Showing posts with label Road Construction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Road Construction. Show all posts
The Past and Present Situation in Urban Transportation Engineering
The Past and Present Situation in Urban Transportation Engineering Congestion has been cited as evidence that all is not well with our urban areas. But congestion is not a new phenomenon. For example, some historians have attributed the decline of Rome to it. In 1635 the high cost of living in London was attributed to extreme congestion and the costly delays in bringing in hay and provender; and even the London fire of 1666 did not improve the situation since reconstruction kept the old antiquated street layouts. Successive improvements in transportation engineering means, such as the electric street car followed by the automobile and motor bus, and now freeways and sophisticated traffic control schemes, have done little to alleviate the problem. Today, all large cities in both the developed and developing nations still have congestion problems, at least at morning and evening peak hours. But there may be at least one important difference from the past in the developed nations. In earlier years there was "poverty and congestion"; today there is, to a degree, "affluence and congestion," complicated by energy considerations. It follows that resources probably can be made available to apply corrective measures, but effective stratagems are yet to be proved and the political means to carry them out are only now evolving. And it may be that eliminating all congestion is impossible, since it seems to accompany healthy economic activity.
Today many planners, politicians, and others attribute urban congestion and other ills of our cities to the private automobile and the construction of highways to serve them. Underlying this has been prosperity. After World War II, greater affluence made automobile and home ownership feasible for most of the population and brought the flight away from deteriorating close-in areas to the suburbs with their dispersed living and low-density land use. Then, to serve these suburbs, private investors brought shopping and other services and public agencies provided highways transportation which made motor vehicle travel easy both downtown and around the circumference. In addition, newly developing light industry located in the suburbs, and many existing firms found it advantageous to leave the downtown areas.10 The incentives in each case were cheaper land with easy, quick access and space for parking, a favorable tax situation, and attractive suburban driving which made a supply of skilled labor available. For such reasons as these, many urban areas are almost completely oriented to the automobile. This is dramatically demonstrated by the statistic that, nationwide in 1976, private expenditures for transportation engineering went 97% to the private auto, 2% to transit (not including its roughly equal public subsidy), and 1% to taxicabs.
Transportation Engineering Spproach To Public Transportation
An
alternative or complementary approach to public transportation hearings is to involve the
public from the time that planning begins. This approach, briefly summarized,
is as follows:
1. Seeking
out and soliciting the cooperation of public officials, influential
individuals, and business, residential, or conservation groups or organizations
that can speak for
the
community. Often a special staff is created to coordinate or carry out this
function. Some agencies maintain continuous liaison with local community
leadership rather than attempting to establish it when a project seems
imminent. Again, surveys to determine community attitudes may be structured to
identify informal as well as formal leaders. This approach is particularly
valuable where the degree of influence of certain vocal individuals is unknown.
2. Creating the opportunities for this community leadership
to participate continuously in planning, beginning at the earliest possible
time.
3. Developing skills to organize and use
constructive and continued participation of and with the public in group
meetings, workshops, hearings, and many other activities
A classic
example of a situation that led to an ongoing organization to promote citizen
and community participation has been in Boston. There, in 1969, a combination
ot neighborhood and environmental groups and advocacy planners challenged the
need or a section of the Interstate through downtown Boston. Based on the
recommendation of a blue-ribbon task force created to make a re studv. the
governor placed a freeze on highway construction inside Route 128, which
circles Boston to the west on roughly a 10-mile radius. This study, w'hich was
set up to be participatory but decisive, multivalued, equitable, and to involve
public participation by formal groups and in workshops, was established in a
state office responsible to the governor. Ten percent of the study tunds w'ere
allocated for community liaison, public participation, and technical assistance
for these functions. The final recommendation and result was not to build the
Interstate route and certain other highways but to expand transit. At the same time of authorized Interstate funds were transferred to the
transit program, as permitted by federal law
History Of Early American Roads
Few roads were built during the early history of the United States since most of the early settlements were located along bays or rivers and transportation was largely by water. Inland settlements were connected with the nearest wharf, but rite connecting road usually was just a clearing through the forest. Before the Revolutionary War, travel was mainly on foot or horseback, and roads were merely trails cleared to greater width. Development was extremely slow for a time after the war's end in 1783. For example, poor roads were the real cause of the Whisky Rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794. The farmers objected to a tax on the whisky that they were making from grain. One historian has recorded that "a pack horse could carry only four bushels of grain over the mountains but in the form of whisky he could carry the product of twenty-four bushels.'' Construction of the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike resulted from this incident. It was a toll road 62 mi long, 50 ft between fences, and surfaced to a width of 21 ft with hand-broken stone and gravel.
Between 1795 and 1830 numerous other turnpikes, particularly in the north¬eastern states, were built by companies organized to gain profits through toll collections. Few of them were financially successful. During this period many stagecoach lines and freight-hauling companies were organized.
The "Old National Pike" or "Cumberland Road" from Cumberland, Md., to Wheeling, W. Va., on the Ohio River was one of the few roads financed by the federal government. It was originally toll-free. The Cumberland-Wheeling section was authorized by Congress in 1806 and was completed 10 yr later. It was 20 ft in width, and consisted of a 12-in. bottom and a 6-in. top course of hand- broken stone. Some 20 more years elapsed before the road was completed to St. Louis. During this same period numerous canals were constructed, particu¬larly along the Atlantic Seaboard; but they offered little competition to turnpike development since the terrain of most of the country was unsuited to canal construction.
Historical to Road Construction At Transport Engineering
Whatever their motives may have been, the Romans must be accorded pride of place as pioneers in the art of road construction. Although it would be naïve to compare the roads which they constructed more than 1800 years ago with modern highway, the sheer scale of their operations throughout the whole of Europe seems incredible even by today’s standards. In Britain alone in the space of 150 years they drove some 3000 miles of principal roadways across the country, extending deep into Wales and north as far as Handrian’s Wall. As they advanced through the wet clay lands of western Europe thicknesses were modified to take into account the strength of the foundation. The layout seldom varied; two trenches were dug 5m apart to act as drainage ditches, and the soil between was excavated down to a firm foundation on which a multiplayer granular base was laid using materials locally available. Where feasible, the pavements were surfaced with flat quarried stone to give the appearance familiar to visitors to Pompeii. The Transport engineers responsible for setting out the roads and supervising their construction would have known the elements of soil mechanics and were probably trained in what would now be called a school of military engineering
The Roman roads in Europe were purely military and had no economic function in the lives of the indigeneous population. Life in Europe during much of the first millennium A.D. was lived on a largely parochial basis, consisting of self-supporting enclaves between which there was little peaceful intercourse. Improved agricultural methods slowly changed this situation. The need to barter surplus crops led to the establishment by the 10th century of small market towns surrounded by satellite village communities. This mean that roads were again needed. Within the towns these were financed by levies on the householders, but road users were reluctant to maintain the rural roads, which for centuries remained close to impassable in winter. Transport Engineering knowledge is needed when we construct road pavement
(source : book design and performance of road pavements by david croney, paul croney)
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