the Alaska Highway, such a big accomplishment for it's time, was the subject of a lot of publicity, like this (just soak up the retro ambience of this video style!)

 

the video really gets into gear at the 3 minute mark 

stats and info on road conditions in the USA

 

when money is given at the federal level, oftentimes there are regulations on where that money can be placed, and states must invest those funds in areas that will allow them to maximize their use so no federal money is "left on the table." Rural roads often do not see federal revenue, and therefore, their conditions are left poor and their safety standards are not at the same level our interstates are in as well.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/us-rough-roads-data-investigation/64989688

Detroit's M-10 , the Lodge Freeway won't get a speed limit increase, regardless of the far improved abilities of cars now vs when that freeway was made, and everything had drum brakes, and lousy suspension, and bias ply tires. Not that the morons in the Michigan Department of Transportation realize these facts

The speed limit on the 70 year old M10 is officially 55 mph, and will never change, despite everyone speeding much faster than that, and why? The reason is geometry, according to the Michigan Department of Transportation traffic and safety engineer Josh Carey, he says it's not geometrically fit for a higher speed limit. "The curves, sight distance, shoulder widths and acceleration areas on the ramps all do not meet a 70 mph design speed," 

Carey is likely 41 years old, to young to have any first hand knowledge of bias ply tires, cars without disc brakes and airbags. 

Do those practical upgrades even register on the young engineers who are looking for a lifetime career of not rocking the boat at their hard to come by govt job in Detroit? Probably not. 

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2025/06/03/lodge-freeway-detroit-m10-speed-limit/83882183007/

https://www.facebook.com/aaroads/posts/john-lodge-freeway-now-part-of-m-10-circa-1962-in-detroit-michigan/10156655383417948/

Pacific Portland Cement No. 301 was made from a McKeen

 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1109475677893381&set=pcb.1109478661226416

Interesting in addition to the Mckeen, is the Portland cement, I was just discussing that with someone last week. 

When quantities of Portland cement were first imported to the United States in the 1880s, its principal use was in the construction of sidewalks. Its name is derived from its similarity to Portland stone which was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. 

It was named by Joseph Aspdin who obtained a patent for it in 1824. 

 Portland cement is one of the lowest-cost materials widely used over the last century. 

Concrete produced from Portland cement is one of the world's most versatile construction materials.

Portland cement had been imported into the United States, but in the 1870s, was being produced near Kalamazoo, Michigan until the need for importing it disappeared and now it's made domestically

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-lunar-rover-at-moons-south-pole.html

When quantities of Portland cement were first imported to the United States in the 1880s, its principal use was in the construction of sidewalks. Its name is derived from its similarity to Portland stone which was quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. It was named by Joseph Aspdin who obtained a patent for it in 1824.

Sidewalks often were made in Ohio as a result of the urban postmasters insisting that before they would deliver mail for free in a city the city had to put in sidewalks.

Before agreeing to establish free city delivery, postmasters could ask that the city's sidewalks be paved, the streets lit, the houses numbered, and that street names be placed at intersections.

Rural postmasters would later demand that roads be easy to travel and free of obstructions before service could begin.

The founding fathers of the United States believed the delivery of mail to be so essential to a healthy democracy that the establishment of Postal Offices and Post Roads was enshrined it in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution

https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/07/sidewalks-reduce-traffic-crashes-by-74.html

so there you are, why Portland cement is important, because of postal delivery, and the side effect is that traffic crashes decreased by 74 percent, and postal delivery was the root cause of it all, because communication over long distances with friends and relatives is crucial to human mental health. 

Yes, I often feel like I'm doing a similar journalistic thing to "Connections" by James Burke, a fantastic show for history and trivia fans

Vermont's Lt Governor wants to claim the dirt road in front of his house as his own private driveway... it's been public right of way, for 2 centuries

the Lt Gov isn’t even the only one with property there—there are eight other houses on Rodgers Road, according to a local newspaper. “James and Hella Coe own property on the class four section of the road and don’t want to lose access,” writes The Newport Daily Express.

the town had another selectboard meeting in which “almost 20 neighbors who say they need to access that section of the road signed a petition asking the town to maintain control of the road,” according to WCAX, the CBS affiliate

https://www.thedrive.com/news/vermonts-lt-governor-is-trying-to-seize-a-public-road-as-his-own-private-driveway

I'd learned of the Rosetta stone, but only just now heard of the similar tri-lingual Behistun Inscription 100 meters above an ancient road connecting the capitals of Babylonia and Media. It's the worlds first roadside billboard, 2500 years ago.

The Behistun Inscription is a multilingual inscription and large rock relief on a cliff in western Iran, made sometime between 522 BC and 486 BC.

