I was shocked to learn that, according to the Federal Highway Administration, roughly 35% of roads in the US are unpaved.
The only time I can even recall seeing an unpaved road is around Lake Tahoe. Or next to produce fields in the middle of nowhere.
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Daily. I live on a private, unpaved road.
My guess is most of those roads are gonna be private roads, roads in rural areas, or both and are still gonna be pretty rarely traveled by the majority of people
Weirdly often. Michigan has a surprising number of dirt roads even in highly developed areas. I live in the suburbs of Detroit and I can think of probably half a dozen short sections of dirt road within a few miles of my house.
I’ve been down dirt roads with multi-million dollar homes on them. It’s bizarre.
Every day. Every time I go anywhere, anyway.
In the dinky town I grew up in, very often. Lots of farm gravel roads.
Every day until we had to move into town.
Daily, we live on a dirt road.
I live in the desert. We have many unpacked roads. If you’re going to areas to camp or hike, you are frequently on BLM land and it’s unpaved.
This is a misleading statistic, similar to how there are technically almost 20,000 airports in the US. It’s just that about 15,000 of them are private runways on ranches and whatnot.
Daily. Instead of fixing potholes on paved roads, the parish/county likes to just turn them into dirt roads instead so they don’t have to maintain them anymore. The amount of dirt roads in my area has significantly INCREASED over my lifetime.
There’s a lot of farm country that gravel roads still work well for big machinery. Iowa has 65,000 miles of gravel road and Minnesota has 70,000 miles. Those two states account for almost 10% of unpaved US roads
Half of my rural mail route was gravel roads, but almost all have been paved now over the last 30 years
I used to do it all the time if you consider a short drive to a baseball field or to a park which is like 100 feet
Everyday. I live on a dirt road in South Alabama.
We are in Vermont, there are a lot of unoaved roads . We drive on them frequently. (except March and April when they are extremely muddy, and then I avoid them As much as possible)
Fortunately the road I live on was paved by our town about 10 years ago.
Often. I grew up on a gravel road in rural North Carolina and I seek out national forest service roads and BLM roads when traveling and camping across the US.
My property in Texas is a good 45 minute drive from the nearest paved road.
All the time.
I’ve lived on a dirt road my whole 28-year life. With that being said, everywhere except the exact road I live on is paved/asphalt
I don’t without going an hour or so out of my way.
A lot of this country is next to produce fields in the middle of nowhere
Very regularly. I spend a lot of time in the outdoors and so frequently drive unpaved forest roads.
I also grew up on an unpaved road, although it’s been paved past my family’s driveway now as more people have moved into the area. And one ranch I worked on in my 20s, I had to drive about 30 miles on unpaved roads to go anywhere.
never but I live in a big city
Daily.
I live in a rural community. A lot of our roads are just scraped gravel, hard packed dirt, or a mix of the two. Hell, there’s a couple that are basically just dirt trails wide enough for a car, if you’re careful.
80% of Americans live in urban areas with paved roads. We are just an incomprehensibly big country and there are millions of miles of roads that very few people travel.
Often because my job takes me to a lot of rural areas in the central United States.
One of my best friends growing up lived on one lmao
Another fun fact: 34,000,000 Americans get their water from a well or other source like rain.
In the rural south where I’m from, unpaved roads are pretty much the rule rather than the exception. Dirt and gravel roads are far more prevalent and many of the paved ones have only been paved since the 90s here.
I live in the desert SW…there are unpaved roads everywhere. If you want to go fishing or camping in the mountains here, chances are very good you’re going to be on an unpaved road to get to your campground or favorite fishing hole.
Also, Most of the country is rural or small town so it would stand to reason that there would be a lot of unpaved roads.
Drove on one today. Normal here.
I literally live on an unpaved road.
Sometimes when I go into the mountains
SW Kansas here. We have almost 500 miles of gravel or dirt roads in our county, not counting private roads and the many miles of roads on federal land that county government is not responsible for.
Live on a gravel road. I like them because people hate driving on them so I get plenty of privacy. I hate them because they ruin your car and I rarely open my windows, otherwise I’d have to dust every day.
Rarely
My kids take archery and I drive an unpaved road a few miles each time I take them to the range; it’s an unpaved open space. So several times per week. I live in a large suburb of a major metropolitan area.
A few times a month for work, at least.
Hunting. Camping. Hiking. Fly fishing.
All the time.
I grew up in Maine, so it was a regular thing, depending how far out into the country I was going.
I go camping pretty often, so several times a year. Outside of that context, though, not often at all. I live and work in the city.
