Why so much of America still has dirt roads

A closer look

Despite paying an exorbitant amount of taxes for infrastructure, roughly 35% of the massive road network in the United States has never seen a drop of asphalt. There are approximately 1.3 million miles of unpaved gravel and dirt roads snaking through rural America. While city dwellers complain about minor potholes on their commute, massive chunks of the country are still navigating dusty frontier wagon trails right out of the 1800s, proving that 'paving the world' is still very much a work in progress.