There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty. Even if you compare to 75yr ago there's been a doubling of population in many countries.

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giantg2 3 hours ago | parent [-]

"There was literally 1/5th as many people on earth in 1900 as there were today. Of course the roads were empty."

We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Number of people might not be the best measure of density. Number of people in a specific walkable/short horse rideable location, such as a city would.

I think the bigger thing is that trains were the main mode of distance travel on land and very few people traveled more than 50 miles from home in their life.

	▲	potato3732842 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>We're there 1/5 the number of roads back then? Probably more like 1/2 or 3/4 depending on how you want to count dead end office park and residential subdivision roads of which there are many. Pretty much every road in the US and Europe that isn't in the above category or a purpose built highway existed in 1900, and likely 1850 if you're looking at europe or the american northeast. Obviously size and quality was lesser, many times they weren't even paved. But they existed because they were the roads between towns and points of interest.