ROADS:
At least as far back as 1970, scientific reports were quoted in health media such as Prevention magazine as finding that persons who lived near expressways over which considerable diesel traffic flowed had higher rates of cancer than in any other region.

In October, 1997, more than 30 years after this caution, Japanese scientist Hitomi Suzuki of Kyoto University has confirmed the connection. A chemical found in diesel engine exhaust fumes, 3-nitrobenzanthrone, has been declared the most carcinogenic compound ever found. In tests of a strain of bacteria, it produced more mutations than 1.6 dinitropyrene, the previous most powerful known mutagen. Roads and their traffic do make a difference to your health.

DIRT:
The earliest and still most original and idiosyncratic roads have been dirt roads. Little more than cleared pathways through brush, forest and around lakes and streams --- these roads prevented speeding, were scenic, influenced the environment and the ecology in minimal ways, and presented opportunities for sprains, falls, and broken axles to the novice or the rushing traveler.

With no drainage bed of gravel, dirt paths which run through low areas and are frequently used can become muddy tracks during wetter periods of the year. Ideally, dirt roads are chosen to follow natural openings in the natural landscape while maintaining a high elevation along the tops of hills, gravel and sand drumlins, and rock outcroppings.

WITH INCREASING POPULATION and a desire to travel economically in time between two or more locations, dirt roads present many disadvantages. Their typically winding nature makes them much longer than a more direct route. As their length increases and as a population develops in the region together with property rights and possession, difficulties arise over rights of way and maintenance responsibilities. Their uneven surface makes vehicular and even animal cartage traffic difficult, uncomfortable and dangerous.

PRECIPITATION is a major factor.
Wet periods of the year may see a dirt road impassable while dry periods may result in clouds of dirt and dust which can harbor parasite cells, fungal spores and pollen ... all potentially health endangering. Dirt roads have the least chemical burden on the hypersensitive person yet are only practical for short distances and where use is infrequent.

GRAVEL:
Providing a level surface, stable base, relative dryness and a less winding path, the introduction and use of gravel, crushed gravel and crushed stone enabled road building to become a serious enterprise and a boon for commerce. Even so, gravel roads must be constructed according to purchased or sanctioned rights of way, amount of expected traffic and the cartage weight of commercial vehicles, the original soil composition, presence and location of a water table, requirements for bridging of streams and rivers, and presence of wildlife or cattle.

INADEQUATE ENGINEERING can quickly result in maintenance problems including pot hole depressions in the surface, washouts, washboard rutting, erosion cracks, broken and erupting surfaces, and, collisions with animals. All of these factors present unsafe driving conditions which can result in accidents, injuries and even death. The less carefully planned and constructed the road, the greater will be the maintenance requirement and its potential cost of upkeep. In general, the more frequently the gravel road is used and the heavier the average vehicle using it, the earlier will be the requirement for maintenance.

MAINTENANCE --- its nature, frequency and requirement are the concerns of the health-conscious and hypersensitive person. Gravel roads are known for their dry weather dust production. In residential regions, an oil or calcium spray is often applied to a dust producing road surface. When rain falls too soon after application, the mixture of oil-chemical and dust can form into greasy mud and yield slippery hazardous driving conditions.

GRAVEL ROADS are usually constructed with easements and ditches along each side. The ditches are to carry away any rain or meltsnow runoff so that the road surface and bed remain comparatively free of water accumulation and degradation. The easements or sidings are cleared pieces of land which extend beyond the ditches for as far as the width of either one lane of the road or the full road width. Easements are provided in areas receiving snow so there is somewhere to put the snow cleared off the surface of the road.

SHOULDERS are cleared maintained narrow strips between a finished road surface and its easement. As a safety measure, they provide a cleared area into which vehicles moving out-of-control due to accident, negligence, carelessness, or weather conditions ... can come to rest without fatality. Shoulders are frequently made of fine grain gravel, crushed stone or sand.

EASEMENT surfaces are frequently grass covered to prevent soil erosion and discourage weed growth. Until the 1990s, many of these were well maintained by local governments and the adjacent farmers and residents. Now, few are maintained and many are becoming weed overgrown. Original routine selection of singular grass types, rather than of grass mixtures, and, lack of maintenance --- has resulted in one of two outcomes. Both of these are toxic.

WEED GROWTH is encouraged when inadequate maintenance and poor design of road sidings has occurred. The result is high levels of pollen during the maturing stage of the plants. This abnormal intensity of pollen encourages the triggering of hypersensitive allergic responses in those living near to or passing by on the road.

ROOT-PROPAGATING WEEDS tend to choke off grass from the bottom up. Surfaces may develop which are usually sun-baked dry and sparse of foliage. These are susceptible to erosion which may eventually endanger the road bed and road safety.

