The pleasures of Loudoun’s gravel roads

By Adam Stevenson

I imagine that every place has its own comparative advantages and pleasures, both subtle and obvious, that let it grow up in a person’s affections until one’s identity is inseparable from the beauty and bounty of the place one knows best. This is both simple and complicated. 

It’s simple in how natural and intuitive the process of coming to belong to a place is, but complicated in that such a process is difficult to explain in a way that does justice to the strength of the affection one has for the place one has come to belong to.

One of the comparative advantages and pleasures of growing up in Purcellville for me was the constellation of gravel roads within striking distance of town. 

America’s Routes, a group organized by local preservationists to document the local gravel network’s “status as an authentic and unique historic asset, potentially worthy of recognition by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the National Register of Historic Places,” describes these roads as a living museum that tells the triumphs and tragedies of the American story in its inimitable Loudoun context.

I began to fall in love with these gravel roads in earnest while running cross country at Loudoun Valley High School. Many of our running loops depended on gravel roads with low and slow traffic including Sands Road between Lincoln and Hamilton, Piggott Bottom Road between Rt 287 and Ivandale Road, and Allder School Road between Rt 287 and Purcellville Road. 

This mixture of memories—of high school cross country practices, running with friends on college breaks, summer bike rides around Western Loudoun, and even vicarious memories inspired by local history read in word and stone—is material for me in these roads. My own life is given meaning through contact with these still relevant relics.

However, Western Loudoun’s nearly 300 miles of gravel roads don’t only provide a living connection with our history or provide a beautiful site for memories past and present—there are also strong economic reasons for maintaining this network. 

Road budgets have largely remained stagnant in the past two decades as gasoline tax revenues, which typically fund transportation projects, have declined due to increased vehicle fuel efficiency and electrification—while labor, materials, and equipment costs have all increased. 

Because of this, there is generally less money to fund the up-front capital costs of converting roads from gravel to pavement. Although gravel roads generally require more yearly maintenance than paved roads, some analysis has found that paved roads’ per-mile cost, calculated over their 40-year lifespan, is nearly three times that of gravel roads’ per-mile cost in the same time frame.

In 2003, smart growth advocates coined the term “complete street” to describe a road that enables safe access for all users—pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists. In many urban contexts a complete street includes many important, though costly, infrastructural elements including bicycle lanes, raised crosswalks, and signalized intersections. 

I believe that the economic benefits of gravel roads become even clearer when comparing gravel roads and pedestrian-friendly paved roads in terms of construction and lifetime maintenance costs. 

Loudoun’s gravel roads essentially function as complete streets that enable bicyclists, horse riders, pedestrians, and motorists to share the roads during daylight hours. This is at least partly due to the fact that Loudoun’s gravel roads are typically narrower and have sharper turns than most paved roads designed for car travel. 

Risk homeostasis theory “predicts that, as safety features are added to vehicles and roads, drivers tend to increase their exposure to collision risk because they feel better protected.” Within reasonable limits such a theory indicates that roads, like Loudoun’s gravel roads, that are less accommodating to high vehicular speeds and driver inattention induce slower and more careful driving. 

Such a theory has been corroborated by various studies including a recent John Hopkins report that found that “slightly narrower lane widths, are, in many cases, safer than wider ones.” In effect, slower speeds and safer driving behavior makes such routes safer for other road users. 

Such an effect is borne out by my own experience on gravel roads. Like many others, I feel much more comfortable walking, biking, and running on gravel roads than paved roads, and although I will often see cyclists on two-laned paved roads, I see many more pedestrians walking and running along gravel roads than paved roads without sidewalks.

Although the fight to preserve Loudoun’s unparalleled network of gravel roads dating from the early 19th century (and earlier), cannot be simply reduced to an economic cost-benefit analysis, the real and practical benefits of these gravel roads—along with the less easily quantifiable, though no less important, historical, cultural, and social benefits of such preservation—are substantial and should be emphasized.

America’s Routes is doing a wonderful job documenting the immense value of these roads and advocating their continued preservation. I highly recommend visiting their website americasroutes.com to learn more about these roads and what is being done to preserve them. 

Loudoun’s gravel roads are our collective inheritance and it is up to us to bequeath them to future generations as they tell stories that imbue our lives with meaning, provide safe pedestrian and bike access, and, when calculated over a road’s typical 40-year lifespan, are often cheaper than pedestrian-friendly paved roads.

Adam Stevenson grew up in Purcellville and is currently completing a master’s degree in urban and environmental planning with a concentration in land use, transportation, and the built environment.