North Carolina People, Places, and Things-November 14
I am the dad to five adult children. As they were growing up I attempted to remind them they were special and to implore them to learn something new. My goal was to do that daily.
In 2016 my goal is to learn something new daily on the people, places, and things that make North Carolina special. Everyday this year I am doing a post on what I have learned new.
In 1989 then Governor Jim Martin and the NC General Assembly launched a plan by, to improve and pave every state-maintained dirt and gravel road in North Carolina.
The state of North Carolina has spent hundreds of millions in the past two decades to blacktop 13,000 miles of roads, bringing asphalt to the driveways of nearly 200,000 homes, DOT records show.
In my hometown of Lumberton, NC I only know of one state maintained dirt road-Clybourn Church Road which connects Carthage Rd to NC 211. The unpaved section is in orange on map below.
That 1989 legislation to put asphalt on unpaved roads has proven to be very successful. As with much in life, that which grows rarer becomes all the more desirable to experience. A search of the web will find, motorcycle and mountain-bike enthusiasts posting favorite unpaved road rides.
There is an online searchable GIS map that shows every unpaved road in every North Carolina county.
coach4aday 
I love dirt roads … pretty much all of the ones I remember from my childhood have been paved over. There are still quite a few out here in Texas, so I can re-live those memories!
Our State did a nice article about dirt roads a few months back …
https://www.ourstate.com/an-ode-to-the-gravel-road/
[…] wrote a post five years ago about North Carolina’s Unpaved Roads. That article pointed out that in over 20 years the state had paved about 13,000 miles of unpaved […]