You're listening to Shortwave, from NPR.

I want you to picture the Earth, really zoom out like you're taking a photo from space,

then shatter that image into 600,000 fragments.

These fragments are carved out by roads, highways, streets, country lanes, all together they

stretch across about 40 million miles of the Earth's surface.

There were new roads being built all the time.

There are something like 15 million miles of roads scheduled for construction by the

middle of this century.

So roads are ubiquitous and everywhere, and we're only getting more of them.

Ben Goldfarb is an environmental journalist and the author of the new book Crossings,

how road ecology is shaping the future of our planet.

As he puts it, to us, roads signify connection and escape.

To other life forms, they spell death and division.

A point made clear through the experience of amphibians.

The amphibians, like frogs, toads, salamanders, tend to migrate between, you know,

sort of upland forests and breeding pools and on big spring nights when it's warm and wet.

But many of those habitats are severed by roads.

He discusses what comes next in a passage in the book.

In some places, the emergence occurs over weeks.

In others, in a bachanal known as the big night.

And a salamander on a big night will cross any road in her path.

Come hell, high water, or Honda.

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