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[Free_]

I embarked on a sinister part of the map, nothing bad has happened so far. This, however, is something else.

I dug deep enough to where I found a cavern, of course. What scares me is that there is a constructed road directly in the cavern. How and why is this a thing? Lots of possibilities here!

[Bumber]

I think it's a worldgen underground road built by a dwarf civ to connect sites.

[PatrikLundell]

I agree with Bumber (I've never seen one before).

As far as I understand it has no effect on the fortress, though, i.e. nobody is using the road (the critters that enter/exit the cavern may do it at the road, but not in any manner different from any other cavern entrance/exit).

[towerator]

I've already seen one such road in fortress mode, apparently they link two fortresses together.

[orius]

I'm guessing it's a dwarf road too.  AFAIK, dwarves are the only things building stuff underground now that the old clown tents are long gone. 

You might as well see where it goes down there and take advantage of it.

[Bumber]

You might as well see where it goes down there and take advantage of it.

It's just going to lead to the map edges in fort mode. You could travel it in adventure mode, but it's potentially very long. I remember someone found one that breached magma, making it impossible to traverse safely.

[Schmaven]

I remember someone found one that breached magma, making it impossible to traverse safely.

That sounds exactly how an underground dwarven road would turn out.

[orius]

You might as well see where it goes down there and take advantage of it.

It's just going to lead to the map edges in fort mode. You could travel it in adventure mode, but it's potentially very long. I remember someone found one that breached magma, making it impossible to traverse safely.

Not just the road itself, but any side passages as well. 

[Starver]

It's been so long since I've seen one of these, I thought they'd been taken out of the code!

(I may just avoid embarks that lie upon probable subsurface road tracks. I also avoid surface ones (because I'm picky, lowering my potential embark tiles, not actively avoiding) then often pretend my site is a crossroads that needs guarding.

Even if it's effectively non-functional, you could perhaps develop a 'wayfort' around it. Perhaps revisit with an Adventurer, if that's something you care to do.  Down a secret staircase, that you preparedvfor yourself, or something.

[FantasticDorf]

They do work, they're the only reason that mountainhalls can access each other through the impassible terrain (necromancers have to go through the front outward facing fortress the roads stem from) with a coherent link but much more isn't really known about them especially for the capabilities to whether they could reach another dwarven fortress from veeerry verrry far away, as sometimes seen when civs randomly decide to distribute themselves halfway across the world.

Whatever's linked upon the other side will most definitely be dwarven as they're the only people with purpose to and able to build them in entity controls. Perhaps you could shut off the surface entirely with pre-arrangements of bridges & stone casting to force dwarven traffic from the contacted entities beneath ground.

Much of this is from my own anecdotal observations and the wiki's breakdown considered. Rudimentary looking around fortress underneath sites yield incomplete roads that stop after a while that presumably are just waiting for places to go.

[PatrikLundell]

If you look at Legends info you'll find notes that roads are commissioned by dwarven sites, and they seem to always link two dwarven sites, so I don't think they can be used to spread, as dorfs have to have already spread to have that remote site available to be linked. I believe roads broken off simply had their construction broken off, e.g. because one of the sites was conquered.

As far as I understand the underground road network is completely inactive in fortress mode, so sealing the fortress on the surface would just result in migrants and caravans waiting on the surface (with the wagons leaving immediately and the dragged animals and their entourage leaving later).

It can be noted that the DF structures for roads have been mapped by DFHack.