The freeze thaw cycles that damage the road are mostly caused by the surface underneath the road freezing, thawing, and shfiting, not caused by the freezing and thawing on top of the road. The heated road could actually cause more damage if the melt water is able to infiltrate under the road and cause more damage.
Seems like they are only installing the heat under the roadway, so walkable may not be the best word unless we expect pedestrains to share a lane with cars in the winter.
Many cities will carry their snow away and let it melt naturally in the spring, helping keep local waterways high during the spring run off.
Building water will often go to sanitary sewers, which has a lot more treatment involved than going to storm sewers, so comparing road melt to a buildings water use isn’t a perfect comparison.
As for repairs, a pothole can easily be patched on the surface relatively quickly by a road crew. A damaged pipe may need additional work such as cutting around the damage, depressurizing the entire system, and replacing the compromised section of pipe followed by a larger patch than needed for a pothole.
Its usually a result of shifting ground underneath the street that causes cracks. The street should be deisigned to prevent regular temperature changes from causing damages, expansion joints for example. If anything this could actually increase the rate of cracking if the melt water infiltrates underneath and contributes to freeze/thaw damages.
The warm melt water also messes up the environment. It can cause egg and insect hatches to happen early before an abundance of spring food is available. The snow melting immediately after falling could also impact natural melt cycles that more gradually add water to the streams, creeks, and rivers
The downsides, the same weather that makes the snow and frost also causes shifts in the ground during freeze thaw cycles, causing damage to the road and heating pipes. The warm melt water also enters waterways and cause shifts in seasonal temperatures, messing with fish and insect hatching times causing them to potentially hatch too early for the spring food they rely on.
See the thing is, this could be just about any road in any city in north america. We refuse to build real places, just lanes and parking lots
I find the night mode on my rear view does okay at reducing the high beams light, but my side mirrors become blindingly bright if they get hit at the right angle.
The trucks will often flash their lights as well, often blinding drivers of sedans and smaller SUVs due to height difference and poor regulations for headlight height.
Except Alec apparently
this stats website contains data that indicates about 80% of the US population currently lives in urban areas.
Again, not saying we ban cars entirely everywhere, but we can build things like trains and trams in population centers.
Those areas don’t have nearly as high a concentration of these pollutants as a busy, 6 lane road the center of the city. Thats where improving air quality can matter the most, especially because that road is likely to have more pedestrians breathing the pollutants than a rural road.
Dragonflys, bats and many other animals rely on that as a food source, then other animals rely on the animals eating mosquitoes. Mosquitoes also spread disease which can act as a natural population control for some species. Everything is interconnected in ecosystems. The animals present, the temperature and chemistry of the water, the depth and nutrition of the soil, the plants that grow there. A minor change can ripple throughout the ecosystem and cause major consequences long term. Some of those changes occur naturally, but for the most part humans change ecosystems faster than they can naturally react.
At least they are waking up to errors of the system. Its a lot harder to rebuild a transport network than it is to make legislation and changes like this. Ultimately we need to be doing both but this is something that could make streets safer without a shovel hitting the ground.
They could be using lift stations if they run the sewer out that far. If the city annexed a chunk of rural land and was planning on expanding into it over the next few years they may have preemptively investing in sewers and water to help spur development.
Hear me out here, less cars regardless of their enegry source will reduce both exhaust and microplastics. We don’t have to trade one for the other when we can build alternatives that don’t produce either.
Most people live in cities and is largey what i am talking about. Those are the areas that dont need you to sit in 30 minutes of traffic to go 7 kms yet thats what we have. People who have to drive should be pro transit and alternatives. It takes people who dont want to drive off the road freeing up more space and easing congestion.
The vast majority of car trips are done locally. Most people aren’t driving from Dallas to New York to get their grocceries, go to the gym, or go to work.
If designed properly, a good deal of sand could be recollected in the stormwater infrastructure and be reused. Some would still escape but i guess its better than the current mix of salt and sand that doesn’t get reused.