Highway

A highway is any public road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks: It is not an equivalent term to freeway (motorway), or a translation for autobahn, autoroute, etc.

In North American and Australian English, major roads such as controlled-access highways or arterial roads are often state highways (Canada: provincial highways). Other roads may be designated "county highways" in the US and Ontario. These classifications refer to the level of government (state, provincial, county) that maintains the roadway.

In British English, "highway" is primarily a legal term. Everyday use normally implies roads, while the legal use covers any route or path with a public right of access, including footpaths etc.

The term has led to several related derived terms, including highway system, highway code, highway patrol and highwayman.

The term highway exists in distinction to "waterway".

Overview

Major highways are often named and numbered by the governments that typically develop and maintain them. Australia's Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world at over 14,500 km or 9,000 mi and runs almost the entire way around the continent. China has the world's largest network of highways followed closely by the United States of America. Some highways, like the Pan-American Highway or the European routes, span multiple countries. Some major highway routes include ferry services, such as U.S. Route 10, which crosses Lake Michigan.

400-series highways

The 400-series highways are a network of controlled-access highways throughout the southern portion of the Canadian province of Ontario, forming a special subset of the provincial highway system. They are analogous to the Interstate Highway System in the United States or the Autoroute system of neighbouring Quebec, but under provincial jurisdiction and regulated by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO). Although Ontario had been constructing divided highways for two decades prior to their designation, it wasn't until 1952 when these routes were given 400-series designations. Initially only Highways 400, 401 and 402 were numbered; other designations followed in the subsequent decades.

Modern 400-series highways have high design standards, speed limits of 100 kilometres per hour (60 mph), and various collision avoidance and traffic management systems. 400-series highway design has set the precedent for a number of innovations used throughout North America, including the parclo interchange and a modified Jersey barrier design known as Ontario Tall Wall. As a result, they currently experience the lowest accident and fatality rate comparative to traffic volume in North America.