The inscription provides a lengthy sequence of events following the death of Cyrus the Great in which King Darius fought nineteen battles in a period of one year to put down multiple rebellions throughout the Persian Empire.

Darius proclaimed himself victorious in all battles during the period of upheaval, attributing his success to the "grace of Ahura Mazda" his god. The inscription includes three versions of the same text, written in three different cuneiform script languages: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. 

The inscription is to cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs: the document most crucial in the deciphering of a forgotten written language.

Although Darius makes it clear in the work that he wanted people to read his words, and even though he placed them on a well-traveled road between Babylon and Media (two of the major administrative centers of his empire), he placed them so high on the cliff that no one on the road would have been able to read the inscriptions or see the images clearly.

Further, once the relief was carved and the inscriptions complete, he had the ledge the workers had stood on removed so no one could get close enough to deface the work. Removal of the ledge, however, also meant no one could get close enough to read it. 

The roadway inscription has the Old Persian text in five columns; the Elamite text in eight columns, and the Babylonian text.  A copy of the text in Aramaic, written during the reign of Darius II, was found in Egypt.

After the fall of the Persian Empire's Achaemenid Dynasty and its successors, and the lapse of Old Persian cuneiform writing into disuse, the nature of the inscription was forgotten

German surveyor Carsten Niebuhr visited in around 1764 for Frederick V of Denmark, publishing a copy of the inscription in the account of his journeys in 1778. Niebuhr's transcriptions were used by Grotefend and others in their efforts to decipher the Old Persian cuneiform script. Grotefend had deciphered ten of the 37 symbols of Old Persian by 1802, after realizing that unlike the Semitic cuneiform scripts, Old Persian text is alphabetic

https://www.worldhistory.org/image/8764/the-behistun-inscription
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription

Of course, there's a more enjoyable way to learn about this, it's reading pages 115 to 126 of Hendrik Van Loon's book Ancient Man, The Beginning of Civilizations. Written in 1920. 

Van Loon is one of my favorite authors, and he illustrated his own books beautifully, and did an amazing trick of making what he wrote, easy to enjoy. I just learned more about Egyptians, Sumerians, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, and how writing was invented and how to read some of the hieroglyphics and cuneiform than I would have imagined possible in a single 200 page book. 

the genius of Roman roads, engineering brilliance, their strategically and economically significant, with an enduring impact they continue to have on modern infrastructure. One of history’s most comprehensive and enduring road networks

The layered construction, military utility, and cultural influence, make them studied and revered today

https://www.worldatlas.com/ancient-world/the-genius-of-roman-roads.html

scoria bricks, a material they made roads with, in York England, that I've never heard of until now! They weren't a success because they were found to wear unevenly and become slippery in wet conditions

In the mid-19th century, Teesside ironmasters faced the challenge of disposing of molten slag waste from blast furnaces, and used an ingenious method invented by Joseph Woodward in 1869 to transform this waste into durable, silvery-blue bricks.

Producing one ton of iron produced one ton of slag. As the furnaces of Cleveland, Hartlepool and Consett were producing 2.5 million tons of pig iron a year towards the end of the 19th Century, there was an awful lot of slag turning up everywhere..

At first, it was tipped onto the boggy marshlands around Middlesbrough to raise them up. When these were filled, the ironmasters then ended up paying the Tees Conservancy Commissioners 4d a ton in old money to take the slag away. The Conservancy Commission used it to good purpose, with over 20 miles of riverside walls and the North and South Gares built up on slag, a base still there to this very day.

But not only was this product a waste – it was a waste of money as well . The ironmasters did not want to pay to have their rubbish removed. They wanted to profit from it, to really show that where’s muck, there’s money.

 At its peak the company was taking 30% of the slag from the South-Tees works.

  These bricks became popular for paving roads and alleyways due to their strength and resistance to water and frost.

The bricks were also exported around the world and can be found in Canada, West Indies, Netherlands, Belgium, United States, India and South America

Millions of tons of pig iron were being produced in Cleveland in the North East of England at the time, generating much slag waste, a real problem for the ironmasters, as it was expensive to remove.

Scoria bricks were a kind of basalt, an igneous rock, very hard to break, very durable, completely waterproof, frost-proof and indeed chemical-proof, Eventually however the motor car destroyed the business, when it replaced metal-rimmed carriages, as people wanted a smoother ride, and tarmac started to follow in the 1930s. Steel and iron making ran down and by 1966 the Company went bankrupt

 York has around 16 miles of back lanes, a third of which use scoria bricks.

