...and on - 05/22/03 03:36 PM
THOROUGHFARE:
Noun: 1. A main road or public highway. 2a. A place of passage from one location to another. b. Right to such passage. 3. A heavily traveled passage, such as a waterway, strait, or channel.
etymology: Middle English thurghfare : thurgh, thorow, through; see thorough + fare, road (from Old English faru, fær, from faran, to go; see fare).
As an aside, authors often surprise me with unexpected bits of erudition. One of David Eddings characters has a horse called Faran which (see above) I now know means ‘to go’ in Old English
HIGHWAY:
Noun: abbr. hwy. or hgwy. A main public road, especially one connecting towns and cities.
Continued from yesterday:
Highways made of macadam with a bituminous binder could not support heavy goods traffic and the heavy traffic during World War I resulted in road construction that included subsoil drainage, a firm foundation, a concrete base, and an additional wear coat of concrete or bituminous pavement.
Mussolini began to build autostrada to provide work for Italians during the depression of the 1920s. Built as single carriageway three-lane highways, they were perhaps the first ‘motorway’ system. The first truly modern highway system was the German autobahn system, constructed in the 1930s and, like the autostrada, designed for large (mainly military) traffic volumes and speeds in excess of 165 km/hr.
In Britain, trailing behind as usual, legislation authorising new or existing roads as motorways was not introduced until 1949. But, by the end of the 1950s most European countries had a system of main highways, with Germany's remaining the most advanced.
The 68,400-km American Interstate Highway System is a limited-access network stretching from coast to coast and border to border. The first interstate was in Missouri, Kansas, or Pennsylvania depending on who you listen to,.
Its conception, gestation and birth were less smooth than the highway! In 1939, Roosevelt recommended Congress to consider action on a system of direct interregional highways, with all necessary connections through and around cities, to meet the requirements of the national defense and the needs of a growing peacetime traffic. Because of political infighting and lobbying and a couple of wars it was not until 1956 that the Federal-Aid Highway Act emerged, and the early 1990s before (virtually) the entire Interstate Highway System had been completed and opened. Nevertheless, during those 40 odd years, the interstate system, and the federal-state partnership that built it, changed the face of America.
Noun: 1. A main road or public highway. 2a. A place of passage from one location to another. b. Right to such passage. 3. A heavily traveled passage, such as a waterway, strait, or channel.
etymology: Middle English thurghfare : thurgh, thorow, through; see thorough + fare, road (from Old English faru, fær, from faran, to go; see fare).
As an aside, authors often surprise me with unexpected bits of erudition. One of David Eddings characters has a horse called Faran which (see above) I now know means ‘to go’ in Old English
HIGHWAY:
Noun: abbr. hwy. or hgwy. A main public road, especially one connecting towns and cities.
Continued from yesterday:
Highways made of macadam with a bituminous binder could not support heavy goods traffic and the heavy traffic during World War I resulted in road construction that included subsoil drainage, a firm foundation, a concrete base, and an additional wear coat of concrete or bituminous pavement.
Mussolini began to build autostrada to provide work for Italians during the depression of the 1920s. Built as single carriageway three-lane highways, they were perhaps the first ‘motorway’ system. The first truly modern highway system was the German autobahn system, constructed in the 1930s and, like the autostrada, designed for large (mainly military) traffic volumes and speeds in excess of 165 km/hr.
In Britain, trailing behind as usual, legislation authorising new or existing roads as motorways was not introduced until 1949. But, by the end of the 1950s most European countries had a system of main highways, with Germany's remaining the most advanced.
The 68,400-km American Interstate Highway System is a limited-access network stretching from coast to coast and border to border. The first interstate was in Missouri, Kansas, or Pennsylvania depending on who you listen to,.
Its conception, gestation and birth were less smooth than the highway! In 1939, Roosevelt recommended Congress to consider action on a system of direct interregional highways, with all necessary connections through and around cities, to meet the requirements of the national defense and the needs of a growing peacetime traffic. Because of political infighting and lobbying and a couple of wars it was not until 1956 that the Federal-Aid Highway Act emerged, and the early 1990s before (virtually) the entire Interstate Highway System had been completed and opened. Nevertheless, during those 40 odd years, the interstate system, and the federal-state partnership that built it, changed the face of America.