Honestly, maybe 2-3 times a year
The only times I really do it is if I’m visiting distant cousins out in the country or going to a state park
Depends greatly on a lot of factors.
Day to day? 0. I live in a major city.
On a fishing/hunting/camping trip? Might be the only kind of road where I’m at.
I live on a gravel (mostly dirt) rd.
When I was a kid in the Midwest? All the time.
Since moving out east I can’t even remember ever seeing a public road that was unpaved.
This is a function of the sheer number of roads in the US.
Between timber company logging roads, the National Forest Service road network, and so on there are a huge number of roads that are unpaved and on the map….
That doesn’t mean they have significant traffic…. Just that they exist.
Every single day. The United States post office uses the dirt road in front of my house as a shortcut but won’t deliver to my house because it is on a dirt road.
Almost never. Last time I can remember driving on one was when I took the wrong exit in the Hill Country outside San Antonio and got lost.
with the amount of potholes in my town , main road feels unpaved . We have along road that goes into the mountain and lake area that goes from paved to unpaved.
At least once a month. As soon as you’re out of the city limits there are a lot of dirt roads. Main county roads are mostly paved but even they have sections that are still dirt.
When I was younger it was daily but a lot of the roads have been paved within the last 15 yrs.
I moved to rural Georgia four years ago. I regularly go for drives where I will take a turn just to see what is down there. So far I’ve only been on one dirt road.
I live on a dirt road and I have to take another dirt road to get to the dirt road I live on. It takes me 30 minutes just to get to pavement. I’m really glad we’re building a house on a different dirt road because that dirt road is 2 minutes to pavement. I’ve really been missing the pavement since we moved out here in 2020. I used to live in a big Metro area and everything was paved there.
R/peopleliveincities
Very rarely. Maybe when I go camping?
Just because 35% of roads are unpaved doesn’t mean that 35% of driving is done on unpaved roads.
Not often. The only unpaved roads I can think of offhand are in state parks
Almost never. I currently live in a city but have mostly lived in small towns within commuting distance of a city and even then only the most rural and desolate areas would maybe have a gravel road.
Very, very rarely. My parents have a house in the mountains of Western North Carolina, and there’s an unpaved road near them that I have occasionally been on. But it’s certainly not a regular occurrence by any means.
I’m surprised it’s as low as 35%. In the county where I used to work for the DOT, I would guess that 60-70% of our roads were gravel.
I used to deal with gravel roads quite a bit growing up. They can be a pain in the ass and often leave a person’s car dirty/can leave dings. Plus, as others said, the aroma is awful if the windows are down.
In terms of unpaved roads, the worst I have experienced were in Vermont in the winter. Total fucking nightmare.
I grew up in the 80s-early 90s in a fairly densely populated town on Long Island. There was a short stretch of a street up the road from me that was dirt. I walked it every day to get to my school bus stop. Never figured out why they didn’t pave it. I should see if I can find it on street view I would imagine it would have gotten paved at some point.
I rarely do nowadays, but it was somewhat frequently when I lived in a rural area.
My farm in Texas is on a paved road (a Farm to Market road) but there’s way more gravel (unpaved) roads than paved roads in my area. About 20 years ago all the roads in my were given a numbering system, signs, and houses were assigned addresses for the 911 emergency call system.
Fairly often. My county has a lot of rural area and the non-major roads are mostly gravel
Every day.
I’m in New Mexico, where about 75% (25,000 miles) of our roads are unpaved. The highways and most roads in the cities are paved.
Every now and then.
Everyday
Weekly, but I do a bunch of off-roading to hiking and camping spots
Rarely. Only times would be if I go the back way into town (gravel road 2 minutes up the hill from house or though the backroads of a nearby state park), or if I go visit a family member that lives on a dirt road.
Probably like 10-15 times a year.
Dirt and sometimes gravel roads are very common in rural areas of the country. I’ve got several family members back home in Rural Kentucky who live on unpaved roads. If you really wanna freak out, even the paved roads in that area often aren’t two lanes wide. If two vehicles meet in passing they both have to hug the ditch to get by. That really freaked out my wife the first time I took her back home.
Very frequently, if not daily.
I am a rural resident in the West.
Every day. The road I live on is unpaved. I live pretty close to Tahoe, and there are lots of unpaved roads. Most are logging, BLM, or National Forest areas though.
Do tar and chip roads count as paved?
Most of my childhood.
I live on a dirt road, but it’s not "in the middle of nowhere". I live in a city with a combination of urban and rural areas.
Not every year, but it happens, like if I’m going up through some areas of Vermont, or I’m on the odd private road (which sometimes are paved, but usually appear as if it was decades ago).
