Paving Our Ways (a History Of The World’s Roads And Pavements)

Paving Our Ways is the only comprehensive history of the world’s pavements, from the earliest human settlements to the present day. It traces the human and social aspects of pavement development and use for general readers, with detailed technical background for students of transport engineering orengineering history and sociology.

Paving Our Ways covers the international history of road paving in an interesting, readable and technically accurate way. It provides an overview of the associated technologies in a historical context.

It examines the earliest pavements in Egypt and Mesopotamia and then moves to North Africa, Crete, Greece and Italy, before a review of pavements used by the Romans in their magnificent road system. After its empire collapsed, Roman pavements fell into ruin. The slow recovery of pavements in Europe began in France and then in England.

The work of Trésaguet, Telford and McAdam is examined. Asphalt and concrete slowly improved as paving materials in the second part of the 19th century. Major advances occurred in the 20th century with the availability of powerful machinery, pneumatic tyres and bitumen. The advances needed to bring pavements to their current development are explored, as are the tools for financing, constructing, managing and maintaining pavements.

The book should appeal to those interested in road paving, and in the history of engineering and transport. It can also serve as a text for courses in engineering history.

Contents

Preface: What is a road pavement? ix

Authors xiii

1 How pavements are affected by traffic and weather 1

2 Early pavements in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete and Greece 7

3 Making pavements using local materials and simple equipment 13

4 The essential paving properties of soil, sand and stones 27

5 Paving ways through swamps and bogs 37

6 Roman pavements – a major advance in pavement quality and extent 43

7 Pavement management processes from medieval Europe 51

8 Trésaguet and Telford lead a pavement renaissance in France and England 59

9 McAdam invents a major new pavement using broken stones 67

10 Using masonry methods to produce pavements for heavy traffic 87

11 The essential paving properties of bitumen, asphalt and cement 99

12 Three unique pavement engineers – Metcalf, McAdam and Mountain 105

13 The first asphalt pavements, produced in 19th-century France and England 113

14 A new form of pavement using thin, sprayed bituminous surfacings 131

15 Asphalt paving produced to carry 20th-century truck traffic 137

16 The design of asphalt pavements – a predominantly American initiative 151

17 The 20th-century development of concrete pavements 165

18 Chemical and physical means of modifying local materials for paving 175

19 Devices and methods for measuring and evaluating pavement performance 181

20 Full-scale testing of pavements to validate designs using local materials 207

21 Possible future pavements, with an emphasis on recycling 229

22 How pavements could be funded and operated in future years 235

Timeline 239

Bibliography 253

End Notes 269

Index 291

"I found much of interest from a heritage perspective in the changing technology across the world from China and Mesopotamia, Europe, Britain, Australia and North America, stretching from biblical times to the present
day. . . . The book should provide a comprehensive reference for civil engineering students and practising engineers,
and will be interesting from a history and heritage perspective for more general readers."

-- Keith Baker, Engineering