expressway orig. U.S.
(ɛkˈsprɛsweɪ)
Also express way.
[f. express a. + way n.1]
A wide road for fast motor-traffic (see quots.); an urban motorway. Also express highway, express road, express route.
| c 1938 L. Mumford Report on Honolulu in City Development (1946) vi. 94 The municipality..withholding assent from ill-advised express highways. 1945 Public Roads XXIV. vi. 178/1 An analysis was made to determine the traffic which would use an expressway in Tulsa, Okla. 1945 Britannica Bk. Year 1944 607/1 A significant event of..1944 was submission of the report of the President's National Interregional Highway committee recommending postwar construction... An important feature of the plan is the construction of express routes through cities. 1952 Newsweek 15 Dec. 84/3 Another ‘solution’ is the expressway—the free, dual-lane, high-speed thoroughfare which either by-passes or cuts through cities. Entrances and exits are at selected places; ramps and overpasses are arranged so that vehicles do not cross in front of each other. 1956 Planning XXII. 178 The average estimated cost for the 213 miles of new expressways (urban motorways)..proposed for the Detroit region..is more than {pstlg}2,500,000 a mile. 1959 Mod. Lang. Notes LXXIV. 364 ‘Express ways’ is the general term including both toll roads and free roads, for cars and trucks. 1961 L. Mumford City in History viii. 215 Just as our expressways are not articulated with the local street system, so the great sewers of Rome were not connected with water-closets above the first floor. 1966 Guardian 23 Dec. 4/5 The Right Bank express road through the city. 1967 Listener 6 July 10/2 Old people's homes, urban expressways, nuclear power stations. |