SEED-DISPERSING WEEDS often create hardy, dense surface patterns which can delay the natural drying of the soil and the undergrowth. Their density, blossoms, and moisture retention at the surface encourages the presence of and multiplication of insects generally found irritating and unhealthful for humans.
This includes mosquitoes.

ROADS MAINTENANCE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS appear to never develop any well-designed longer-term strategies. Typically, from history, the quality of maintenance is allowed to decline until enough members of the public are annoyed as to lodge a public protest. This do-as-little-as-possible is encouraged by constant changes of political leadership, budgets which are decided by persons not directly responsible for the maintenance, and staffing which focuses more on hourly wage and costs than on departmental responsibility.

Once the stink of conflict and public dissatisfaction is high enough to attract attention from current leadership --- urgent action is dictated. Urgent action, without a plan, is always reactive, short-term, and, tends to concentrate more on use of power than on intelligence. It is frequently excessive and/or irrelevant --- rather than responsive.

WITH POWER AND SANCTION maintenance authorities undertake a quick, easy, and least cost alternative. Herbicides and insecticides are liberally sprayed over the road easements. It is hoped that the herbicides are not washed into any crops or streams nearby and that the insecticide spray is not carried too far and into contact with already stressed or hypersensitive individuals. Hope is not reality.

AN OBVIOUS ALTERNATIVE of regular grass cutting that would have preserved the original grassed surfaces --- is avoided. Instead, a pattern of easement degradation, weed and insect multiplication, followed by chemical toxification --- is growing as the 1990's progress. Decreased road maintenance budgets, lack of landowner participation in road clearance maintenance adjacent to their property, lack of regulations and taxation credits to allow for such participation, increasing public ignorance and their decreased awareness, and the continuing era of quick fixes ... is making residence location near to ANY gravel road or major expressway a toxic experience.

DOUBLE HIGH FLOAT:
In applications where a lightly used roadway with minimal dust and maintenance requirement is desired, a gravel roadbed may be topped with crushed stone, tar applied to it, and, another layer of crushed stone layered on top. With the use of the road, the top layer of crushed stone is gradually pressed into the tar which reduces dusting and provides a compacted smooth surface. This is termed a double high float. This road surface is easier to construct and less costly to use than asphaltic surfaces.

Like most "advanced" road construction designs, it shares the easement problems of the gravel road. Still, it limits dust problems and keeps the presence of volatile and toxic tar esters at a minimum. As a petrochemical, individuals can become hypersensitive to the odor of and gases released by the tar. This is often an ideal application for subdivisions and rural roads connecting farms and other residences rather than major thoroughfares frequented by trucks and mass amounts of commuting and vacationing drivers.

ASPHALT:
Roads receiving continuous commercial and commuter traffic require highly cohesive and durable surfaces if they are going to withstand movement factors of vehicle momentum which include:

• torsional forces caused by bounce reactions to surface irregularities,
• centripetal & centrifugal forces resulting from traveling around bends,
• braking forces incurred during speed reductions & planned or unplanned stops,
• acceleration and traction forces from startups,
• rain and wind targeting associated with vehicular movement.

In addition, the longer-term surface must have the durability to withstand shrinkage and expansion as a result of

1. daily and seasonal climatic changes,
2. solar intensity of infra-red thermal radiation (heat),
3. tire friction heat generation,
4. aging accelerated by ultraviolet radiation intensity,
5. chemical degradation by petrochemical exhaust fumes.

TAR is one of the products of refining volatile crude oil into gasoline, petrochemicals, and hydrocarbon gases. Over a century ago, with increasing amounts of gasoline being produced, a largely useless product --- tar, was in plentiful supply. It was found that mixing it with crushed stone and sand would yield a product which could be poured, molded, and spread --- while hot. When it cooled, its solid yet flexible surface was much more durable than the natural rubber surfaces being considered at the time. This new product, was called "asphalt".

ASPHALT provides durability that greatly improved on gravel and dirt roads. Being a substance which is a solution of materials which have characteristics of both liquids and solids --- asphalt is considered to be a plastic. Long-term characteristics and maintenance factors associated with plastics often result in a short-term immediate low expense and ready availability, --- which develop into an expensive, challenging longer-term reality. Like so much of human history, desperation and greed produced a poorly planned option which brought with it a multitude of new problems.

ASPHALT IS A CONTRADICTION.
It offers improved durability over earlier use materials and it also has the potential to require huge maintenance expenditures, UNLESS, skilled timely quality repairs are effected. When fresh and when hot, asphalt emits petrochemical fumes which can induce nausea, headaches and distraction symptoms in normal persons. These become much less intense and obvious once the pavement cools. Any further heating from the wear factors noted above accelerates the continuing outgasing and degradation of the asphalt.

