Highway: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

A highway is a major road within a city, or linking several cities together. It includes roads known as interstate highway, freeway, motorway and autobahn, where a full description varies by country. Generally a highway is a road which will have multiple lanes of traffic in each direction, often with a physical division between the directions of flow, and separate access roads to and from the highway, which will be more widely separated than those on a standard road and will often be grade-separated. A highway will usually prohibit access by pedestrians and may limit what vehicles may travel on it.

Historically, a highway was any major road travelling a long distance outside of a city. Early roads between cities would sometimes suffer from highwaymen who would rob people travelling the route.

In the 20th century, however, the word generally came to be used only for important improved automobile routes. On 10 September, 1913 the first paved coast-to-coast highway opened in the US.

The United States has a vast network of national highways (Interstate highways) linking the different states together, as does Australia. Some highways, like the Pan-American Highway or the European routes, bridge multiple countries. With the latter a single road will have a national designation in addition to the European one.

Probably the most famous highway in the United States is Route 66, as immortalised in the song "(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66", while if one follows Australia's Highway 1 the driver can travel from state capital to state capital, almost the entire way around the whole country.

Highways usually have a higher speed limit than other roads because they have additional lanes and are designed for driving at a higher speed.

Highways in remote areas may have rest areas where motorists may stop and relax before resuming a long drive.

Nomenclature

The terms used for various types of highways such as freeway, expressway, motorway and autobahn, varies between countries or even states within a country. In some country highway is a specific type of major road that is distinct from freeway or expressway.

United States

In the US, the terms expressway and freeway are legally defined by federal regulation and under the laws of most states according to civil engineering usage. However, the distinction between these two terms is not universal, and in several states which built freeways very early on (including Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), the terms expressway and freeway have the same meaning with expressway, an older usage, usually preferred.

In New Jersey and Pennsylvania, newer roads are often officially styled freeways, where older roads retain the title "expressway". In the rest of the country, freeway is the usual term; however, the distinction between freeways and expressways is not always as clear or well-understood as it is in California, which has many of both kinds of highway.

In Florida, however, there is an important distinction between a freeway and an expressway. An expressway is always a limited-access toll road, while a freeway is a free limited-access highway.

In the US, highways are a grade below freeways in importance.

Canada

In Canada, there does not appear to be a national standard for nomenclature, although freeway appears to be winning out except in Ontario where expressway or 400-Series is used, and in Quebec where they are called autoroutes (borrowing the term from French).

Australia and New Zealand

The word freeway is generally used in Australia whereas New Zealand and much of the commonwealth tends to use motorway. The term motorway, in metropolitan Australia is generally reserved for freeways that have been designated a metropolitan route number, and in Sydney, a motorway has a toll, whereas a freeway is free of charge.

United Kingdom and Ireland

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, unless the route is classified as a motorway, the term used may be main road, trunk road, 'A' road/'B' road, or, where appropriate, dual carriageway.

South Africa

Colloquially, the terms "freeway," "highway," and "motorway" are used synonymously. There are very few references to the term "expressway" in South Africa. A freeway, highway or motorway refers to a divided dual carriageway with limited access/egress, with at least two lanes in either direction. A central island, usually either with drainage, foliage or high-impact barriers, provides a visible separation between carriageways in opposite directions. As with the UK and Australia, South Africans drive on the left-hand side of the road and all steering wheels are on the right-hand side of vehicles.

Freeways are designated with one of three labels: N (in reference to national roads), R (short for "route," in reference to provincial roads), and M (in reference to metropolitan roads). This has more to do with the location of a road and its function than anything else. In addition, "N" roads usually run the length of the country over long distances, "R" roads usually inter-connect cities and towns within a province, and "M" roads carry heavy traffic in metropolitan areas. Route markings also determine who paid for the road: "N" was paid for by national government, "R" by provincial government and "M" by local government. In recent years, some "R" roads have been re-designated as "N" roads, so that control and funding comes from the South African National Roads Agency.

Switzerland

The term autobahn is used for normal expressways where there is a central physical structure separating two different directional carriageways. This is often translated into English as motorway.

In express routes where there is no central physical structure separating two different directional carriageways, but crossings are still motorway-like otherwise, and traffic lights are not present, the road is instead called an autostrasse, translated into English as a motorroad. Autostrasse often have a lower speed limit than autobahns.

China

In Mainland China, private companies reimbursed through tolls are the primary means of creating and financing the National Trunk Highway System.

There is actually no separate classification for expressway (which is the term more often used in the PRC). Most likely, they are lumped with first-grade guodaos (meaning National roads). Beneath guodaos in rank level are shengdaos (provincial roads) and xiandaos (pronounced hsien-daos or shien-daos, which equate to county-level roads). Some expressways are numbered with a leading zero (e.g. G030).

Freeway was used on a few expressways (such as the Jingshi Freeway) before expressway was chosen as a standarised term.

The Chinese name for expressways (or freeways, as they used to be called) is uniform; in pinyin, it is gao su gong lu, which literally means "high speed public road".

In the PRC, highway does not refer to a freeway or expressway, but instead to a normal road equivalent to an "A"-level road in Britain, or a class-one non-expressway. This can cause some confusion, though.

Malaysia

The highest level of major roads in Malaysia, expressway, has full access control, grade separated junctions, and mostly tolled. The expressways link the major state capitals in Peninsular Malaysia and major cities in Klang Valley.

Highway is lower level with limited access control, some at-grade junctions or roundabouts, and generally with 2 lanes in each separated direction. These are generally untolled and funded by the federal government, hence the first one is called Federal Highway linking Klang and Kuala Lumpur.

The trunk roads linking major cities and towns in the country are called federal trunk roads, and are generally 2 lanes single carriageway roads, in places with a third climbing lane for slow lorries.

For information on the history and local styles of highways around the world refer to

• Autopista (Spain)
• Autoroute (France)
• Autoroute (Quebec)
• Autobahn (Germany)
• Autostrada (Italy)
• Freeway and Parkway (United States)
• Freeway (Canada)
• Motorway (United Kingdom)
• Motorway (Ireland)
• National Trunk Highway System (Mainland China)

also

• Bypass
• List of roads and highways
• Ring road
• Road safety
• Toll road