In 1912, 62,881 tons of scoria bricks were exported from wharves along the Tees. Thirty-seven per cent of these went to Canada, and 36 per cent to the West Indies. Smaller quantities went to Holland (Rotterdam was an early customer), Belgium, the US, South America and Africa. There are lots of them in fact in Dublin and other Irish towns. As the average scoria brick weighs 13lbs, this means that in 1912 alone, nearly 11 million bricks were exported.

https://www.clementshallhistorygroup.org.uk/blog/the-story-of-the-scoria-brick-a-recycling-success/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoria_brick

https://northeastbylines.co.uk/region/north-east/scoria-bricks-history-at-our-feet/

an unusual roadside attraction near the west side of Torch Lake, the Hugh J, Gray Cairn which is located near Kewadin, Michigan, 1/2 way between the North Pole and the equator. Very rare is the man who has seen a monument dedicated to his accomplishments in his lifetime

the cairn was officially dedicated on June 28, 1938, constructed of 83 stones, one furnished by each county in Michigan and inscribed with the donating county’s name. 

The exception was Wexford County’s “stone,” which was actually a two-foot-square piece of rubber manufactured at a tire plant with the county’s name engraved on an attached steel plate, because of Cadillac Michigan's fundamental connection with the rubber and automobile industry

The stones were transported free of charge to the site by the Père Marquette and Pennsylvania railroads. Masons from Antrim County and workers from the Michigan Highway Department constructed the cairn.

The monument is 12 feet square at the base and 16 feet high. 

On the cairn is a bronze plaque bearing the likeness of Mr. Gray with the inscription “Hugh J. Gray – Dean of Michigan’s Tourist Activity.” Inside the monument is a sealed crypt holding resort booklets and brochures from every section of the state and various Michigan newspapers carrying stories of the dedication and articles of Mr. Gray’s promotional efforts. 

Gray recognized the need for a skilled workforce to support the growing tourism industry. He developed hotel management courses at Michigan State College (now Michigan State University) 

Classes gave “scientific sales instruction” to persons interested in answering inquiries of tourists, motorists or other travelers. Class attendees included people from hotels, restaurants, gas stations, taxicab companies, railroad companies and bus lines.

Under Hugh Gray’s guidance and thanks to his untiring enthusiasm, the West Michigan tourist industry grew bit by bit, then by leaps and bounds, becoming the second largest industry in the state, bringing in $315 million in 1937, outranking even California in the tourism industry.

the West Michigan Tourist Association. secured the services of Hugh Gray, who was given the title of secretary/manager and paid a salary of $300 per month plus expenses. Responsible for recruiting new members, creating advertisements and promotions, and the day-to-day running of the organization, the secretary/manager was the person who really ran the show. 

With an established career and a quarter-century of experience in railroading behind him, Hugh Gray was the right man for the job. He energetically coordinated the efforts of business leaders, transportation companies, hotels and resorts, in order not only to attract visitors to Michigan, but also to make their stays enjoyable. 

Born in 1868 in Lakeville, Michigan, Gray was obliged to become a breadwinner at the age of 13 when his father died. At 17 he came to Grand Rapids to take a job as a car sealer for the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway. Steady advancement carried him five years later to a position as a rate clerk in the passenger department of the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad. 

Gray often commented that this job placing him in charge of promotional booklets and advertising, many of which were designed to lure travelers to western Michigan, actually started him on his career in the tourist business. 

During his tenure as a Père Marquette Railroad agent, Gray was appointed to the executive board of the Western Michigan Development Bureau.

After Gray cast his lot with the newly formed Michigan Tourist and Resort Association, he  bought his first automobile, a Velie, and started driving all over the sand trails of western Michigan, interviewing businessmen and enlisting members. 

During his first year with the MTRA, he put 8,000 hard, dusty miles on his car and raised about $4,000 for advertising and promotion. 

Appeals were made to resort owners, hotel operators, garage managers, wholesalers, retailers, public utilities, chambers of commerce and civic organizations throughout western Michigan to become members of the new organization. 

Gray created a “scientific publicity campaign” with advertisements in 90 midwestern and southern newspapers. Concentrated on an area that encompassed Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Kansas City, Omaha and Chicago, the advertisements paid off royally, attracting an estimated 80 to 90 percent of all vacationers to Michigan in the association’s early years.

The MTRA later advertised in national magazines such as Colliers, the Saturday Evening Post and Life. 

Gray also arranged for the state highway commission to furnish the association with weekly bulletins regarding road conditions, detours and other travel information to be passed on to its members and inquiring travelers. He urged the state health department to have its traveling laboratories monitor sanitary conditions, clean water, good milk and food at hotels, resorts, restaurants and public bathing beaches.

