From ancient mud bricks to salty beet succus , roads have a long , winding account — and a glowing future .
WALKING PATHS
Long - stray human kinship group finally hunker down in 9000 BCE and form villages . To hop between settlements , they change over game trails — like the 440 - mile Natchez Trace lead between Mississippi and Tennessee — into walk path .
OXEN TRACKS
Around 5000 BCE , oxen become the pet draught beast and the travois — a V - shaped frame that shoulder labored weight — becomes the world ’s first fomite . Trackways widen to hold great loads .
STONE ROADS
Sumerian invent the better affair to come before chopped bread — the wheel — around 4000 BCE . Roads made of clay brick appear in the Indus Valley , while Mesopotamians build stone streets near Ur , Iraq .
LONG LANES
Around 3300 BCE , log trackways are built in London to help sleds glide along . Corduroy roads of tone appear near Glastonbury , England , to help masses plod over sentimental marshland .
MORTARED MOTORWAYS
Metallurgy earn stone cut easier and roads smoother around 2000 BCE . On the island of Crete , Minoans construct a route of sandstone that ’s cobble together with mortar — a first !
ASPHALT ARRIVES!
mineral pitch debuts in Babylon in 625 BCE when King Nabopolassar pave the street leading to his palace . It will take Europeans another 2000 years to catch up . ( Asphalt was also used to embalm mama ! )
THE ORIGINAL TURNPIKE
The world ’s first toll gate is installed on England ’s Great North Road in 1656 . ( The gate was a new idea ; the cost was not . Travelers on Iraq ’s Babylon Road had to pay off up as early as the 7th century BCE ! )
FOOD ON THE ROAD
Special formula like SafeLane , which incorporate seawater and other de - icing chemical substance , can prevent frost and bootleg methamphetamine from forming . But beet juice and cheese brine effectively clear roads too — and they ’re environmentally well-disposed . In fact , when temperatures dunk , a veggie slurry performs effective than route salt !
PLASTIC PAVEMENT
In 2011 , a 90 - foot span crossing the River Tweed in Scotland was made of 100 per centum recycle plastic , which means it ca n’t rust and will never involve to be paint . former charge card pocketbook and bottles are act their way into paving too . In Vancouver , a waxy goo of recycled plastic is used to make asphalt flow more smoothly .
GLOW-IN-THE-DARK HIGHWAYS
To economize money , main road streetlamps are often deform off late at night — which moderately much defeats their purpose . But in 2014 , Dutch engineers found a unexampled mode to keep the roads lit : radiate - in - the - sullen lane seam . A 0.3 - Admiralty mile stretch of road near Oss , Netherlands , is now flanked with photoluminescent nerve tract .
SOLAR-POWERED STREETS
In the U.S. , more than 2.5 million miles of paving suck up the sun ’s ray — and we do diddly - knee bend with it . California - based Solar Roadways be after to draw rein that energy by lining roads with long-wearing solar panel , which would bake under a plate of tough meth . The first prototype was unveil last yr , and the troupe exact the technology could outmatch the body politic ’s energy needs four multiplication over .
ELECTRIC GRIDS
In Gumi , South Korea , electromagnetic cable planted in the mineral pitch charge the city ’s electric bus while they ’re on the go , extinguish the need to stop at a charging station .
