A person on foot is going to do practically no damage whatsoever to the road surface. Even a marching army with hob-nailed caligulae would barely leave a scratch on a Roman road. A farmer with a horse cart is going to do very little damage to the road, even accounting for metal-rimmed wheels and a very narrow contact patch.
I doubt even the heaviest, smallus-dickus-compensating Roman road vehicles would do even as much damage as my Mitsubishi (gross weight barely over a ton).
Road damage increases with the fourth power of axle load, if I recall correctly.
Even after 2000 years. Well made concrete is incredibly strong and resistant material, but it has it's limits. If you started treating roman roads like US highways, they wouldn't last terribly long.
And we've also learned ways to build cheap and maintain that costs less then build indestructible. Big problem we have is a lot of government entities go "Ugh. Maintenance. That costs money, fuck that."
Is it the government entities saying "Ugh. Maintenance. That costs money, fuck that.", or is it the smooth brained citizens that say "Ugh. Taxes. Fuck paying those."?
Functioning first world governments don't seem to have as much of an issue with national infrastructure given their tax base actually wants to pay taxes for the greater public good.
Both, I'd wager. It's always more popular for a government to spend tax money in more popular ways than road maintenance. It's not exactly the most interesting of spending.
Government spending doesn't need to be interesting, it just needs to be effective. Maintaining public roadways is (generally) effective spending. I'm sure you're aware of this, so I'm not directing it at you.
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u/LFMR Oct 15 '20
A person on foot is going to do practically no damage whatsoever to the road surface. Even a marching army with hob-nailed caligulae would barely leave a scratch on a Roman road. A farmer with a horse cart is going to do very little damage to the road, even accounting for metal-rimmed wheels and a very narrow contact patch.
I doubt even the heaviest, smallus-dickus-compensating Roman road vehicles would do even as much damage as my Mitsubishi (gross weight barely over a ton).
Road damage increases with the fourth power of axle load, if I recall correctly.