Much of Gray’s successful boosterism had ripple effects. In the 1920s and 1930s many lakeshore counties saw their resort properties double thanks to the construction of family cottages and resort facilities. Almost every county in West Michigan saw an increase in its property tax revenues from vacation homes. Retail sales soared during the summer months, bringing a new prosperity to many small towns whose merchants were only too happy to supply the vacation essentials such as fishing tackle, bathing suits, cameras and compasses, which, according to a 1927 survey, many forgetful tourists were apt to leave at home.

Gray and the association played a leading part in the promotion and development of the state park system. He anticipated the motor-camping craze of the 1920s and recommended that the state parks provide camping facilities for the convenience of motorists. He encouraged the state park system to supply maps indicating available facilities for campers, including amenities such as fresh water, firewood and comfort stations.

https://www.wmta.org/about-wmta/wmtas-history/

The cairn is located at approximately the 45th parallel.

 The cairn was a major roadside attraction in its first years, but its popularity faded after 1955 when US-31 was routed more directly north out of Elk Rapids. The old US-31 was renamed the Cairn Highway in honor of the monument. 

South of the monument, you may encounter a few signs of the "Polar Equator Trail", a loose confederation of roads which follow the 45th Parallel across Michigan for over 140 miles from Kewadin to Alpena.

 In the early 1970s, a group of wealthy Michigan outdoorsmen and big game hunters plotted a route across the state to promote tourism and interest in outdoor opportunities along the 45th Parallel.

The Michigan Polar-Equator club formed sometime in 1965, with archery legend Fred Bear among the founders. 

the above, is Fred Bear, who bought this 1915 Indian motorcycle when he was 17, for 35 dollars raised by selling furs. Bear is known as the "Father of Bowhunting" and is considered one of the greatest bowhunters of all time, he founded the Bear Archery company. Nugent wrote a song about him.

At the age of 29, Bear embarked on his first hunt, igniting a passion for bowhunting that would later define his legacy. In 1933, this passion led him to start his own company where he created revolutionary products - his most famous being the first fiberglass take-down bow - that pioneered the way for modern bowhunting.

At the time it was mostly a social club for world trophy hunters. As time passed, the club settled on an objective to “establish and maintain a trail across the State of Michigan as close to the 45th parallel as possible.”

 Over the next decade the club erected 200 trail markers and successfully lobbied the state legislature to declare the trail a significant tourist attraction.

They placed bluebird houses on the trail also, and on many of the mile marker signs. This is a project supported by the MP-EC to help promote preservation of the "Trail signs." The MP-EC Trail mile marker signs and Bluebird houses have been installed and maintained exclusively through the financial and volunteer efforts of the members of the Michigan Polar-Equator Club.

Other members of the 45th club -- Minneapolis, Yellowstone National Park in Montana, Hokkaido, Japan

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10212457401787067&set=gm.1697360214177230&idorvanity=157059191540681

https://www.michigan.org/property/hugh-j-gray-cairn

https://www.wurlington-bros.com/Museum/45th/Cairn.html

https://michiganhighways.org/other/polar.html

https://wandermichigan.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/a-fine-and-pointless-trail/

https://45thlife.com/blogs/news/polar-equator-trail

https://myqualityday.blogspot.com/2023/07/polar-equator-trail-thoughts.html

the scenic route around Vancouver Island, Malahat Road, was completed around 1912, was paved in 1921, and evolved from a cattle trail to wagon road to major artery

 

guard rails weren't particularly needed, as vehicles didn't move very fast, but when they were installed, were very fundamental

https://automotiveamerican.com/2024/11/22/the-malahat-road-1912-a-documentary

https://www.papertownstation.com/post/1908-malahat-highway-the-first-stake

https://www.vancouverislandfreedaily.com/community/throwback-thursday-110-years-since-crews-paved-the-malahat-7218925

https://www.facebook.com/groups/723488534450977/posts/3057336431066164/

read all about it at  https://www.maureenduffus.com/history/malahat-drive.php

the fundamental of building a road with a specific grade/angle, is really simple, and can be done with a bubble level, and a simple wedge that is cut to the angle/degree you want your road to be, and Marty demonstrates!

 

I get a kick out of simple engineering, as, in my opinion, REAL engineering can be accomplished using the original simple fundamentals of levels, wedges levers, etc. 

Plus, I love the surveying stuff

During excavations along Old Kent Road in London, archaeologists found a Roman road

Wating Street was built closely following the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, according to a Wednesday press release from the London Borough of Southwark.

Prior to this discovery, there was very little evidence to support the exact route of the ancient Roman road.

