It’s been a long time since anyone has looked at roads with a view to bringing them into the 22nd century. Usually we just put road furniture up so cyclists have something to stop them when their brakes don’t work.
Now it appears that someone has been thinking about how to turn our roads into super roads by making them active. Read this article about a concept model that is being worked on now.
The proposal is for solar roads to be used as a power supply rather than the usual power stations. A bit like the solar farms we have discussed in the past but at a local level. As an added bonus this could also make our roads dynamic by allowing road markings to be controlled as required. Even if they never reached the power output required to power our homes just powering the road furniture and providing lit roads in obscure out of the way places would be a tremendous plus and, according to the figures, at no long term cost just more expensive initial start up costs. Of course it would only be viable to roll out when the road needed replacement anyway so no issues with having to update until you could afford it.
I envisage roads slotting together like little Scalextric roads which should make repairing them so much easier as well. Imagine complete road sections being installed in days instead of months. Roads repaired by removing and installing new panels and temporary roads installed to the same standard as normal roads and removed just as easily.
Sounds great and another win for innovation. Personally I see a few problems with this, anyone who has ever power cleaned his drive can testify how dirty roads get and I’m always concerned about remote control of anything where lives can be put at risk, imagine a one way street suddenly turned into a one way street the other way while vehicles are on it, but nothing insurmountable.
Of course like everything it would be a shame if we have super new below ground speed cameras that recorded every vehicle that travelled along these roads and reported any transgressions to plod. It would be a shame to miss out on a bit of rebellion. I like watching the videos where speed cameras get blown up or burnt. It gives a certain nice warm tingly feeling that someone out there isn’t gutless. Although it would be easier to just paint these things out than blow them up and that would be boring.
Roads to the future
It’s been a long time since anyone has looked at roads with a view to bringing them into the 22nd century. Usually we just put road furniture up so cyclists have something to stop them when their brakes don’t work.
Now it appears that someone has been thinking about how to turn our roads into super roads by making them active. Read this article about a concept model that is being worked on now.
The proposal is for solar roads to be used as a power supply rather than the usual power stations. A bit like the solar farms we have discussed in the past but at a local level. As an added bonus this could also make our roads dynamic by allowing road markings to be controlled as required. Even if they never reached the power output required to power our homes just powering the road furniture and providing lit roads in obscure out of the way places would be a tremendous plus and, according to the figures, at no long term cost just more expensive initial start up costs. Of course it would only be viable to roll out when the road needed replacement anyway so no issues with having to update until you could afford it.
I envisage roads slotting together like little Scalextric roads which should make repairing them so much easier as well. Imagine complete road sections being installed in days instead of months. Roads repaired by removing and installing new panels and temporary roads installed to the same standard as normal roads and removed just as easily.
Sounds great and another win for innovation. Personally I see a few problems with this, anyone who has ever power cleaned his drive can testify how dirty roads get and I’m always concerned about remote control of anything where lives can be put at risk, imagine a one way street suddenly turned into a one way street the other way while vehicles are on it, but nothing insurmountable.
Of course like everything it would be a shame if we have super new below ground speed cameras that recorded every vehicle that travelled along these roads and reported any transgressions to plod. It would be a shame to miss out on a bit of rebellion. I like watching the videos where speed cameras get blown up or burnt. It gives a certain nice warm tingly feeling that someone out there isn’t gutless. Although it would be easier to just paint these things out than blow them up and that would be boring.