It’s not just cars that make pollution. It’s the roads they drive on, too

That could be a misconception. I'd read a long time back about how gravel also contributes to pollution. That particular article was a debate if electric cars could reduce pollution, to which the writer argued about the harmful effects of gravel roads and roads in general. 

So far....

Asphalt is produced at temperatures of over 140C. That's the point. But the paper is talking about old production technology that's already been surpassed.

New asphalt production technology features sophisticated filtration systems and reduces emissions significantly. There are also 'warm' asphalt technologies that use lower temperatures (120C) during production and avoid the problem of harmful emissions altogether.

I know of an asphalt plant that was installed here in the UK a couple of years back, located right next to a food production facility. The reason this was allowed by the council was because the emissions from the plant are so low. The food production firm was sceptical but received assurances and since the plant got up and running in the last couple of years, there have been no complaints about smell from the asphalt plant or contamination of food.

In the US, the legislation is a bit behind us in Europe (and the UK still follows EU requirements for the moment at least). In fact the Chinese are actually much tougher on asphalt plant emissions too than they are in the US (and for obvious reasons if you've ever been in a major Chinese city when the smog is bad).

The Americans are a bit behind with the clean asphalt production technology. There's one firm (Astec) that makes it I know, but it is new technology in the US. We've had that a bit longer here in Europe. There are still a lot of old style asphalt plants here in Europe, but they're being phased out and replaced, or retrofitted with new kits to bring them up to date.

The warm asphalt technology isn't new exactly, but take-up has been slow as the road construction sector is quite conservative. But it will deal with all the emissions problems, plus some other issues too, as it is produced at a lower temp than releases all the nasty niffs from conventional technology. Producing asphalt at a lower temp saves a lot in terms of fuel, so there's big incentive to use it for industry as it'll cut production costs significantly. It also is easier to compact, so there's every chance it'll last longer as a road surface too.