Road Facts
How many miles of roadways encircle the Earth?
40 million
What surpassed hunting as the leading direct human cause of vertebrate mortality?
Roadkill
When did Mesopotamian builders lay mud-brick paths?
4000 B.C.
Who invented the term “road ecology”?
Richard Forman
On Christmas Island, which animal uses steel spans to cross roads?
Red crabs
How much infrastructure is there per human?
3,000 tons
By 2017, by how much had the road toll for land-dwelling mammals increased?
Quadrupled
What Roman road caused algal blooms in Lago di Monterosi?
Via Cassia
At which University was Foreman at when he invented the term "Road Ecology" ?
Harvard
In Kenya, which animal crosses under highways via passages as tall as two-story houses?
Elephants
Roads predate which invention?
The wheel
What invasive fungus attacks cedar trees and spreads via truck tires?
Phytophthora lateralis
When was the Via Cassia completed?
100 B.C
What did an engineer ask Foreman?
"You’re not here to make us stop running over animals, are you?”
How much money did the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocate for new wildlife crossings?
350 million
Who wrote, “Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car”?
E.B. White
The little red fire ant spread through which country faster because of roads?
Gabon
What major 20th-century cultural figure described roads as “two lanes [that] take us anywhere”?
Bruce Springsteen
Who described a “concrete wave” of future roads as an “infrastructure tsunami”?
William Laurance
How much was allocated to repair road culverts that block migratory fish?
1 Billion
How long is the world’s longest road network, located in the U.S.?
4 million miles
What percent of the U.S. land does the “road-effect zone” cover?
20%
What year did Richard Forman first notice a road in a satellite photo of a forest?
1993
Which decade saw road ecology gain steam and become mainstream?
1990s
Name one animal that benefits from roads via scavenging roadkill.
Vultures