Trains
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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what about buses? or do we build trainstations all over the cities?
I mean, I'm all for more public transportation (seriously, wtf America?). But in reality, there is still a need for public roads for things like buses in places where subway stations aren't viable, and also for logistics (construction materials, mail, Amazon deliveries, your Uber eats, etc.)
don't forget emergency services
Bioasphalts can be made from all sorts of non-petroleun renewable resources, including food wastes and sewerage effluent: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioasphalt
I think the main challenge now will be determining the ideal mix of ingredients that best suit the purpose of the asphalt.
Good to know! Thanks!
Also another factor is heavy vehicles. I don’t have the article or video, but I remember hearing that a majority of road damage comes from heavy vehicles. I believe the video was also comparing roads to Rome roads where it wasn’t that they were built better (although volcanic ash did help) it’s that horses and people are way less heavy than the 3,000+lb vehicles we have going almost 24/7.
Less road damage would mean less containments/pollution and less need for repair. So the future might be seeing more public transit and more rail transit for materials/products which would mean wherever we need to add more road or re do sections we would replace it with the greener option or potential normal asphalt since it wouldn’t need to be touched for another 20,30,40+ years.
that a majority of road damage comes from heavy vehicles
Specifically, wear and tear on the road surface scales with the fourth power of vehicle weight.
As a worked example, this means that if we compare a 3-ton cargo van and a 1½-ton sedan, the cargo van weighs twice as much as the sedan, but it does sixteen times as much damage to the road.
Axle load, actually. In theory a 1.5-ton car with two axles and a 3-ton truck with four equally loaded axles would cause the same amount of damage. A 1-ton unicycle would cause more damage than the truck.
Note, though, that this is a rule of thumb. A 50-ton tank is still a 50-ton tank even if you manage to make it have fifty tiny axles. But for fairly average motor vehicles under fairly average conditions it's close enough to be useful for planning.