A month or so ago I read an article, either on the NPR or the NYT website, that quoted a statistic that 95% of the Contiguous United States was within one kilometer of a road.
Think about it, just about anywhere you go in the Contiguous US, you are within 2/3rds of a mile of a road of some sort. This has huge implications. Of course roads cut up the land into discrete areas, isolating habitats from each other. But there's more to it than that. Chances are pretty good that, if you are within a kilometer of a road, you can hear an internal combustion engine. That sort of noise pollution negatively affects wildlife, and even plants! The same story mentioned how some plants thrive near noise, whereas others fail.
I mentioned this to a friend, and was dismissed. "How is that a bad thing?" they wondered.
I got to thinking: why do I think that's an awful thing? It is far more than just the effect on the environment, though that is bad enough. More, I find it aesthetically displeasing. I don't like the idea of always being within easy reach of a road. I plan my long runs to get as far as possible away from people and roads. I go backpacking and canoe camping precisely to get away from roads and everything that goes with them. And I want others to have that opportunity.
I started poking around on Google, and found this map.
It is a map of the average distance to a road, in kilometers, with a resolution of 1 square kilometer. My first thought when I saw this was how frightening it is just how much of our country is paved or at least graded. In fact, I read another article on the BBC the other day about parking. Apparently, if all the parking lots in the US were in one area, it would cover most of Jamaica. I find that sad and utterly unnecessary, since the vast majority of parking lots sit empty most of the time. They are, in fact, required to be built so that, if everybody who can legally be in a building at once drove their own car, they could each park in their own space.
In an interesting coincidence, I also came across this article in the Boulder Daily Camera today, about how Colorado is making its own laws regarding road extension in the state. I will write more about that later, when I have a chance to think on it more.
Before I get too preachy, let me get off my soap box. Looking at the road map a little closer, I noticed a distinct pattern: every place I have lived for any length of time (Northern Minnesota, Maine, Colorado) has significant tracts of green in the map, indicating areas 20km or more from a road.
The basic lesson I learn from this is that I do, even unconsciously, gravitate towards natural areas where I can "get away from it all." It has been a subconscious decision up until now, but I will certainly keep it in mind from here on out.
I want to try something different today. I see it regularly on irunfar.com , and it seems to work for Bryon (though he has a much larger following than me, for good reason). I am issuing a call for comments:
What do you think about the ever-present nature of roads in the US?
How do you "get away from it all?'
How do you think we can tackle this issue?
1 comment:
I certainly noticed the difference between living in Minnesota and Ohio... There are lots of hiking trails in Ohio, but you always end up near a road again and it always annoyed me. I would tell my friends that Ohio had "nature light" because you couldn't really get lost anywhere. I guess I did not realize that "nature light" is so prolific and Minnesota was so special. Makes me very glad I moved back.
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