As the tar converts to hydrocarbon gases, the tar content of the asphalt decreases and the result is a less flexible compound with a greater likelihood of cracking, crumbling, and shrinking. Since the tire paths of vehicles are relatively similar within a driving lane, they are subjected to a disproportionate amount of tire friction generated heat as well as pressure (from the weight/presence - unweight/absence) generated heat.

This heat results in a faster degradation-by-vaporization of these areas and produces an uneven road surface. Eventually, often depending on the quality of the roadbed and of the asphalt application --- the asphalt must be resurfaced with another layer of asphalt. This may require partial or total removal of the earlier layer in order for either a good surface-to-surface bond or a strong base to be attained and retained.

SURFACE CRACKS which are not speedily and effectively repaired in a brittle asphalt surface allow water to penetrate to the sand and gravel base. Water erosion, hastened by vehicle travel "bounce" impacts and water pooling can quickly result in pieces of the asphalt as well as base material being broken apart and washed away. Good repairs require skill and are expensive --- but they may survive for some time. A poor repair can be quickly done and will as quickly be destroyed by fresh traffic or the first rainstorm. The latter have been the rule ... at great repetitive cost to the public.

GOOD ASPHALT REPAIRS require that the damaged area be cleared of all broken and weakened material and that new material be applied. Both the new sand and gravel and the new asphalt must be settled and tamped firmly and compactly into place if they are to remain cohesive and durable. Any muscular self-disciplined person with simple yet appropriate hand tools can accomplish this with a supply of hot asphalt and clean sand and gravel.

Instead, teams of poorly motivated, poorly trained and poorly managed workers throw loose asphalt into the rough depression, crack or hole ... and expect passing car tires to pack it for them. Timeliness and pressure applied per unit of area are always inadequate leaving the cohesion of the new material to the original non-existent and the new material in granular or a low-cohesive state. A new pothole soon develops.

UNPROFESSIONALISM COSTS DRIVERS AND TAXPAYERS in addition to increasing tax expenditures, there becomes a potential for vehicle wheel unbalancing and tie rod wear and breakage --- from shock. These results further lead to increased tire wear and reduced safe handling characteristics. Health damages can be added in the form of mild strains and whiplash injuries (for vehicle passengers) as well as fear-trauma induced anxiety and energy blocks from sudden and severe bumps for drivers.

AN INEXPENSIVE, unattractive, highly effective repair alternative has been suggested to the political infrastructure for at least 30 years ... to no avail. Slag is the refuse which is poured out of industrial smelting furnaces. It is hard (good durability), porous (good drainage), lightweight (easily transportable), irregularly sided (high cohesiveness), and cheap. Once added to a pothole, it is seldom washed out, or, impact dislodged. It does not require tamping, can be applied cold, and integrates well with disturbed road base material.

FREQUENT REPAIRS = frequent presence of fresh hydrocarbon fumes.
A person who is hypersensitive to these fumes may be disabled with symptoms for days following the work of a patch or resurfacing exercise carried out within 1/4 mile or 1/3 kilometer of their residence. Older asphalt not in need of repairs is a plus. New asphalt or frequent repairs can literally be a headache that makes you sick to your stomach --- for months. Choose your location carefully and be aware of the highway developments planned for your area over the next TEN years ... or for however long you don't want to consider moving. Of course, you can also lobby for slag-based repairs.

CONCRETE:
Very expensive and potentially durable road surfaces have been developed from the 1950's onward to consist of concrete. These require a roadbed of up to 6 feet of gravel and crushed stone over virgin clay or rock. This requirement is to prevent the minimal surface bending which can result in cracking and costly repairs. Divisions in the length of the concrete pad, sealed with tar have been used to allow for weather temperature influenced expansion and contraction.

THESE PAD SPACERS were quickly found to form slight depressions which as a car traveled over would provide a small bounce to the motion of the car. Since the separations were an equal distance apart, a vehicle traveling at a constant rate of speed could build up a bouncing momentum to this steady frequency of micro-dips. If the speed of the vehicle was not either slowed considerably or increased considerably, the control of the vehicle could become hazardous. With all of the massive repair costs required by asphaltic highways, further research into concrete roadways continued.

So-called concrete highways are made of a combination of concrete and finely crushed recycled glass reinforced by a thick lattice of rust-proofed steel rod. Chemicals are frequently added to the mixture to enhance its setting properties ... and these provide little environmental or health hazard. Enormously expensive to build, their maintenance promises to be minimal.

Due to cost, their use is typically for high use roadways and it is the traffic which provides the source of toxic hydrocarbon chemicals ... from diesel fumes to nitrous oxides to smog --- which are health endangering. Unless it is abandoned, a concrete highway facilitates the generation of an unhealthy environment --- from the surface up.