Federal Highway Administration

With the coming of the bicycle in the 1890s, interest grew regarding the improvement of streets and roads in America. The traditional method of putting the burden on maintaining roads on local landowners was increasingly inadequate. In 1893, the federal Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) was founded; in 1905, it was renamed the Office of Public Roads (OPR) and made a division of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Demands grew for local and state government to take charge. With the coming of the automobile, urgent efforts were made to upgrade and modernize dirt roads designed for horse-drawn wagon traffic. In 1910, the American Association for Highway Improvement was organized. Funding came from automobile registration, and taxes on motor fuels, as well as state aid. By 1914, there were 2.4 million miles of rural dirt rural roads; 100,000 miles had been improved with grading and gravel, and 3,000 miles were given high-quality surfacing. The rapidly increasing speed of automobiles, and especially trucks, made maintenance and repair high-priority items.

In 1915, OPR's name was changed to the Bureau of Public Roads. The following year, federal aid was first made available to improve post roads and promote general commerce: $75 million over five years, issued through the BPR in cooperation with the state highway departments.[2][3]

In 1939, BPR was renamed to the Public Roads Administration (PRA) and shifted to the Federal Works Agency. After the FWA was abolished in 1949, the organization was once again named the Bureau of Public Roads; it was placed under the Department of Commerce.[4]

From 1917 through 1941, 261,000 miles of highways were built with $3.17 billion in federal aid and $2.14 billion in state and local funds.[lower-alpha 1]

The Federal Highway Administration was created on October 15, 1966, along with the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety and the National Highway Safety Bureau (now known as National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), as part of the new U.S. Department of Transportation.[6] The FHWA took over the functions of the Bureau of Public Roads the following year.

Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) is a program supported by the FHWA to collect and analyse road data. The LTPP program was initiated by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Research Council (NRC) in the early 1980s. The FHWA with the cooperation of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) sponsored the program. As a result of this program, the FHWA has collected a huge database of road performance. The FHWA and the ASCE hold an annual contest known as LTPP International Data Analysis Contest, which is based on challenging researchers to answer a question based on the LTPP data.[8]

In 2011, FHWA launched the Every Day Counts (EDC) initiative, intended to find innovative technology and methods to decrease travel time, speed up road projects, reduce costs, increase safety, protect the environment.[9][10][11][12] Five steps were scheduled from 2012 to 2020.[13]

Among the approaches promoted by the EDC effort are: adaptive traffic control to reduce fuel consumption and improve travel time reliability; alternative intersection design; several money savings and anti-corruption steps such as independent reviewing of construction plans before contractors are paid; and time-saving strategies such as rapid bridge replacement.[14]

• D. Grant Mickle October 27, 1961[18] – January 20, 1964
• Lowell K. Bridwell (acting) January 20, 1964 – March 23, 1967[19]
• Ralph Bartelsmeyer August 10, 1970 – January 25, 1974[20]
• Joseph R. Coupal Jr September 30, 1974[21] – 1977[22]
• Karl S. Bowers June 5, 1977[23] – August 3, 1978[24]
• John S. Hassell, Jr. August 31, 1978 – July 11, 1980
• Alinda Burke August 8, 1980[25] – ?
• Lester P. Lamm September 17, 1982 – 1986
• Robert E. Farris August 8, 1986[26] - June 8, 1988
• Eugene R. McCormick June 30, 1989[27] - ?
• Gloria J. Jeff December 19, 1997[28] – January 3, 1999[29]
• Dr Walter Sutton Jr (acting) January 3, 1999[30] – May 3, 2000[31] May 3, 2000 – January 2001
• J. Richard Capka August 5, 2002 – May 31, 2006[32]
• Kerry O'Hare November 10, 2008[30] – January 20, 2009
• Gregory G. Nadeau July 8, 2009 – July 30, 2014
• Brandye Hendrickson July 24, 2017 – October 9, 2019
• Mala Parker October 10, 2019 – January 20, 2021
• Stephanie Pollack January 27, 2021 – February 1, 2023
• Andrew Rogers February 27, 2023 – Current

• Lester P. Lamm, August 8, 1973[30] – ?
• Thomas D. Everett, October 22, 2018 – June 30, 2022[33]
• Mayela Sosa (Acting), June 30, 2022 - October 20, 2022
• Gloria M. Shepherd, October 20, 2022 - Current