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Why oughtn't it be? The construction "A, though B" is an independent assertion of A and B. Syntactic linkage is not enough to establish contingency.
It is not like "A, because B" for example, where it's arguably unfair if B and A are both false to count it as two failures... in that case, the claim of A can be seen as contingent on the claim of B, and not independent.
To put this differently, "A, though B" makes the following claims:
A
B
You might (mistakenly) expect -B given A, which is why I mention B explicitly.
Whereas "A, because B" makes the following claims:
B
If B, then A
If A happens in the first case, the first claim is correct. If B happens, the second is correct. If both happen, both claims are correct.
If A happens in the first case but B doesn't, the first claim is correct and the second claim is unevaluatable.
(I suppose one could argue that the second case implicitly claims "if -B, then -A" as well... "because" is somewhat ambiguous in English.)
Well, if you analyze the statements in terms of prepositional logic, then all the English language conjunctions "and", "but", "though", etc. map to the only type of logical conjunction ∧.
But natural language is richer than (directly mapped) prepositional logic. I interpret the statement "Local roads, though, are still predominantly conventional." as a clarification of "Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel.".
Formally, if you just claim:
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel."
it is equivalent to:
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel." ∧ ( "Local roads are still predominantly conventional" ∨ ¬"Local roads are still predominantly conventional" )
which is different from
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel." ∧ "Local roads are still predominantly conventional"
However, we can assume that if you claim:
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel."
you also wanted to communicate that
"Local roads are still predominantly conventional"
not that you are undecided between
"Local roads are still predominantly conventional", ¬"Local roads are still predominantly conventional"
otherwise you would have probably stated that explicitely.
Therefore, the information content of:
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel."
and:
"Intelligent roads are in use, primarily for long-distance travel. Local roads, though, are still predominantly conventional."
is rougly the same.