What will roads of the future be made of?

What will roads of the future be made of?

My vote is on glass, but I can't figure out why we aren't doing this now (well we are somewhat transitioning to glassphalt):

Tiers:
1: glass
2: glassphalt
3: bituminous asphalt
4: concrete


Glass:
+durable
+negligible thermal expansion coeff
+cheap? I mean, it's sand basically
+less potholes
+easily patched? just remelt the portion?
+aesthetic and can add colors/patterns
-can get slippery when wet, less permeable, but you can just stamp a texture on it, make some drainage channels/holes
-higher cost of laying down since need more heat plus option to reheat to make glass ceramics, stamp with textures

Glassphalt:
besides those that apply from just glass:
+recycled materials
+highly porous in terms of water, traps oils
-still needs binders
-more difficult to patch than asphalt?

Every time I try to search for glass roads I get either glassphalt or those gimmicky solar panel roads. Although the solar panel ones are basically glass with solar panels under. But they are so gimmicky and unreasonable that no one comments scientifically about feasibility of the glass part. I don't want to read through textbooks about glass, surface chemistry, etc. Does anyone know why glass roads are bad? I imagine it just has something to do with weight of cars, but they seem durable enough for that. Also the permeability but I'm sure matsci has answers for that somewhere if creating channels won't solve it.

>What will roads of the future be made of?

Asphalt. It is nearly 100% recyclable, durable, coarse, and dirt cheap. There is literally no reason to switch to something else as our primary material for roads.

except its not environmentally friendly

also I guess it depends on where you live, but where I have been, the streets are a horrible mess of bumpy, patched asphalt. Also asphalt streets need to be repaved more frequently than glass one would.

Bituminous asphalt is made using oil, which we are also trying to steer away from

Glass will never be used on roads. See the other guys post

>except its not environmentally friendly
So?

>except its not environmentally friendly

Yes it is. It's a byproduct of the petroleum industry, and as previously stated, is completely recyclable. The material would otherwise be thrown into landfills or dumped into the ocean.

>also I guess it depends on where you live, but where I have been, the streets are a horrible mess of bumpy, patched asphalt.

So the same government sector incapable of fixing the easily-replaceable asphalt roads is going to routinely maintain glass roads with portable glass furnaces? Your idea is terrible, I'm sorry.

>Also asphalt streets need to be repaved more frequently than glass one would.

I guarantee that the difference in wear-time would be marginal, and the effort needed to melt new glass on-site to replace the roads would outweigh the benefits of having to do it less often.

>Bituminous asphalt is made using oil, which we are also trying to steer away from

But making roads isn't even a source of demand for oil. We use only a portion of petroleum waste to make roads.

Any glass that could be made at a reasonable cost would not be durable

very well, thanks for the responses

graphene is the logical choice

one layer of graphene a mile wide could hold up 12 empire state buildings

also it has no carbon footprint so its environmentally friendly

>one layer of graphene a mile wide could hold up 12 empire state buildings

Are we talking a flat strip of some given area of graphene, extruded upwards to form a 1 mile thick block pointing upwards? Or a one-atom layer thick sheet of graphene with an area of 1 square mile?

You have obviously never used graphene. It cuts super easily.

>roads

And it's fucking expensive. And the biggest piece of graphene is maybe 100 cm^2 at most.

Also, look up graphene exfoliation. The best method to get good graphene is with a fucking pencil and tape.

Why do they use asphalt for roads and regular concrete for sidewalks most of the time?

I've been asking myself this. It's not like footies don't need friction and less slipperiness in bad weather. By now, I'm convinced pavement is just for looks.

You ever walked over hot asphalt? It sticks to your shoes.

3+4
Anthracenous concrete.

This. People will jut ride drones in the future. Traffic is for niggers

Just like everyone uses helicopters now instead of cars right?

Oh wait...

>baseless assumptions: the post

an average person can barely drive a car
would you let people fly their cars through the air?

>solar panel roads are gymmicky but not glass roads
Shit man.
As for the rest of your post, I don't know whether you are a very dedicated ruseman or genuinely retarded

>What will roads of the future be made of?
>My vote is on glass
What is rain, what is snow, what are oil spills.

I'd say we just go the Elon Musk route and make trains that can go 200+mph. Less traffic and more potential to grope women in the trains.

I remember the day that stupid chinese glass bridge got a crack in it

>Yes it is. It's a byproduct of the petroleum industry, and as previously stated, is completely recyclable. The material would otherwise be thrown into landfills or dumped into the ocean.

Don't they absorb a lot of heat increasing the greenhouse effect?

Most asphalt I see has tiny gravel embedded in it so you don't actually contact the stuff itself.

It serms to be a dinosaur of road construction though.

SOLAR
FREAKING
ROADWAYS

>glass roads

Hi Frenchie

>What will roads of the future be made of?
Pigshit. Not even kidding. Baked pigshit.

Post mechanism or it doesn't happen.

Assuming there are still going to be cars in the future, they are going to be self-driving., but they sure won't ride on conventional roads. Self-driving cars could be able to ride on a lot if different roads with no risk of an accident. My guess is some kind of levitating car, such as maglev trains, only on smaller scale. This would reduce the friction, and cars could drive much faster, with no risks of an accident since they are self-driving.

Maybe putting - magnet inside a road and + magnet at the bottom of a car, which would make it levitate. Would that even be possible? Or run a current through the road and make it an electromagnet. I guess you could steer the car by varying the amount of current it gets at it's different ends of it, kinda what the those trains do.

Black things become hotter when exposed to sun

Okay cool, so it doesnt happen

Black things are social constructs.

In Germany it's mostly both Asphalt but on newer streets they lay bricks

That's kinda disappointing. I always imagined Germany as this technological utopia, high-tech country where everything is up-to-date, and the newest advancements are always implemented.

Then look at a map how fast the internet in Germany is
Most homes still have under 12mbs

Eurosocialist countries are in fact extremely poor compared to the USA

[citation needed]

>except its not environmentally friendly

Not having your roads biodegrade is a desirable trait.

Fracture toughness for glass. Glassphalt may be competitive in some places. In some places, people recycle a lot, meaning recycling companies get too much glass back. Like piles of it. So much they don't have a clue what to do about it

You forgot sulfurcrete, it's for making roads on the Moon and Mars!

>roads
>in the future

oh wait you didn't listen, enjoy your dirt paths

10/10

>it's not environmentally friendly
They don't fucking care.

Urban heat island effect, not greenhouse effect.