Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
A pioneering regional system of numbered routes took shape at a meeting of highway officials from each of the six New England states in April 1922. The meeting was hosted by the Automobile Club of American (ACA) and the others in attendance included representatives from the New England Hotel Men’s Association, and the Automobile Blue... Continue Reading →
Nearly a decade before the official authorization of the U.S. Numbered Highway System nationwide, the state of Wisconsin played a groundbreaking role in the establishment of such routes within its own boundaries. By 1917, an ever-increasing number of Wisconsin residents recognized the need for changes to be made to state trails and roads that were... Continue Reading →
In April 1925, the first full-fledged meeting of the Joint Board on Interstate Highways was held at the headquarters of the U.S Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) in Washington, D.C. This two-day meeting took place just a few weeks after the board was formally established to work on developing what ultimately became the U.S. Numbered... Continue Reading →
April 13, 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) signed into law a bill changing the name of South B Street in Washington, D.C., to Independence Avenue. This redesignation took place a little over three years after Roosevelt’s predecessor Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) signed into law the bill changing the name of North B Street to Constitution... Continue Reading →
August 14, 1957 The Administration Committee of AASHO (now known as AASHTO) approved the now-familiar shield used on the Interstate Highway System. The committee made this decision in the wake of several months during which the association’s U.S. Route Numbering Committee sifted through and evaluated dozens of shapes and sizes for a possible route marker... Continue Reading →
January 22, 2008 The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) launched a test program for travel times on freeways in the Phoenix metropolitan area. (The freeway system in the vicinity of Arizona’s capital is one of the largest and fastest-growing networks of its kind in the entire United States.) ADOT’s pilot project involved using a select... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 