Highway development shares the effects with other human activities that

degrade the natural environment, highways (as well as power line rights-
of-way and other transportation routes) have unique impacts associated
with their linear form. Within forested landscapes, highways act as
concave corridors, areas that exhibit lower vegetation heights than the
surrounding habitat matrix. In agricultural and some rangeland
landscapes where dense vegetation is encouraged along the roadsides,
highways may act as convex corridors. These highway corridors may
function as:

 specialized habitats,
 conduits of movement,
 barriers or filters to movement, or
 sources of effects on the surrounding habitats

Exactly how the corridor will function depends on the condition of the
larger landscape, not simply the habitat adjacent to the corridor. For
example, a highway corridor in a forested landscape will functions
differently than a corridor bordered by forest, but which exists within a
landscape dominated by agricultural land. Highway development is also
unique in its facilitation of secondary development.