This Guide, "Flexibility in Highway Design," is about designing highways that incorporate community values and are safe, efficient, effective mechanisms for the movement of people and goods. It is written for highway engineers and project managers who want to learn more about the flexibility available to them when designing roads and illustrates successful approaches used in other highway projects. It can also be used by citizens who want to gain a better understanding of the highway design process. Congress, in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991 and the...

State departments of transportation and other bridge owners are faced with significant challenges in addressing the Nation's highway bridge preservation and replacement needs. More than 25 percent of the Nation's 600,000 bridges are rated as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. More than 30 percent of existing bridges have exceeded their 50-year theoretical design life and are in need of various levels of repairs, rehabilitation, or replacement. This issue is exacerbated by increasing travel demands, limited funding, and increasing costs of labor and materials. These circumstances...

The U.S. marine transportation system handles large volumes of domestic and international freight in support of the Nation's economic activities. As a vital part of that system, the Nation's container ports handle cargo and are sources of employment, revenue, and taxes for businesses or communities where they are located. This report provides an overview of the movement of maritime freight handled by the Nation's container ports in 2009 through mid-2010, based on the most current available data through that time period. It summarizes trends in maritime freight movement since 1995, especially...

The 2007 Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) is undertaken through a partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), U.S. Department of Transportation. This survey produces data on the movement of goods in the United States. It provides information on commodities shipped, their value, weight, and mode of transportation, as well as the origin and destination of shipments of commodities from manufacturing, mining, wholesale, and select retail and services establishments....

The 2007 Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) is undertaken through a partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce and the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), U.S. Department of Transportation. This survey produces data on the movement of goods in the United States. It provides information on commodities shipped, their value, weight, and mode of transportation, as well as the origin and destination of shipments of commodities from manufacturing, mining, wholesale, and select retail and services establishments....

Almost any activity that people engage in outside the home - working, managing personal business, socializing - relies on access to transportation of some kind. And many factors, from sidewalk design to the width of the airplane aisles, affect peoples' access to transportation. Years of gathering data and conducting research have focused on identifying the transportation habits and needs of America's general population, but until now, no national data has allowed for analyses of the specific transportation habits and needs of people with disabilities, nor provided for contrasts to the...

Continued growth in travel on congested urban freeway corridors exceeds the ability of agencies to provide sufficient solutions and alternatives based on traditional roadway expansion and improvement projects. Several countries are implementing managed motorway concepts to improve motorway capacity without acquiring more land and building large-scale infrastructure projects. The Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and National Cooperative Highway Research Program sponsored a scanning study of England, Germany, the Netherlands,...

According to new estimated by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics of the US Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration and the Federal Highway Administration, over 19 billion tons of freight, valued at $13 trillion, was carried over 4.4 trillion ton-miles in the US in 2002. This means that on a typical day in the US in 2002, about 53 million tons of goods valued at about $36 billion moved nearly 12 billion ton-miles on the national multimodal transportation network. The new estimates combine data from the Commodity Flow Survey - the most comprehensive...

Trade growth between the United States and China has increased U.S. interest in how the Chinese transportation system handles exports. The Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and National Cooperative Highway Research Program sponsored a scanning study to identify how China provides intermodal access to its ports and uses investment strategies to foster freight mobility and intermodal connectivity. The scan team learned that China's national, provincial, and metropolitan transportation policy is closely coordinated with the...

The nation's interconnected network of highways, railroads, airports, pipelines, and waterways and ports is essential to most economic activity in the nation, enabling access by businesses and households to markets throughout the United States and the world. This report presents major highlights on freight shipments in the United States in 2002, using the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) and other data sources. It also presents snapshots of changes in freight movements in 1993, 1997, and 2002, highlighting major trends during this period. While the report primarily relies on 2002 CFS preliminary...