Lately, not very much.
When I lived up in the mountains the road to my house was unpaved. Even though it was technically a county road, they didn’t maintain it so my neighbors and I did.
I also don’t remember ever seeing a paved forest service road. I haven’t spent a lot of time on them lately, but I doubt there’s been a big pavement project lately.
When I lived there Portland, OR still had some gravel roads in the city limits.
Pretty often, I have a piece of recreational land on a river that has a yurt on it, its on a dirt road and is off grid. The road is made of compressed pit run gravel.
I take it you’re aware that these roads are unpaved precisely because they aren’t traveled heavily? If you don’t get out in the countryside, of course you’re not going to see these roads. However, I know that some of the best baked goods are found on those unpaved roads leading to Mennonite homes.
When I was a teenager, quite a bit.
I lived in a small rural community and most of my friends lived out on family farms.
As an adult, not so much. I still live in a small rural community, but in a different state.
Part of me wonders if it is tied to how states handle infrastructure.
Illinois seems to favor ‘tar and chip’ roads over the gravel approach that Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota take.
I live on one. I actually grew up in a gravel road, though 8 did live in town at the time. So, frequently
Pretty much never. I don’t remember the last time, and I couldn’t even tell you where the nearest one might be.
My parents live on a dirt road, so every couple of months or so. They live in the mountains.
Me living in Appalachia: "Oh really"
Everyday….its one of the reasons most southerners drive trucks
I live in Montana and I have a few dirt roads I have to deal with- not many though.
Growing up, all the time. I lived in rural Kansas, and there were dirt roads everywhere. Honestly, dirt roads are the most fun to drive on. Some of them can be sketchy AF, especially if they haven’t been graded in some time. But the unpredictability of how your car will respond keeps you a lot more engaged.
Now I live in a city, and it’s probably been 2 years since I’ve even seen a dirt road. I took my motorcycle out on a cruise in the country, and kind of forgot dirt roads existed until I ran out of pavement and had to turn around.
To be clear: driving on them in cars can be a lot of fun. Motorcycles, not so much, unless you have knobby tires.
Rarely, but not never. We have a gravel driveway that’s long enough to be a road. But I only occasionally drive on official roads that are gravel.
It would be interesting to see a statistic of how much travel is done on unpaved roads. I believe there’s lots of miles of unpaved roads, but they get so little traffic that I think they probably represent less than 10% of the driving done every day in the US.
Every day. The paved road ends halfway across our front yard.
Technically everyday, if only for about 200 feet. My alleyway in a major US city is unpaved and is gravel so everyday I drive on it to get to and from my garage.
I used to drive on them tons, but I love the outdoors, off roading, and rally racing. I drive on dirt roads at least once a year, and a lot more often if/when I can.
I purposely seek out dirt roads. It’s relaxing
Nearly every day
Every single day, 7 miles on dirt, 5 on highway to work then 5 on highway and another 7 on dirt to home.
Portland, Oregon (over 600k city proper and 2.5m urban with a well-developed light rail system) has quite a few dirt roads within developed neighborhoods (in city limits) where you otherwise wouldn’t expect them.
Not just alleyways, either – these are public streets with actual houses on them.
I discovered this when I was there a couple of months ago. It was the last time I drove on a dirt “road” (not counting driveways, alleyways, or parking lots).
Maybe once a year.
I live in a big city, but vacation in a more rural area in northern Michigan most years. That’s literally the only time.
Rarely outside of work. I live in the city. I go hiking or whatever from time to time though.
I work in paving, so all the time on weekdays!
Several times a week, could be daily if I wanted to. Michiganders LOVE their dirt roads
A- they claim it’s cheaper to maintain
B- It gives them an excuse to buy big ass trucks and Jeeps. Every day is a Jeep-things day when you live off a dirt road.
C- It’s their culture and heritage.
When I was a kid I lived about 6 miles from the nearest paved road. I live in the city so I only drive on unpaved roads if I’m recreating in the mountains or something like that
Almost never. I’m from and live in the NYC area, so maybe it’s more normal for people in rural areas. Maybe a handful of times I’ve driven on a gravel or dirt road in my life going to a woodsy or farm area on a trip or something.
I drive my ford focus in the woods at least a few times a year.
A few times a year when I visit my family. My sister drives on unpaved roads every time she leaves her home.
Never
I know some areas near where I used to live that intentionally have dirt roads even though they are within city limits. The people that live homes don’t want extra traffic in their neighborhood and want to actively discourage people driving past their houses. The builder of the subdivision didn’t pave and city never demanded that it get paved.
Pretty much every day I drive.
Every day, since I live on one.