asp2We live in an age of innovation. Using the great scientific advances of previous generations and implementing them in new and creative ways is huge part of our progress. No longer burdened by what we can do (mostly), the question for most fields now is how we can do it better. Can we do it faster? Can we do it cheaper? Can we do it greener? Can we do it prettier? Can we do it easier?

In these pursuits we have seen some phenomenal advances. Urban transportation has seen cars go from obnoxiously loud, disgustingly dirty, and horribly dangerous automobiles for the social elites to quick, small, light, potentially electric cars for most families, some having two or three vehicles. Computers have gone from hand cranked, room-sized bean counters to tiny tera-byte twirling do-almost-anything devices. Body armour has gone from heavy, ill-fitting, steel barrels to light-weight, bullet absorbing liquid kevlar vests. Cast iron stoves to electric grills. Horse-drawn ploughs to John Deeres. Muskets to laser-sighted assault rifles. Absolutely everything is being made with advanced materials to get the most out of just the right resources. All these technological wonders flashed through my head as I waited in yet another traffic standstill due to construction. Why are roads still made of asphalt?

Asphalt roads began being made in the early 1800’s (even before the first combustion engine cars hit the streets) and all I can find, as far as research and advancement goes, are efforts to make asphalt cheaper and faster to produce. That’s it. No new materials for roads. No ideas for the super draining, no-slip driving surface. No new compound that will last more than a year before cracking and developing potholes. Nothing. Why the hell not?

Every other field of study has people coming up with ideas of things that could maybe, perhaps, theoretically work. And they have teams of dedicated researchers that will test out these fantastic visions, in case one might actually lead to the next huge development. We have people working on hydrogen cars, autonomous-driving cars, solar cars, and flying cars. We have people working on fusion rockets to reduce the travel time to mars by a factor of ten. We have people working on quantum computing that would exponentially outperform current processing limits. But nothing is being proposed for new road materials. I have not once heard a whisper of some far fetched idea for the next type of road. Ever. In a society that is obsessed with the new this and the revolutionary that, how can something as ubiquitous as roads be under the radar for our need to make things better?

Could it be that no one has noticed that, while we have had thousands working on shaving milliseconds off of a browser search, no one is working on reducing the hours of lost time due to annual road reconstruction? That we have low energy solutions for everything from lawn ornaments to office buildings, yet we still pour untold tons of oil along our highways and lose tons of fuel to idling in construction backups? That we have who knows how many different kinds of running shoes, but only one kind of highway?

Or is it that engineers figure that being the one to replace the millions of miles worth of roads won’t be financially rewarding enough? That revolutionizing a piece of our society that’s remained static for nigh on two centuries wouldn’t be prestigious enough? That liberating the industrialized world from a huge chunk of its dependancy on oil isn’t environmentally responsible enough?

The more I think about this absolute silence on ‘the next road material’, the more it doesn’t make sense. While I understand some classical ideas are timeless, somehow “Crush oil and rocks together with heat” doesn’t seem to me something that ought to last 200 years as our best option.

edmontonpotholeNow, I realize this is no easy task. Our roads have to endure a lot. First, there’s the duress from the daily grind of millions of cars and countless tonnes of cargo travelling at great speeds. Most materials don’t have the durability to withstand a fraction of that abuse. Second, there’s the weather. Roads are naked to the worst nature can throw at us. Even ignoring natural disasters, temperatures can fluctuate madly in a very short amount of time (especially here in Alberta), causing all kinds of volume/density problems. Developing a new and better road material seems an impossibly difficult task.

But then, so does colonizing mars. Seeming impossibility is no excuse to not try. New roads should be the holy grail of civil engineering. Brilliant minds should be throwing out wild ideas, then testing and re-vamping them over and over and over again. Fringe cult woo-centric tin-foil-hatters should be arguing over which new road idea is more holistic and which one could be used by the government to track our movements. Crotchety anti-progress grumps should be complaining that all this fuss is silly and how they learned to appreciate potholes back in their day – ‘Asphalt was good’nuff for my GranPappy, it’s good’nuff for me!’ We should have doubters, experts, and enthusiasts; demonstrations, seminars, and conspiracy theories; grants, contests, and memes. Then, once the social saturation reaches a critical mass, the new road revolution would be inevitable.

So spread the word to all the crafty people in your life, plant the seeds of interest at your local weekend think tank, challenge all your ‘smart’ friends. This has got to resonate with all kinds of people, we just have to get the ball rolling. Just imagine…no more potholes.