I would argue that the well-maintained road is one of the most generalized and accepted facets of modern life. Well, the highway, that is, because roads have existed far before today. For those of us not living in downtown cities or towns, roads enable us to go about our lives without hindrance by distance. It was not that long ago that a trip to grandma’s was an all day affair. Now we buzz around eagerly, not thinking much of the roads we are traveling on, what it took to make them, or even what was there before them.

My dad works for a civil engineering firm that’s main job is designing the many highways and intersections that connect central Pennsylvania. If any of you have ever taken the Turnpike bridge across the Susquehanna river, you’ve benefited from their work. Their newest project involves expanding the Turnpike’s two lanes to three between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The problem is, there’s not always enough room for that. He can constantly be heard complaining about environmental regulations surrounding what can and can’t be built upon. He talks of pointless rules, unneeded deliberations, and people who just don’t appreciate what roads like this will do for them.

It turns out that a large portion of the roads you drive on today,(if you live in the Eastern U.S., the west coast is a different story), occupies land that had to be “purchased” from someone else. I say purchased in quotes because often, the sellers don’t have much of a choice. It isn’t always private land that is bought; the government too owns vast swaths of wilderness that need to be possessed. This wilderness is often pure, untouched, and therefore, a target for environmental activists to defend with villigince. There is no question that these new roads will negatively impact the native populations that live there. The animals, plants and the entire ecosystems are all put at risk of serious damage. I really do believe most people, including my dad, believe in this, and want to minimize the impact on these species.

When I was young, I always hated when my dad would speak out against environmental activists. It went against everything I learned in elementary school about the beauty of the natural world and our duty to protect it. While I still don’t always agree with what he says, as I’ve matured I’ve managed to gleen a little into what he was trying to get at. The thing is, humans are going to keep needing more and more space, and there’s not much we can do besides instituting a one child policy, like China. Maybe my dad’s cynical attitude has rubbed off onto me, but this problem of preserving the natural environment while keeping our 21st century luxury will only get worse. Something has to break, and at the end of the day, I don’t think people will chose to give up any of the comforts they’ve grown so accustomed too. Instead of trying to halt urban spreading, I believe we should be looking into ways of do it environmentally sound. Everyone expects roads to be paved evenly, straight, and wide, taking them exactly where they need to be, but not many people think about what it took to get there.