page_title: Road
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Road / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Greek street - IV-III century BC - Porta Rosa - Velia - Italy The Porta Rosa road was the main street of Elea. It connects the northern quarter with the southern quarter, through the viaduct called Porta Rosa. The street is 5 meters wide and has an incline of 18&#160;% in the steepest part. It is paved with limestone blocks, girders cut in square blocks, and on one side a small gutter for the drainage of rain water. The building is dated during the time of the reorganization of the city during Helenistic age (IV-III century BC) Deutsch: Antike griechische Straße - IV-III vor Chr. - Porta Rosa - Velia - Italien
context_page_description: A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places that has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by foot or by some form of conveyance.
  Roads consist of one or two roadways, each with one or more lanes and any associated sidewalks and road verges. A bike path - a road for use by bicycles - may or may not parallel other roads.
  Other names for a road include: parkway; avenue; freeway, motorway or expressway; tollway; interstate; highway; thoroughfare; or primary, secondary, and tertiary local road.
context_section_description: The assertion that the first pathways were the trails made by animals has not been universally accepted; in many cases animals do not follow constant paths. Some believe that some roads originated from following animal trails. The Icknield Way may examplify this type of road origination, where human and animal both selected the same natural line. By about 10,000 BC human travelers used rough roads/pathways.
  The world's oldest known paved road was constructed in Egypt some time between 2600 and 2200 BC.
  Stone- paved streets appear in the city of Ur in the Middle East dating back to 4000 BC.
  Corduroy roads (log roads) are found dating to 4000 BC in Glastonbury, England.
  The Sweet Track, a timber track causeway in England, is one of the oldest engineered roads discovered and the oldest timber trackway discovered in Northern Europe. Built in winter 3807 BC or spring 3806 BC, (tree-ring dating – dendrochronology – enabled very precise dating). It was claimed to be the oldest road in the world until the 2009 discovery of a 6,000-year-old trackway in Plumstead, London.
  Brick-paved streets appeared in India as early as 3000 BC.
  c. 1995 BC: an early subdividing of roadways evidenced with sidewalks built in Anatolia.
  In 500 BC, Darius I the Great started an extensive road system for the Achaemenid Empire (Persia), including the Royal Road, which was one of the finest highways of its time, connecting Sardis (the westernmost major city of the empire) to Susa. The road remained in use after Roman times. These road systems reached as far east as Bactria and India.
  In ancient times, transport by river was far easier and faster than transport by road, especially considering the cost of road construction and the difference in carrying capacity between carts and river barges. A hybrid of road transport and ship transport beginning in about 1740 is the horse-drawn boat in which the horse follows a cleared path along the river bank.
  From about 312 BC, the Roman Empire built straight strong stone Roman roads throughout Europe and North Africa, in support of its military campaigns. At its peak the Roman Empire was connected by 29 major roads moving out from Rome and covering 78,000 kilometers or 52,964 Roman miles of paved roads.
  In the 8th century AD, many roads were built throughout the Arab Empire. The most sophisticated roads were those in Baghdad, which were paved with tar. Tar was derived from petroleum, accessed from oil fields in the region, through the chemical process of destructive distillation.
  The Highways Act 1555 in Britain transferred responsibility for maintaining roads from government to local parishes. This resulted in a poor and variable state of roads. To remedy this, the first of the turnpike trusts was established around 1706, to build good roads and collect tolls from passing vehicles. Eventually there were approximately 1,100 trusts in Britain and some 36,800 km (22,870 miles) of engineered roads. The Rebecca Riots in Carmarthenshire and Rhayader from 1839 to 1844 contributed to a Royal Commission that led to the demise of the system in 1844, which coincided with the development of the UK railway system.
  In the late-19th century roading engineers began to cater for cyclists by building separate lanes alongside roadways.
  From the beginning of the 20th century, roads were increasingly built for tourism and also to create jobs. A typical example of the stimulation of tourism is the Great Dolomite Road, while the creation of the panoramic coastal road  Strada Costiera between Duino and Barcola in 1928 was very much focused on creating jobs.
caption: The Porta Rosa, a Greek street dating from the 3rd to 4th century BC in Velia, with a paved surface and gutters
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