Road transport
Road transport (British English) or road transportation (American English)
is transport on roads, i.e. most transport over land which is not rail
transport in the wide sense.
A hybrid of road transport and ship transport is the historic horse-drawn
boat.
History
Early Transport
The first forms of road transport were horses or oxen carrying goods over
dirt tracks that often followed game trails. As commerce increased, the
tracks were often flattened or widened to accommodate the activities.
Roman Roads
With the advent of the Roman Empire, there was a need for armies to be
able to travel quickly from one area to another, and the roads that existed
were often muddy, which greatly delayed the movement of large masses of
troops. To resolve this issue, the Romans built great roads. The Roman
roads used deep roadbeds of crushed stone as a underlying layer to ensure
that they kept dry, as the water would flow out from the crushed stone,
instead of becoming mud in clay soils. The legions made good time on these
roads and some are still used millennia later.
On the more heavily traveled routes, there were additional layers that
included six sided capstones, or pavers, that reduced the dust and reduced
the drag from wheels. The pavers allowed the Roman chariots to travel
very quickly, ensuring good communication with the Roman provinces. Farm
roads were often paved first on the way into town, to keep produce clean.
Early forms of springs and shocks to reduce the bumps were incorporated
in horse drawn transport, as the original pavers were sometimes not perfectly
aligned.
Industrial Revolution
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, steam powered engines were
developed, but most were too heavy for common roads, and were implemented
on railroads, where the weight could be isolated to supporting rails,
which also reduced the friction or drag. Of notable interest is that common
British rail gauge is the same width as the Roman chariot wheelbase, as
that was the common width for carts ever since.
Tarmac
At the time of the Industrial Revolution, and because of the increased
commerce that came with it, improved roadways became imperative. The problem
was rain combined with dirt roads created commerce-miring mud. A Scotsman
named McAdam designed the first modern highways. He developed an inexpensive
paving material of soil and stone aggregate (aptly known as macadam),
and he embanked roads a few feet higher than the surrounding terrain to
cause water to drain away from the surface (and hence the birth of the
term highway.) When his substance was tarred to reduce erosion, it became
known as tarmacadam, or tarmac.
Toll Roads in the United States
A toll road in the United States is often called a turnpike. The term
turnpike may have originated from the turnstile or gate which blocked
passage until the fare was paid at a toll house (or toll booth in current
terminology).
History, funding through tolls
Companies were formed to build, improve, and maintain a particular section
of roadway, and tolls were collected from users to finance the enterprise.
The enterprise was usually named to indicate the locale of its roadway,
often including the name of one of both of the termini. The word turnpike
came into common use in the names of these roadways and companies, and
is essentially used interchangeably with toll road in current terminology.
In the United States, toll roads began with the Lancaster Turnpike in
the 1790s, within Pennsylvania, connecting Philadelphia and Lancaster.
In New York State, the Great Western Turnpike was started in Albany in
1799 and eventually extended, by several alternate routes, to near what
is now Syracuse, New York.
Toll roads peaked in the mid 19th century, and by the turn of the twentieth
century most toll roads were taken over by state highway departments.
With the development, mass production, and popular embrace of the automobile,
faster and higher capacity roads were needed. In the 1920s limited access
highways appeared. Their main characteristics were dual roadways with
access points limited to (but not always) grade-separated interchanges.
Their dual roadways allowed high volumes of traffic, the need for no or
few traffic lights along with relatively gentle grades and curves allowed
higher speeds. Bicyclists also campaigned for good roads early on.
The first limited access highways were Parkways, so called because of
their often park-like landscaping and, in the metropolitan New York City
area, they connected the region's system of parks. When the German Autobahns
built in the 1930s introduced higher design standards and speeds, road
planners and road-builders in the United States started developing and
building toll roads to similar high standards. The Pennsylvania Turnpike,
which largely followed the path of a partially-built railroad, was the
first, opening in 1940.
After 1940 with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, toll roads saw a resurgence,
this time to fund limited access highways. In the late 1940s and early
1950s, after World War II interrupted the evolution of the highway, the
US resumed building toll roads. They were to still higher standards and
one road, the New York State Thruway, had standards that became the prototype
for the U.S. Interstate Highway System. Several other major toll-roads
which connected with the Pennsylvania Turnpike were established before
the creation of the Interstate Highway System. These were the Indiana
Toll Road, Ohio Turnpike, and New Jersey Turnpike.
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