Paved roads have long been a signal of rural development, but now as local governments look to cut costs some are letting asphalt go in favor of unpaved roads. "Paved roads ... are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue," Lauren Etter of The Wall Street Journal reports. "State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls." At least 28 of Michigan's 83 counties have converted some asphalt roads to gravel in recent years, and South Dakota turned at least 100 miles of asphalt into gravel last year.
"Counties in Alabama and Pennsylvania have begun downgrading asphalt roads to cheaper chip-and-seal road, also known as 'poor man's pavement,'" Etter writes. (It's also called "cold mix.") "Some counties in Ohio are simply letting roads erode to gravel." While the jarring road conditions and dust that come with gravel roads have angered some locals, raising taxes for road maintenance is equally unpopular. The price of asphalt has more than doubled in the last 10 years. "Gravel becomes a cheaper option once an asphalt road has been neglected for so long that major rehabilitation is necessary," Etter writes.
"A lot of these roads have just deteriorated to the point that they have no other choice than to turn them back to gravel," Larry Galehouse, director of the National Center for Pavement Preservation at Michigan State University, told Etter. Still, "we're leaving an awful legacy for future generations." However Purdue University's John Habermann, who organized a recent seminar about the resurgence of gravel roads titled "Back to the Stone Age," noted that a gravel road "is not a free road," because of the costs of frequent grading and smoothly needed to maintain them. (Read more)
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