The Road to the Future

The Road Idea Contest got delayed like I-15 under stimulus package construction.  I learned a lot from this contest, and will make future contests even better.

I received a great road idea from Scott Brusaw of Solar Roadways.  His company wants to build solar panels into our roads.
A solar road could:

  • Power the cars that drive on them.
  • Generate heat to keep snow from forming ice
  • "Paint" itself with lights
  • Power the world
Pretty cool idea.  I hope Scott can succeed in changing our roads.  Under our current system of state and federal control of roads, innovation is difficult to accomplish.  Check out his TEDx talk.

The road contest was meant to be a mental exercise to get people out of the paradigm of socialized roads.

For example: a private company would lose customers if it fined them for driving too fast.  A competitor who figured out how to let people drive safely at 200 or 300 miles per hour would gain the customers.

Roads are so ubiquitous, that it is difficult to even think about them. They become part of the landscape.    When traffic is bad, we don't think, "this road sucks."  Rather, we tend to think, "all the drivers around me are idiots."  It's time to start thinking about why roads suck, and how to make them better.

For instance, most people do not think about roads as a form of subsidy to the auto industry.  Just as subsidies to corn have created a huge surplus of corn—which contributes to the problems associated with HFCS, obesity, and diabetes—road subsidies have created urban sprawl, making cars a necessity.  Cars are great, but we don't realize that without this subsidy, something better might have come along.  Like jetpacks.

I'd like to welcome all of you to read Walter Block's seminal work on Road Socialism.  


I look forward to our next contest.

Comments

  1. kathy w.November 3, 2011 at 10:10 PM

    Solar roads. Genius! I never would have thought of this (and apparently, neither would the government).

    ReplyDelete

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