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A plank road or puncheon is a dirt path or road
Dirt road

Dirt road is a common term for unpaved roads made from the native material of the land surface through which they pass, known to highway engineers as subgrade material....
 covered with a series of plank
Board

Board may refer to:*Board, a piece of Timber, or other rigid material made of wood, milled or sawn flat*Surfboard, skateboard, or snowboard ...
s, similar to the wooden sidewalks one would see in a Western movie. Plank roads were wildly popular in the Ontario
Ontario

Ontario is a Provinces and territories of Canada located in the Central Canada part of Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area....
, U.S. Northeast and U.S. Midwest in the first half of the 19th century.






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Puncheon
A plank road or puncheon is a dirt path or road
Dirt road

Dirt road is a common term for unpaved roads made from the native material of the land surface through which they pass, known to highway engineers as subgrade material....
 covered with a series of plank
Board

Board may refer to:*Board, a piece of Timber, or other rigid material made of wood, milled or sawn flat*Surfboard, skateboard, or snowboard ...
s, similar to the wooden sidewalks one would see in a Western movie. Plank roads were wildly popular in the Ontario
Ontario

Ontario is a Provinces and territories of Canada located in the Central Canada part of Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area....
, U.S. Northeast and U.S. Midwest in the first half of the 19th century. They were often built by turnpike companies.

Plank road boom

In the late 1840s plank roads inspired an investment boom (and bust). The very first plank road was in North Syracuse, NY in order to transport salt and other goods. Unlike the often compared tulip bubble, the plank road boom had more in common with the Dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble

The "dot-com bubble" was a economic bubble covering roughly 1995?2001 during which stock markets in Western world saw their value increase rapidly from growth in the new quaternary sector of industry and related fields....
: a new technology that promised to transform the way people lived and worked, permissive changes in legislation seeking to spur development, lots of investment by regular people, etc. Ultimately the technology failed to live up to its reputation and millions of dollars in investments evaporated almost overnight.

Plank roads in Australia

In Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the List of Australian capital cities and largest city of the Australian States and territories of Australia of Western Australia. With a population of 1,554,769 , Perth ranks fourth amongst the nation's cities, with a growth rate consistently above the national average....
, plank roads were important in the early growth of the agricultural and outer urban areas, given the distances imposed by swamps and relatively infertile soil. As it cost UK£2,000 per kilometre to construct roads by conventional means, the local councils (known as road boards) were experimenting with cheaper approaches to road building. A method called Jandakot Corduroy
Corduroy road

A Corduroy road or log road is a type of road made by placing sand-covered logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area....
 had been developed at Jandakot
Jandakot, Western Australia

Jandakot is a southern suburb of Perth, Western Australia, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn Local Government Areas of Western Australia....
 south-east of Perth, where a jarrah
Jarrah

Eucalyptus marginata is one of the most common species of Eucalyptus tree in Southwest Australia of Western Australia. The tree and the wood are usually referred to by the Australian Aborigine name Jarrah....
 tramway laid upon 2.3 m-long sleepers
Railroad tie

A railroad tie, cross tie, or railway sleeper is a rectangular object used as a base for railroad tracks. Sleepers are members generally laid transverse to the rails, on which the rails are supported and fixed, to transfer the loads from rails to the ballast and subgrade, and to hold the rails to the correct rail gauge....
, bounded by two 70 cm-wide strips of jarrah planks for cart and carriage wheels. The 90 cm gap was filled with limestone rubble to be used by horses. This reduced the cost of road building by up to 85% after their widespread introduction in 1908. However, increased traffic and suburban development rendered these routes unsatisfactory over time and by the 1950s they had been replaced with bitumen
Bitumen

Bitumen is a mixture of organic compounds liquids that are highly viscous, black, sticky, entirely soluble in carbon disulfide, and composed primarily of highly condensed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons....
 surfaced roads.

See also

  • Boardwalk
    Boardwalk

    File:Swampy But Pretty Bog In Fiordland NZ.jpgA boardwalk is a wooden Trail for pedestrians and sometimes vehicles . Boardwalks are often found along beaches, but they are also common as paths through wetlands, coastal dunes, and other sensitive environments....
  • Corduroy road
    Corduroy road

    A Corduroy road or log road is a type of road made by placing sand-covered logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area....


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