Reimagining Industry Growth

6Asphalt Pavement

Asphalt is an amazing substance, albeit unsung and taken for     granted. When it is combined with stone and gravel (i.e., aggregates) to construct pavements, every American enjoys the benefits of asphalt nearly every single day. There are almost 2.8 million miles of paved roads in the United States, and most of them—about 94 percent—have an asphalt surface.¹ Most of us who live in towns or cities drive on asphalt pavements the moment we pull out of our driveways. We ride on asphalt when we take a taxi, or a bus, or an airplane for that matter (approximately 80 percent of the nearly 3,330 runways in our national airport system are surfaced with asphalt pavement).² And nearly everything tangible we buy, use, or consume, at some point traveled on asphalt roads to get to where we could buy, use, or consume it.

Asphalt occurs naturally. Also known as bitumen, it is found in asphalt lakes as a sticky, almost liquid version of “black gold” that can be lightly refined for use in asphalt applications. Asphalt is also found in an almost solid state as a binder in asphalt rocks. It has been used for millennia. The word asphalt is derived from the Greek asphaltos, meaning “secure.”³ The Babylonians used it to build roads, as did the Romans, who also used it to seal their baths and aqueducts.⁴ It has a long and illustrious history.

With the advent of the automobile industry and the consequent expansion of paved roads, the market for asphalt grew exponentially. Most fortuitously, ...