WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
THURSDAY, MARCH 1: ROAD SIGNS
Profile America -- Thursday, March 1st. Many new cars offer navigation systems to help owners reach their destinations -- but most of us still depend on the signs along the highways. We take them for granted, but they weren't always there. By the 1920s, the number of cars was growing rapidly, but driving was often a nightmare. There were no standard signs on the nation's 3 million miles of roads and many had no signs at all. This week in 1925, state and federal officials met to solve the problem. They came up with standard signs and numbers -- in use to this day. Highways running north and south have odd numbers and those going east and west, even numbers. Today, there are nearly 4 million miles of roads in the U.S., about 47,000 of them in the Interstate Highway System. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau on the Web at http://www.census.gov.
Profile America is produced by the Public Information Office of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments ready to air on a monthly CD or on Internet at http://www.census.gov (look under the "Newsroom" button). For further information, contact Rick Reed at +1-301-763-2812, fax at +1-301-457-3670, or e-mail at rreed@census.gov.