---
title: "Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb"
date: 2025-03-11
description: "Although I don’t work in road ecology or traffic engineering, the author somehow pulled me through 300 pages on this topic. He managed this not just through vivid language and..."
canonical_url: https://idratherbewriting.com/blog/book-review-crossings-ben-goldfarb
---
# Book review of Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, by Ben Goldfarb
On a more personal level, reading the book made me want to check out some crossings myself, especially the ones mentioned near Snoqualmie Pass in the book’s closing chapter that are close to my home. Animal crossing structures aren’t something I’ve even noticed during my last 30 years of driving. I’d like to find a map that shows where all the crossings are (though public availability of these maps might be counterproductive to their purpose).

In this book review, I’ll comment on a few salient themes in Goldfarb’s book: the impact of autonomous vehicles, roads as vectors for human infiltration, challenges in solving the animal crossing problem, and roads as tools for community displacement.

## Impact of autonomous vehicles

Goldfarb’s section on autonomous vehicles caught my attention more than others since I work in tech. The author explores how AVs, specifically Waymo and Tesla, might impact animal crossings negatively. He wonders not just how AVs might react to animals in their path (will they slow, swerve, even detect, plow on through?) but also on the possibility of AV sensors being used to catalog roadkill as a kind of “participatory science” project.

Just like OpenStreetMap could be considered a form of *participatory cartography*, these AVs could be engaged in a similar participatory science through roadkill cataloging. Goldfarb writes, “It isn’t outlandish to suggest that AVs will become the most ingenious road-ecology tools ever devised, a roving squadron of automated scientists perpetually uploading terabytes of real-time data about the animals, dead and alive, with those paths they cross” (242). Many AVs have dozens of sensors—enough to pull in terabytes of data if they wanted. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much of a business justification by AV companies for doing so.

Goldfarb says that Waze used to have a button that allowed users to report roadkills. “After Israel added a roadkill button to the traffic app Waze, drivers reported twelve thousand animals within six months” (235). Now, Waze just allows users to report “hazards.” Even with the more general “hazards,” I’m a fan of participatory data collection on the roads — so many cars could contribute sensor-gathered information this way. It would be interesting to know just how many deer, raccoons, porcupines, cats, and other animals are killed by cars each year.

Goldfarb notes that roadkill allows biologists to autopsy the dead animals, which then reveals a lot more about the animal in ways that wouldn’t otherwise be available (since you can’t just randomly autopsy animals in the wild). These autopsies help biologists understand what’s happening with animal populations, especially from roads (for example, whether animal populations are dwindling or thriving, etc.).

Goldfarb also argues that AVs might actually increase the amount of roadkill, especially if autonomous delivery trucks operate through the night. These delivery trucks will likely increase long-distance traffic on dark roads when human drivers might not be on the roads. “Liberated from drivers,” Goldfarb writes, “autonomous trucks will have no compunctions about prowling the highways at night, and darkness, once a reprieve for wildlife, will become as dangerous as daylight. Far from ushering in a halcyon, roadkill-less era, AVs could be the gravest challenge to road ecology since, well, roads” (244). In other words, free from the constraints of human drivers, the delivery trucks might run more continuously and frequently, even at non-business hours that animals once considered safe.

Fortunately, most AVs stick to controlled, well-mapped, urban-centric roads. The idea that AVs roam rural roads in deep farm country is a fantasy that has eluded the best technologists trying to make it happen. However, AV trucks completing long, dull stretches of freeways is a much closer reality.

Goldfarb argues that AVs could distance humans from the outside world, allowing its passengers to focus on other matters while the AV drives them. AV passengers will be less engaged with the external world as they turn their focus and attention on social media or laptop work during their AV-driven commutes. In this view, Goldfarb aligns closely with Matthew Crawford in his book, *[Why We Drive](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Drive-Toward-Philosophy/dp/0062741969)* (which I *[reviewed here](https://idratherbewriting.com//blog/chatgpt-automation-and-atrophy/)*).

AVs will likely push commuters farther into suburban communities. Goldfarb says, “Autonomy—in tandem with electrification, which will make driving cheaper and thus encourage more of it—might turn out to be a suburban carcinogen that triggers metastatic sprawl” (244). Imagine climbing into your car, still half asleep, to complete a three-hour morning commute along a long stretch of highway into the city. You could sleep while the AV drives you to your work’s doorstep, oblivious to all the animals your AV squished or killed along the way.