This article discusses roads and motorways and their influence on geography and human development.
For most of human history, walking by foot was just about the only means of land transport. This limited the size of cities and goods that could be moved by freight. Roads were formed in and between small scale human settlements and cities.
The domestication of the horse was a critical turning point in the history of human civilisation. Horses are faster than humans and can haul more (it takes approximately ten strong men to do the work of one horse). Roads became important to facilitate the greater movement of horses and people.
It was still expensive to move goods around by horse relative to shipping (most ships were initially powered by wind/sails). Not all could afford horses. Commerce was therefore more localised.
Everything needed to be closer together in a city in time of walking. The population of ancient Rome is estimated to have ranged from below half a million to over one million people. The population density of the city was likely high, with some estimates suggesting a population of one million people in an area of 3.86 square kilometres, which would be a density of 72,150 people per square kilometre. This geographically small city facilitated walking.
Rivers and water were even more important in the location of cities prior to the invention of cars and trucks due to the better energy efficiency of water transport.
The invention of the wheel was also a critical turning point. There were relatively advanced civilisations in the Americas (eg. the Incas and Aztecs) that never mastered the domestication of the horse and the wheel. The wheel went together with the horse in enabling the greater transport of goods and people.
The domestication of the horse advanced civilisation in the areas that adopted it while wreaking havoc on traditional hunter-gatherer subsistence societies that came into contact with horse users. Hunter-gatherers could not compete with those who had access to horses for land and resources.
The invention of the motor car was another critical turning point, occurring centuries after the domestication of the horse. This led to improvements in speed, endurance and exponential improvement in volume of goods that can be hauled.
The use of cars began in the late 19th century when Karl Benz built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, widely considered the first true automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. The widespread use of cars began in the 20th century, largely driven by advancements in mass production and infrastructure development. The introduction of the assembly line by Henry Ford in 1913 significantly reduced the cost of car production, making automobiles affordable to middle-class families. Roads began to be improved and expanded to accommodate motor vehicles during this period, particularly in industrialised nations like Australia.
Cars have some disadvantages to horses in terms of noise and some types of air pollution. They also have many advantages, in that they are much faster, can haul bigger loads and produce less waste on the road surface (manure).
The motor car later led to trucking of goods. This is basically a bigger version of the car, designed to transport goods and not people.
Interestingly, the widespread adoption of the bicycle did not occur significantly earlier than the motor car. Biclcyles become widespread in the late 19th century. In 1885, the invention of the safety bicycle, designed by John Kemp Starley, marked a major turning point. This bicycle featured equal-sized wheels and a chain-driven rear wheel, which made it safer and easier to ride. In 1888, John Boyd Dunlop invented the pneumatic tire, improving comfort and efficiency.
The road can be a dangerous environment for cyclists when they need to share with cars and trucks. This led to a decline in bicycle use in line with the rise of cars in the 20th century industrial nations. Bicycles are an extremely efficient mode of transportation.
Buses are larger version of cars for passengers. They began to replace trams once petroleum products became more available. They are more flexible than trams, although less energy efficient and more noisy. They are generally a less comfortable ride. Buses today far more important than trams. They can share infrastructure with cars, hence lower up-front cost.
Cars and trucks offer flexibility advantages over trains and ships and door to door movement, despite being much less efficient.
Trucks and the roads that transport them are critical to modern civilisation. Many critical goods are hauled long distances, with trucks the main or last mode of transport. Cars are important although less essential.
Motorways are a relatively new invention and came much after roads. They are designed almost purely for cars and not pedestrians. Notionally, they are more efficient as they reduce stops and starts, although far less efficient than railways and shipping. They are an extreme version of roads being about vehicle movement only, not places in their own right.
The car is today the preferred mode of transport in most parts of Australia.
Urban development designed purely around the motor car is arguably the greatest misuse of resources in human history. The amount of energy that goes into moving the actual driver is negligible (less than 1% of the car's energy actually moves the driver) - largely waste heat and moving the vehicle mass itself.
Not everyone can be a motorist eg. children, seniors, persons with a disability. Geographically spacing everything out is the twin of the motor car in human development and global society that burns approximately 100 million barrels of oil per day, a resource that took millions of years to form. Those who think wind and solar energy along can sustain this form of geographical development are delusional at best and ignore the fact that most modern roads are constructed of a petroleum based product. Nevertheless, most people prefer cars for transport.
In many places, pedestrians are now an afterthought to cars. A future article will discuss the street as a place of broader importance than merely the through movement of cars.
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