Iowa DOT's
policy is to be
sensitive to the environment
and foster and enhance
environmental stewardship.
IOWA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Presents
ROCKS AND ROADS
Unit 3: Why isn't the highway straight?
B. Who
decides where highways are built?
How do they make the decisions?
Highways connect cities to each other, and big cities are usually connected with larger highways. If you look at a map, most highways are built so that they run either north-south or east-west, forming kind of a grid across the country.
Click here to go to
Iowa's 2002 Transportation Map.Teams of people consisting of planners, engineers and elected officials decide where new highways should be, and which highways should be improved (from two lanes to four lanes, for example). These days, there are so many highways already that most new highways are really improvements to existing highways. The improved highways may or may not follow existing alignments. The decision to improve highways depends mostly on how much traffic the existing highway carries.
TO: Unit 3 C. Who takes care of the highways?
