PURPOSES: The objective of this study is to evaluate construction issues and design for transverse steel in continuously reinforced concrete pavement(CRCP). METHODS : The first continuously reinforced concrete pavement(CRCP) design procedure appeared in the 1972 edition of the "AASHTO Interim Guide for Design of Pavement Structures", which was published in 1981 with Chapter 3 "Guide for the Design of Rigid Pavement" revised. A theory that was accepted at that time for the analysis of steel stress in concrete pavement, called subgrade drag theory(SGDT), was utilized for the design of reinforcement of CRCP - tie bar design and transverse steel design - in the aforementioned AASHTO Interim Guide. However SGDT has severe limitations due to simple assumptions made in the development of the theory. As a result, any design procedures for reinforcement utilizing SGDT may have intrinsic flaws and limitations. In this paper, CRCP design procedure for transverse steel was introduced and the limitations of assumptions for SGDT were evaluated based on various field testing. RESULTS: Various field tests were conducted to evaluate whether the assumptions of SGDT are reasonable or not. Test results show that 1) temperature variations exist along the concrete slab depth, 2) very little stress in transverse steel, and 3) warping and curling in concrete slab from the field test results. As a result, it is clearly revealed out that the assumptions of SGDT are not valid, and transverse steel and tie bar designs should be based on more reasonable theories. CONCLUSIONS : Since longitudinal joint is provided at 4.1-m spacing in Korea, as long as joint saw-cut is made in accordance with specification requirements, the probability of full-depth longitudinal cracking is extremely small. Hence, for transverse steel, the design should be based on the premise that its function is to keep the longitudinal steel at the correct locations. If longitudinal steel can be placed at the correct locations within tolerance limits, transverse steel is no longer needed.