- •Министерство образования республики беларусь
- •К сборнику прилагается тематический словарь основных понятий, необходимых при работе над переводом текстов.
- •History
- •Driving on the Right or on the Left
- •Construction
- •Maintenance
- •Unit 2 Sweet Track
- •Unit 3 Roman Road
- •Types of Roads
- •Milestones
- •Way Stations
- •Vehicles
- •The itinerary
- •Construction of a Road
- •Financing
- •Unit 4 Roman Roads in Britain
- •Unit 5 Silk Road
- •Origin: Cross-continental Travel
- •Ancient Transport
- •Egyptian Maritime Trade
- •Persian Royal Road
- •Hellenistic Conquests
- •The Roman Empire and Silk
- •Central Asian Commercial & Cultural Exchanges
- •Mongol Era
- •The Great Explorers: Europe Reaching for Asia
- •Unit 6 Royal Road
- •Course of the Royal Road
- •History of the Royal Road
- •Unit 7 Inca Road System
- •Main Routes
- •Inca Rope Bridges
- •Renewing the Last Bridge
- •Unit 8 Types of Road
- •Definition
- •Medium Capacity
- •High Capacity Restricted Access Roads
- •United Kingdom
- •United States Freeways
- •Expressways
- •Unit 9 Highway
- •Nomenclature
- •Social and Environmental Effects
- •Unit 10 Motorway
- •Regulations and Features
- •Common Criteria
- •Speed Limits
- •Lane Usage
- •Junctions
- •Location and Construction
- •Unit 11 Freeway
- •General Characteristics
- •Effects and Controversy
- •History
- •Recent Developments
- •Unit 12 Autobahn
- •Construction
- •History
- •Current Density
- •Speed limits
- •Traffic laws and enforcement
- •Unit 13 Causeway
- •Derivation of the word
- •Engineering
- •Examples of Use
- •Precautions in Use
- •Unit 14 Street
- •Role in the Built Environment
- •Circulation
- •Vehicular Traffic
- •Parking for Vehicles
- •Pedestrian Traffic and Vehicular Amenities
- •Identity
- •Nomenclature
- •Unit 15 Trail
- •Walking Trails
- •Bicycle Trails
- •Equestrian Trails
- •Trail Construction
- •Trails on Slopes
- •Drainage
- •Multi-use Trails
- •The Trackways
- •Settlements
- •Wallingford
- •Brownhills
- •Cadbury Castle and South Cadbury Village
- •Unit 17 Pavement (material)
- •Metalling
- •Asphalt paving
- •Concrete Paving
- •Bituminous Surface Treatment (bst)
- •Other Paving Methods
- •Unit 18 Traffic Sign
- •History
- •Vocabulary
History
A cobblestone Roman road in Pompeii.
The first pathways were the trails made by migrating animals. By about 10,000 BC these rough pathways were used by human hunter nomads following these herds.
Street paving has been found in the first human settlements around 4000 BC in India’s Indus Valley city Harrapa.
The oldest engineered road discovered is the Sweet Track causeway in England, dating from around 3800 BC.
The ancient Egyptians constructed a stone paved road to help move materials for the building of the Great Pyramid in about 3000 BC.
The ancient Chinese constructed an extensive system of roads, some paved, from about 1100 BC onwards. By 20 AD the Chinese road network extended over 40,000 kilometres.
The Incas built fine highways, the Inca road system, for couriers through the Andes, and the Mayans built an extensive network of paved roads in Mexico before the European discovery of the New World.
In ancient times transport by river was far easier and faster than transport by road, especially considering the cost of road construction and the difference in carrying capacity between carts and river barges. A hybrid of road transport and ship transport is the horse-drawn boat in which the horse follows a cleared path along the river bank.
In 500 BC Darius I the Great started an extensive road system for Persia (Iran), including the famous Royal Road which was one of the finest highways of its time. The road was used even after the Roman times. Because of the road’s superior quality, mail couriers could travel 2,699 km in seven days.
From about 300 BC the Roman Empire built straight strong stone Roman roads throughout Europe and North Africa in support of its military campaigns. By the 1st century the Roman Empire was connected by 85,000 kilometers of paved roads.
Road construction and maintenance in Britain was traditionally done on a local parish basis. This resulted in a poor and variable state of roads. To remedy this, the first of the “Turnpike Trusts” was organized in around 1706 to build good roads and collect tolls from passing vehicles. Eventually there were approximately 1,100 Trusts in Britain and some 38,000 km of engineered roads.
Engineered roads in the age of horse-drawn transport aimed for a maximum gradient of 1 in 30 on a macadamized surface, since this was the steepest a horse could exert to pull a load up hill, which it could manage easily on the flat. Notable road engineers from this period are Pierre Marie Jérôme Trésaguet (1716-1796) in France and John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836) in England.
During the industrial revolution the railway developed as a solution to the problem of rutting of the road surface by heavy carts. Instead of trying to build a strong surface across the whole road, the cart was constrained to run either on rails or grooves which could be made of much stronger, wear resistant material.
Today roads are almost exclusively built to enable travel by automobile and other wheeled vehicles. In most countries road transport is the most utilized way to move goods. Also in most developed countries roads are formally divided into lanes to ensure the safe and smooth movement of traffic.