"The discovery of an intact section of Roman Wating Street directly under the current Old Kent Road has redrawn the Roman road map for Southwark and informs on Roman construction techniques generally.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/2000-year-old-roman-road-discovered-archaeologists-london

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14095961/britain-roman-roads-london-discovery.html

Travelers won’t be able to take the scenic, oceanfront stretch of Highway 1 from Cambria all the way to Big Sur anytime this year, Caltrans announced, but there is a detour around

For now, the only “direct” route to the Monterey Peninsula from San Luis Obispo County is to go up Highway 101 and over to the coast on Highway 68, a 2.5-hour trip.

The location has been blocked to traffic since February, when a landslide dumped about 300,000 cubic yards of rock and dirt over the highway.

More than a month ago, Caltrans halted excavation work at Regent’s Slide, after workers noticed surface cracking about 450 feet above the roadway, and until they deal with that, the road is closed

The new cracks were “in the slope where major excavation efforts were underway. In the weeks since that update, continued land movement and slope cracking were observed during intensive project monitoring and investigation,” according to a Caltrans news release about the “challenging repairs.” “Before excavation work begins again, crews need to monitor both the new slide and the area of undisturbed land above the project site, where the start of new excavation work is planned,” the release said. “Data from these investigations will inform the repair design.” The release continued: “Major excavation work and repairs will resume when crews and equipment can be positioned on stable ground above and behind the new slide activity.”

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article292978574.html

U.S. 6, from Provincetown on Cape Cod, went to Long Beach California from 1936 to 1964, and at that time was the longest highway under one designation in America

At 3,199 mi currently, as it's been modified several times. 

It was constructed in 1926

In 1964, the state of California renumbered its highways, and most of the route within California was transferred to other highways. This dropped the highway's length below that of US 20, making it the second-longest U.S. Route in the country. However, since US 20 has a discontinuity through Yellowstone National Park, US 6 remains the longest continuous U.S. Route in the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6 

https://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2024/09/a-naturalist-buys-old-farm.html

California Department of Transportation crews continue emergency repairs on the slip-out near the Rocky Creek Bridge, the ETA for reopening is in the summer of 2025.

https://www.ksbw.com/article/caltrans-crews-to-conduct-daytime-emergency-repairs-on-highway-1-near-the-rocky-creek-bridge/62096674

a map of the least travelled roads, in each state (the lowest annual average daily traffic) the red stars are considered the most scenic

the list of the 5 roads with the least amount of traffic is no surprise:

#5. South Dakota. State Route 73 (255 miles, from Lemmon, on the North Dakota state line, to Martin, on the Nebraska state line). AADT: 556.

#4. Nevada. State Route 360 (23 miles, from Dyer to Mina). AADT: 517.

#3. Montana. State Route 19 (21 miles, from Grass Range to Roy). AADT: 489.

#2. North Dakota. State Route 24 (211 miles, from Fort Yates to Solen). AADT: 242.

#1. Alaska. State Route 11 (414 miles, from Fairbanks to Deadhorse). AADT: 196.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/least-traffic-roads-usa

Suicide Point, on the way to Spiti valley, Himachal, India

 https://www.tumblr.com/armengoldira/750471371409244160?source=share

Beginning as early as 600 B.C., the ancient Greeks created an ambitious road partially paved with stone, that spanned across the entire Isthmus of Corinth to haul boats or cargo from one port to the other, to avoid a 220 mile voyage over water

The Diolkos varied from 15 to 20 feet wide and was paved with porous limestone. Some stone blocks were taken from abandoned monuments and archaic Greek letters were still visible. The Diolkos stretched for about 5 miles because it was built around the landscape to ensure a consistently mild inclination of less than 1.5 percent. No trace remains of the eastern portion and the exact terminus is unknown.

https://www.history.com/news/ancient-railway-greece-diolkos

https://arkeonews.net/ancient-greeks-built-a-road-to-haul-cargo-overland-the-father-of-the-railway-diolkos/

Snake Road exit Off Alligator Alley (I-75) is shaped that way to make the drivers more alert, less bored with a long straight uninteresting road.

Florida does have some boring roads... flat, uniteresting views out the side windows... I was stationed in Orlando for a year. When you're not in the cities, the view is very boring

https://seminoletribune.org/big-cypress-celebrates-snake-road-groundbreaking

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159245731351511&set=gm.2505819879623116&idorvanity=361381807400278

A 4,573-year-old neolithic wooden peat road in the Netherlands, excavated in the 1980s. The peat road was at least 800 metres long, and its construction has been precisely dated to the year 2,549 BC thanks to dendrochronology or tree-ring dating

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=779461014216093&set=a.554138156748381