Why do we still use concrete and asphalt for our roadways? Why have we not found a better material that is less prone to potholes and always feels smooth to drive on?
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Add shredded tyres to the mix. This has been used for decades. Reduced wear on vehicle tires, reduced road noise, longer life. But a road construction company won’t suggest this as they would be doing themselves out of the lucrative repair business. Vote for informed, conscientious politicians that enforce high standards. Yeah, oxymoron alert.
That’s the thing about America. We never try to get better. Always sticking with the same thing day in day out. All the tech advances are from other countries.
Another note that a lot of people don’t think about:
Technology doesn’t automatically improve with time. People have to go out and make an effort to experiment and improve things; if they stop, then so does the improvement. This is the same reason why in 60 years we went from inventing flight, to landing on the moon, and then not really advancing space much relatively in the next 60 years.
On another note, there are plastic roads that are made entirely of plastic or of composites of plastic with other materials. Plastic roads are different from standard roads in the respect that standard roads are made from asphalt concrete, which consists of mineral aggregates and asphalt. Most plastic roads sequester plastic waste within the asphalt as an aggregate.
Currently Wikipedia only lists India, UK, and Pakistan as countries with plastic roads.
This is a great question. To begin with, our roads are mostly rocks held together by binders. These binders could be asphalt or cement, and they just basically hold the rock together.
There are many reasons for cracks and potholes (construction quality, material quality, climate, design quality), and both asphalt or concrete can experience these issues. In general, concrete is more expensive to make or repair but it lasts longer.
How roads are made is mostly an economic decision because they are very expensive. Asphalt and concrete are materials that are available in relative abundance And are easy to transport and cost relatively low; therefore, they are used a lot (asphalt more than concrete).
Believe it or not, we do have many “new” materials or many modifications we can make to asphalt and concrete to make them last very long with out with out failing. But, the cost of using these new materials or these modifications to asphalt and concrete is high and not everyone wants to spend that money. One can easily see this when comparing roads in rich countries versus not so rich. In both cases, the roads are likely asphalt but the country willing to spend more money usually gets better quality roads.
In summary, we can make asphalt or concrete roads last a long time with no potholes but engineers usually don’t have the budget to do so.
No… modern roadways are one of the most incredibly optimised things you’ll ever experience. They may not be perfect but on a $/use and environmental impact statement they are STUNNINGLY well designed
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