The Truth about Paved Roads

The truth about paved roads is the following: It was all our idea. And by “our” I mean the bicyclists. It’s a well-known undisputed fact of history that cyclists lobbied for paved roads long before the car was king. Not only that, it was a bicyclist who invented the pneumatic tire. Far from feeling sanctimonious about sharing the road with us, car drivers should be grateful we are willing to share the road with them – because a lot of us, such as myself, are actually not very willing at all.

Cars can get by on unpaved roads, but cyclists can’t. Why not save money by paving a network of biking roads and having the cars use a separate network of cheaper, unpaved roads? Cars and other heavy vehicles are what make road maintenance so expensive. If only bikes used them, the maintenance costs would be a fraction of what they are now.