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Roadway Horizontal Alignments

Gregory J. Taylor, P.E.


Course Outline

This course focuses on the geometric design of horizontal alignments for modern roads and highways. Its contents are intended to serve as guidance and not as an absolute standard or rule. Upon course completion, you should be familiar with the general design of horizontal roadway alignments. The course objective is to give engineers and designers an in-depth look at the principles to be considered when designing horizontal alignments.

Upon course completion, the participant should be familiar with the general design guidelines for roadway horizontal alignments.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

At the conclusion of this course, the participant will understand:

 

Intended Audience

This course is intended for civil engineers and contractors.

Benefit for Attendee

Attendees of this course will be given an in-depth look at design principles to be considered for horizontal roadway alignments.

Course Introduction

Participants will be given an in-depth look at the principles and potential trade-offs to be considered when selecting and designing roadways. By combining this course material with work experience and engineering judgment, the participant may produce plans beneficial to the traveling public.

Course Content

The course content is contained in the following PDF file:

Roadway Horizontal Alignments

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

You may need to download Acrobat Reader to view and print the document.

Course Summary

Along with the roadway cross section (lanes and shoulders, curbs, medians, roadside slopes and ditches, sidewalks) and vertical alignment (grades and vertical curves), the horizontal alignment (tangents and curves) helps provide a three-dimensional roadway model. Its ultimate goal is to provide a safe, smooth-flowing facility that is crash-free.

This course summarizes the geometric design of horizontal alignments for modern roads and highways. This document is intended to serve as guidance and not as an absolute standard or rule. For further information, please refer to AASHTO’s A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets (Green Book). It is considered to be the primary guidance for U.S. roadway design. Section 3.3 – Horizontal Alignment was used exclusively to present fundamental roadway profile geometric design principles.

Related Links and References

The following reference books were used by the author in the preparation of this course:

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials www.transportation.com
Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD)                                   mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

Take a Quiz

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.