ASPHALTopics | Fall 2015 | VOL 28 | NO 3

Paving before self-propelled pavers were invented.
Road building as a sporadic necessity gave way to the
purposeful development of a strategic inland network
of transportation routes, connecting communities and
fostering the continued growth of trade and commerce.
The advent of the automobile pushed road construction
to the forefront of priorities and, by the end of the
Second World War, federal governments in both
Canada and the U.S. were calling for a road system
that would connect people from sea to sea. The 1950s
saw the development of the Trans-Canada Highway and
the interstate highway construction program in the U.S.,
which required the construction of new road segments
and the paving of existing roadways. Today, twinning
programs are upgrading the Trans-Canada Highway
into a highway with two lanes in each direction, similar
to the U.S. interstate system.
“In 1950, Eisenhower was a big proponent of the
interstate system, and travel and commerce became
huge beneficiaries of that program,” says Dennis Hunt,
Senior Vice President of Florida-based Gencor Industries
Inc. “Pre-World War Two, there was no way you could
start a vehicle on the eastern seaboard and drive it
to the west coast. Even as recently as a few years ago,
in Labrador, the road from Goose Bay to Wabush (the
connection to Baie-Comeau and the St. Lawrence River)
was a gravel road. As commerce grows, you need a
better infrastructure for moving goods and growing
the economy. Improving roads and connections is an
ongoing process.”
While ancient civilizations recognized the benefits of
asphalt as a building material, its use in road paving
didn’t take hold until the dismal failures of other road
surfaces spurred advances in pavement designs.
Water to bind surface sand of macadam pavements
could not hold up to the dust and muddy ruts caused
by the proliferation of automobiles, which led to
experimentation with the first bitumen materials.
Road oils and tars were the precursors to hot mix
asphalt (HMA), pavements that incorporated asphalt
derived from crude oil. By 1900, 12 per cent of
Toronto’s streets were paved with asphalt. Noiseless,
clean, durable and aesthetically pleasing, asphalt
12 OHMPA | ASPHALTOPICS