AM Past Present Future

• Authored by:  Kristine M. Williams

Technological advances – transition from horse drawn carriages and cable cars to bicycles and automobiles. During the 1890s, cyclists and motorists launched a concerted movement for better roads.
Advent of boulevards and speedways in large American cities with wide landscaped medians. direct property access was limited to one or both sides of main roadways and, where provided, was limited to right turns. The Grand Boulevard and Concourse (shown here) designed by Louis Risse, a civil engineer to connect newly acquired parklands in The Bronx. 182 feet wide, express dirt and cinder roadway for horse drawn carriages, and paved service lanes for local traffic one of the nation’s first grade separated highways – Ran along a ridge and land bridges at heights over 100 feet built at major intersections so east-west traffic could pass under the ridge.

One of the first access control statutes was enacted by the state of New Jersey in 1902 – authorized county boards to establish “speedways” for horses and light vehicles and to limit street intersections and crossings. In 1906, the U.S. Supreme Court deemed that states should determine the property rights of access by their own laws, placing access control within the sovereign power of the states.