Snow Free Roads...

...Don`t you think in this day and age, that they ought to be able to come up with SOMETHING to put in or on the pavement to keep snow and ice from doing anything but stay melted?
I love the snow too....but hate having to drive on it.
Linda

hmmm maybe we should invent it lol

I know that they do..I think it's just an issue of cost (as dumb as that sounds...lives are more important than $$) but at the airport when we get alot of snow and ice they will chemically treat the runways to melt the ice..it's stuff that can be sprayed with a truck....but it's very very costly..I don't see why they couldn't use it on the roads?

Right now my vehicle is white from all the salt that has been applied on the road in the past couple of weeks-with more precipition due over the next 2-3 days it doesn't pay to wash it either!!! I wish they would use more sand like they do in the Upper Peninsula of MI (talk about snow!!) The salt isn't the best for the environment either. Like Miss Mew (soon to be Mrs MEW!) stated the other alternatives are most costly.
But if anyone burns firewood the wood ashes are a good use on your driveway instead of salt (just a bit more messy though!!) and spread a bit on your hosta beds kill those nasty slug eggs!!

Linda, I'm not sure exactly where in MI you are but when they rebult the S-Curve in Gand Rapids they did put some sort of anti-icing system in the road that was supposed to keep the whole thing free from ice. I don't usually drive in downtown GR so I am not sure exactly how effective it is, but I do recall that is was quite costly!!!

Anti-icing system on S-curve
Second paragraph tells that they did it.

Tells how it is done Which sounds like the airport stuff mentioned above. Read section "Spanning Land and Water"

Great article about cost of this Read section on "Michigans Work"

Being that I live in Michigan I understand!!! The roads are just terrible sometimes and Lake Effect snow is a real boar. Just last night we got dumped on here. About 4 inches in a matter of a couple hours. And everything was freezing solid. We almost didn't make it up the very iny hill to get in the driveway and our neighbor got stuck in hers!

Gotta love Michigan!

Jill

There's one very steep stretch of road in our town which is really treacherous when it snows. About five years ago, the town repaved it, and put some sort of a heating system in. It really helps, but cost around a million. and the people who live on that stretch had to contribute several thousand apiece. I believe the technology has existed for quite a while, but it's a question of expense.

Salt isn't used here anymore because it rusts out vehicles and is bad for the water tables to have that much salt added to the environment. I think the environmentalists really pushed for CDOT to stop using salt on the roads. Sand works, but only to a point. They use Magnesium Chloride to spray the roads so they don't freeze up, but that also only works to a certain temp, and if there is too much snow it will still stick to the roads and get slick.

Working for a mechanical engineering office, I know that they do offer snowmelt systems for rooftops (i.e. hospital rooftops with emergency helipads), parking garages, and in high end developments for driveways. They use hydronic (water) heating with glycol as the anti-freezing agent. And they are VERY expensive! It would be beyond cost prohibitive to do this on any kind of large scale. That's probably the system Tricia is talking about.

Once when we were driving home from up North we had that truck thing that clears the snow to the sides of the road in front of us and it definitly made our trip a lot easier.

Those are snow plow's!!! Thats what my dad drove for a living for the local hwy dept when he was working. We always had a clean driveway!!!

I typed "heated driveway" into a search engine and you'd be surprised to know that there are ways to heat your driveway so that you don't have to deal with the snow and ice!! Perhaps regular roadways could invest in something like this. Of course, we tax payers would pay the enormous bill!!

Here in CA, Caltrans & the mountain communities use CMA (calcium-magnesium-acetate) worked into the pavement, which helps melt snow & ice on contact as well as break the ice/pavement bond that can form from plowing. Salt is harmful to the roadside as well as to car finishes, but the CMA is beneficial to the dirt & hoses off well. Additionally, volcanic cinders (ash) is used instead of salt. The snow removal here is great, with Mammoth Lakes said to have some of the best snow removal in the world. What a shock to travel in Nevada & Arizona in blizzards - I have to hand it to the drivers there - they do a great job maneuvering some treacherous roads.