A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or a translation for Autobahn, autostrada, autoroute, etc.
An exit number is a number assigned to a road junction, usually an exit from a freeway. It is usually marked on the same sign as the destinations of the exit. In some countries, such as the United States, it is also marked on a sign in the gore.
The Quebec Autoroute System or le système d'autoroute au Québec is a network of freeways within the province of Quebec, Canada, operating under the same principle of controlled access as the Interstate Highway System in the United States and the 400-series highways in neighbouring Ontario. The Autoroutes are the backbone of Quebec's highway system, spanning almost 2,400 km (1,491 mi). The speed limit on the Autoroutes is generally 100 km/h (62 mph) in rural areas and 70–90 km/h (43–56 mph) in urban areas; most roads are made of asphalt concrete.
A spur route is a short road forming a branch from a longer, more important road such as a freeway, Interstate Highway, or motorway. A bypass or beltway is not considered a spur route as it typically reconnects with another or the same major road.
A dual carriageway (BrE) or a divided highway (AmE) is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation (BrE) or median (AmE). Roads with two or more carriageways which are designed to higher standards with controlled access are generally classed as motorways, freeways, etc., rather than dual carriageways.
A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway, expressway, and partial controlled-access highway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway, including limited or no access to adjacent property, some degree of separation of opposing traffic flow, use of grade separated interchanges to some extent, prohibition of slow modes of transport, such as bicycles, horse-drawn vehicles or ridden horses, or self-propelled agricultural machines; and very few or no intersecting cross-streets or level crossings. The degree of isolation from local traffic allowed varies between countries and regions. The precise definition of these terms varies by jurisdiction.
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms include throughway or thruway and parkway. Some of these may be limited-access highways, although this term can also refer to a class of highways with somewhat less isolation from other traffic.
Asian Highway 1 (AH1) is the longest east-west route of the Asian Highway Network, running 20,557 km (12,774 mi) from Tokyo, Japan via Korea, China, Southeast Asia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Iran to the border between Turkey and Bulgaria west of Istanbul where it joins end-on with European route E80, running all the way to Lisbon, Portugal.
The autostrada A2 in Poland, officially named the Motorway of Freedom, is a motorway which runs from the Polish-German border, through Poznań and Łódź to Warsaw and, in the future, to the Polish-Belarusian border. It is a part of European route E30.
The M4 Motorway is a 55-kilometre (34 mi) series of partially-tolled dual carriageway motorways in Sydney, New South Wales designated as route M4. The M4 designation is part of the wider A4 and M4 route designation, the M4 runs parallel and/or below ground to Great Western Highway, Parramatta Road and City West Link, which are part of route A44.
A toll road is a road over which users may travel over on payment of a toll, or fee. Tolls are a form of use tax that pays for the cost of road construction and maintenance, without raising taxes on non-users. Investor's bonds necessary for the construction of the roads are issued and sold with the expectation that the bonds will be paid back with user tolls. The toll roads may be run by government agencies that have bond issuing authority and/or private companies that sell bonds or have other sources of finance. Toll roads are usually a government guaranteed road monopoly that guarantees limited or no competing roads will be built by government agencies for the duration of the bonds. Private toll roads built with money raised from private investors in expectation of making money from the tolls probably dominated early toll roads. Government sponsored toll roads often guarantee a minimum payment to the bond holders if traffic volume and toll collections are less than predicted. If the toll authority is a private company there is often a maximum amount of fees that they may extract from users. Toll road operators are typically responsible for maintaining the roads. After the bonds are paid off the road typically reverts to the government agency that authorized the road and owns the land it was built on. Like most government taxes it is not unusual for tolls to continue to be charged after the bonds have been paid off.
The Auckland Northern Motorway in the Auckland Region of New Zealand links Central Auckland and Warkworth in the former Rodney District via the Hibiscus Coast and North Shore. It is part of State Highway 1.
This article describes the highway systems available in selected countries.
The Otoyol is the national network of controlled-access highways in Turkey. The term Otoyol translates to motorway while the literal meaning is auto-route. The Otoyol was first opened in 1973.
