Are roads the biggest driver of ecological destruction?

Yes | No.

The classic "road trueism" is If you build them, they will fill.

Four lane highways with occassional gridlock when expanded become six lane highways with occassional gridlock.

The connection corollary that follows is roads | train lines built to connect A and B will often be followed by small townsites along the way and the spread of "off the grid" living at blocks T junctioning dirt road access from the new A B route.

It's not so much cars themselves as it is car-centric development that causes many problems.

In the US at least, this is pretty clear: when you design new areas and cities around cars as the primary or even only way to get around, this hurts the environment a lot more than denser, multi-modal style of developments. It results in more total space needed per person, and it results in higher energy expenditures.

If you look at vehicle miles traveled per capita, the US is around 2x that of major Western European countries, and nearly 4x that of Japan: https://publicinterestnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02...

I have a couple of stories

1. Last Easter my wife and I were travelling across the country. We drive reasonably slow, mostly about 100km/h. I guess it was a special time of the year because we must've killed at least several thousand insects in the first two hours alone. It was non stop. One car out of thousands on the road. Made us feel pretty bad.

2. Second story is about four years old. Travelling on a brand new highway around Easter. I guess wildlife was not used to the road because the asphalt was - i kid you not - littered with squashed snakes and birds. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - several kilometres of straight road covered with untold amount of bodies. One of ugliest things I have seen.

Roads are absolutely horrible and I very much hate travelling because of stuff like this. I think some countries don't have such problems problems because they barely have any wildlife left.

It's a tragedy and barely anyone I know cares enough to even consider what we are doing.

> You hit the nail on the head workout realizing it. The real problem is mass property ownership in remote areas. The huge uptick in car travelers and according roads are a result of that.

JTNP draws massive numbers of tourists. Plus the main road through my neck of the Mojave (62 and Amboy Rd.) is a popular alternate route linking LA and Las Vegas. You wouldn't believe how much traffic blasts through on weekends and holidays, most without even stopping. It's a lot of city folks driving like they're passing through an uninhabitable wasteland where speed limits don't exist.

The actual number of owners/residents like me out by my hood is on the order of hundreds, and most drive exceptionally slow in the hood because those roads are unpaved washboard insanity.

Airbnb/VHRs becoming a thing there and catering to the national park has made things much worse in terms of local vehicle traffic even on the dirt roads... but the Tortoises were already gone long before Airbnb even existed.

TL;DR: Tourism by automobile is the main problem, exacerbated by the draw of a popular national park. But even without it there's too much thanks to LAVegas traffic.

One thing you can do, in addition to advocating for public transit - if you have a lawn of short grass, grow native plants and let them get tall. They provide the habitats for animals that have gradually been taken away. Cut and burn the brush 1x/year and put some landscaping rocks between your house and the grass to encourage animals to stay in the landscaped areas, and you’ll be great.