Every day is a winding road.

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I hear you Sheryl.

The differences between Roman culture and all others are many, but few things sum it up as much as the shape of our roads.

Italian roads like those of many countries are not blessed with flat spacious land to glide along but twist and turn round coastline and mountains. They follow the contours of the countryside and were usually built upon horse trails.

When the Roman empire took up a policy of expansionism these tracks were simply inadequate for transporting mountains of supplies to the battling armies. Conquered areas required marble for the governors mansions and Rome required a share of every bounty to flow from it’s subjugated provinces.

Speed did not allow for twisty and frankly inefficient travel.

So straight wide roads were constructed to allow the free flow of all that was required to maintain a vast empire. This allowed the armies to quickly reach flash points with a well supplied force who had not been required to trudge miles through mud and so arrived in a better fighting condition.

With the departure of Rome from the many nations people returned to a greatly reduced living standard. Roman bath houses with their running water and central heating disappeared beneath the forests and the population shunned such luxuries for the squalor of animal and smoke filled huts.

It didn’t seem to occur again to most of the world’s population to build such roads until vehicles became capable of traveling faster than a horse.

When William Penn arrived in North America in 1682 he was tired of the cramped twisting streets of London and decided to build something utterly different. What became the standard grid of American cities was unheard of in his day, having the space and a blank canvas allowed for a completely new way of building roads and cities.

This week has seen Central Scotland plunged into chaos.

A crack appeared on the famous Forth road suspension bridge. For the first time since 1964 there is no crossing for cars north of Edinburgh. The exhausted ferries were carrying 40 000 cars every year when the bridge took over, today (well not today) 65 000 vehicles cross the bridge every 24 hours.

The new Road bridge is coming along but is just under a year from completion and so 50 miles is added to every commute and commercial journey.

For those 60 000 plus people the words of Sheryl Crow are very appropriate.

Nobody likes a detour; going to work or making a journey in never usually a joy, especially when possessed of the knowledge that it ought to be so much faster. For the next four weeks the narrow roads surrounding the Forth estuary will be subjected to volumes of traffic never before seen. Tens of thousands of agravated travellers will spend hours instead of minutes stationary in forgotten villages that they will become all too familiar with.

We hate inconvenience, it doesn’t sit well with our fast paced existence, being required to change routines because of extenuating circumstances really rankles us. We want to blame and be recompensed; but life is not as simlple as building a straight road as the Romans found out.

Having all the ducks in a row does not  help if the heart of the matter isn’t right; Rome didn’t collapse because of poor infrastructure but because of infighting.

No matter how tidy and neat our lives are, straight or winding roads won’t matter if the heart of who we are isn’t at peace.

 

 

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