Designing the Highway

2-1
Consistency
- Is the most important single rule in highway design.
- Making every element of the roadway conform to the expectations of
every driver.
- Generally, drivers make fewer errors at geometric features that
conform with their expectations.

Drivers expect the highway agency to provide them with:

 Clear information and guidance through a variety of road signs
 Avoiding abrupt changes in the traffic as well as the road standards.

2-2 Definition of terms

AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials)
- In 1994, the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO)
was established as an association of State Territorial and District of
Columbia Highway Department and the Federal Highway
administration.
- AASHO was renamed to AASTHO in 1973 when the Department of
Transportation was integrated into the association giving the officials
of these agency the power to govern its operation.
- Engineering activities were implemented by the standing committee
with the task of preparing specifications, manuals and standards.

 Roads and Highways

 Defined as strips of land that have been cleared and further
improved for the movement of people and goods.
 Roads
 Has somewhat broader application in usage while generally used to
describe a public thoroughfare.
 Also refer to a railway.
 Highways
 This term was first used in England to describe a public road build
by digging ditches on both sides ad heaping up the earth in the
middle creating a way higher than the adjacent land.
 This now connotes, a higher state of development than road
 Expressway
  A divided arterial highway for through traffic with full or partial
control of access and generally with grade separation at major
intersections.
 Freeway
 An expressway with full control of access.
 Control of Access
 Is a condition where the rights of owners or occupants of adjoining
land or other persons access to light, air or view in connection with
a highways is fully or partially controlled by the public authority
 Full Control of Access
 Means that the authority to control access is exercised to give
preference to through traffic by providing access connections to
selected public roads only.
 Partial Control of Access
 Means that the authority to control to access is exercised to give
preference to through traffic to access connections to selected
public roads and there may be some crossings at grade and some
private driveway connections allowed.
 Through Street or Through highway
 Every highway or portion thereof on which vehicular traffic is given
preferential right of way, and at the entrance for which vehicular
traffic from intersecting highways is required by law to yield right
of way to vehicles on such through highway in obedience to either
a stop sign or a yield sign erected thereon.
 Parkway
 An arterial highway for non-commercial traffic, with full or partial
control of access, and usually located within a park or a ribbon or
park-like development
 Arterial Street
 An arterial route that carry traffic to the nearest access points or
through traffic.
 Serve as the most advantageous routes for relatively long distance
route.
 There are existing highways or streets of considerable length along
which cross traffic is regulated by signals or stop signs.
 Considered as a “make do” substitute for controlled access
facilities when traffic volume exceed about 20,000 vehicle per day.

Basic considerations in planning the arterial roadways:

1. Selection of the routes
2. Studies of the traffic volume
3. Origins and destinations
 4. Accident experienced
5. Width should be at least 15 meters
6. Must carry at least one lane of traffic in each directions.
7. Should be atleast one kilometre in length
8. Should skirt neighbourhood areas rather than penetrate them
9. In a grid design system of street, arterials are spaced at about 600
to 900 meters apart
10.Where accident hazard is not a factor, the minimum volume to
justify arterial is 300 vehicles per average hour during the day and
450 vehicles hourly during the peak periods.

The following solutions to be enforced is the arterial capacity to increase

of two way streets:
1. During the peak hours, parking is prohibited on one or both sides
of the street.
2. Parking is prohibited several meters away from each side of the
road intersections or corners
3. Right turn is allowed on red signals any time with care.
4. Left turns are eliminated on congested intersections
5. The direction of traffic is reversed in the center lane to provide
more lanes in the direction of heavier traffic flow.

 Collector Street
 Form a smaller mesh grid pattern which picks up traffic from
service streets and carries it to the arterials.
 Local Roads
 Defined as a street or road primarily for access to residence,
business or other adjoining property.
 Also defined as a road constructed and maintained by the local
government
 Highway Capacity
 Defined as the maximum number of vehicles that are reasonably
expected to pass a given point over a given period of time and is
usually expressed as vehicles per hour.
 One freeway line – can accommodate about 2,000 passenger
cars per hour.
 Two lane road – can carry up to 1000 passenger cars per
hour in each direction.

AADT or ADT (Average Annual Daily Traffic)

 o Traffic flow or volume on a highway as measured by the number of
vehicles passing a partial station during a given interval of time if
the period is less than a year.

2-3 The Design Speed

Design Speed is defined by AASHTO as:

The speed determined for design and correlation of the physical
feature of a highway that influence vehicles operation. It is the maximum speed
that can be maintained over a specified section of the highway when weather
and traffic conditions are so favourable that the design feature of the highway
govern.

The design speed is basically higher than the anticipated average speed.
AASHTO recommend that:
“The design speed be set to the greatest degree possible, to satisfy
the needs of nearly all drivers both today and throughout the road anticipated
life.”

Selection of the proper road design speed is one of the most important
decision because it sets the limits to curvature, sight distance and other
geometric figures.

The AASHTO practice is to classify first the highway as Rural or Urban,

the Freeways, Arterials, Collectors and Local. Rural collectors and local
facilities are classified as either flat, rolling or mountainous.