-day Nevada Department of Transportation) completed work on a section of road in Humboldt County in the state’s northern region. This 10.8-mile (17.4 -kilometer)-long section was located between the unincorporated community of Stonehouse and the county’s border with Lander County. The work done... Continue Reading →
December 4, 2013 The first-ever double roundabout in Ohio was officially opened to traffic at the interchange of State Route 664 (SR 664) and U.S. Route 33 (US 33) in the city of Logan in the southern part of the Buckeye State. This interchange has long been regarded as an important gateway to both Logan’s... Continue Reading →
December 2, 2018 In the state of Assam in northeastern India, a road-rail bridge began service when a freight train chugged across the newly built structure. Piyush Goyal, India’s minister of railways, used his Twitter account that same day to highlight this crossing. He tweeted that the inaugural train trip on December 2 was “a... Continue Reading →
November 25, 1999 The Süd Autobahn (designated as A2) in the Republic of Austria was officially completed. This motorway runs south from the outskirts of the capital city of Vienna to the market town of Arnoldstein along Austria’s border with Italy. (“Süd Autobahn” means “South Motorway” in German.) Construction on this controlled-access highway began in... Continue Reading →
October 30, 2007 The M1 motorway made its debut in northwestern Pakistan. This east-west highway was officially inaugurated by Syed Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008. The 96-mile (155-kilometer) M1 motorway connects the city of Peshawar (capital of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa) with the metropolitan area encompassing the cities of... Continue Reading →
Frank Sandoval, whose U.S. Army service during World War II included taking part in one of the most critical and formidable roadbuilding projects of that military conflict, grew up in a predominantly Hispanic American community on Second Street in the small town of Silvis, Illinois. That street is just a block-and-a-half long and consists of... Continue Reading →
October 7, 2010 (Image courtesy of Eastern Reporter Community News.) In Australia, Mandjoogoordap Drive (State Route 19) in the Peel region of the state of Western Australia was officially opened two months of schedule. (“Mandjoogoordap” is pronounced man-joo-goord-daap.) Western Australia’s Transport Minister Simon O’Brien officiated at the dedication ceremony for the dual carriageway (this class... Continue Reading →
August 30, 1925 Two officials of the American Automobile Association (AAA) headed out of Washington, D.C., for an ambitious transcontinental motor vehicle trip to California. AAA President Thomas P. Henry and Ernest N. Smith, general manager of that organization, undertook that long drive to participate in the festivities commemorating California’s 75th anniversary as a state. Both... Continue Reading →
August 2, 1947 About nine years before President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the bill formally establishing the Interstate Highway System, the general locations of the first designated routes for that proposed network were announced. This announcement was made by Major General Philip B. Fleming, administrator of the Federal Works Agency (which included the Public... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 