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Primarily the sheer number and scale of roads, yes. I’ve done a lot of driving inland in Aus, and even where there is a lot of arable land it is not nearly so n
by vermilingua 5y ago
Primarily the sheer number and scale of roads, yes. I’ve done a lot of driving inland in Aus, and even where there is a lot of arable land it is not nearly so neatly or densely carved up, generally just hectares of paddocks/farmland with fire and access trails and fences.
I’m utterly awed at the scale of infrastructure that must’ve been involved in building those thousands of kilometres of roads, let alone maintaining them (I imagine they aren’t particularly “maintained”, but all the same).
- sidewndr46 5y agoAs an American who has traveled abroad, I can assure the vast majority of our roads are "maintained" only in the sense that they are passable roads. There really are no standards that are adhered to. It's common where I live to find potholes that would destroy the front suspension of any car attempting to traverse them.
- ianai 5y agoBut they could be maintained, if people wanted...
- formerkrogemp 5y agoThey absolutely cannot. Not in their entirety. The sheer number of roads necessary to be maintained will require more labor and material than we can afford at that scale.
- alistairSH 5y agoAdditionally, many of them criss-cross private land. And some segments of the US population is pretty particular about keeping people of their land. Yeah, hard to do in the mid-west and plains, but that doesn't stop them putting up threatening signs all over.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoCar's aren't nearly as fragile as people make them out to be.
- sanderjd 5y agoYou might be surprised how well maintained they are. We (I am from the US) spend a lot of money on infrastructure for cars and trucks. This trades off to some extent against rail infrastructure, though freight rail is more robust than commuter / passenger rail.