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this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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You may not quite realize for how long roads are impassible to all traffic in northern states. Where I live, a couple hundred miles south of Grand Rapids, the snow and ice still make roads entirely impassible for a total of a week or so every winter; it takes the coordinated effort of hundreds of salt trucks and plows to get it cleaned out enough to drive, bus, walk, or bike on. Then that same effort has to be expended again a couple of weeks later.
Piping existing waste heat underground into a system like this, when the road is uncovered for repair anyway, would make a lot of sense for high-traffic areas so that plows can focus on other locations instead; it would also reduce the salt budget and plow fuel budget, and reduce the maintenance budget for cleanup and repair due to salt damage.
Going even a little bit further north, this would likely be even more effective. In some Michigan cities, roofed streets make economic sense; this seems even more cost-effective and less likely to require heavy repair.
Bike lanes, public transportation, roadway maintenance, and snow & ice clearing are all expensive. None of them have to turn a profit.
Yeah; trains that can be their own ploughs would be communist.
Trains would definitely be a great choice. But in a lot of places in the midwestern US, the economic realities of fixed transit infrastructure are tricky.
Not impossible. I'm definitely not saying that. But they'd require more regulatory steps than a robust bus network, for instance.
Tell that to the pre world war two united states, porphyriato era mexico, and literally siberia.
I'm so glad roads are flexible and free.
Yeah, I know. But the last two were accomplished largely by fiat. Which should be impossible in the US, though...you know.
And the pre-WW2 US had the advantage of essentially being pre-suburbs. Now sprawl means that the cost of adequate rail connections increases exponentially while the tax base increases linearly.
Again, like I said before, this is not impossible. But it will require a concerted effort to reverse a century's worth of underinvestment in urban areas, white flight, and stigmatization of multi-family living; and right now, we're doing the opposite of all of those things.
Im glad the cost of car capable roads and their maintenance, plus fuel and vehicle subdidies, stays the same no matter what. That's so lucky.
No, of course they don't stay the same. I'm not asserting that at all. In fact, that's a big problem in a lot of places with huge road networks and proportionally too-small tax bases. But they're already there, and upkeep is cheaper than building new.
Is it?