Phoenix "city planners" (do any cities actually do any intelligent planning?) must be the most pointless job in the world. "How can we design something so awful that it is nearly uninhabitable?" must be their design philosophy. Or perhaps I should give them more credit; it may be a high quality experiment in Martian landscaping and terraforming.
We have got to come up with an inexpensive and non-slippery solution for painting streets white in these cities. I know it’s possible, but all of the existing solutions seem to be really expensive or change the grip of the pavement, or else just don’t last very long.
but all of the existing solutions seem to be really expensive or change the grip of the pavement, or else just don’t last very long.
…or make you go snowblind while you’re trying to drive down the street. Just the thought of Phoenix in July while walking on a completely white surface makes my eyes hurt.
Would it be so bad to use concrete instead? Sure the up front cost is higher, but it has a higher albedo and lasts longer, especially since Phoenix doesn't have snowplows tearing up the streets.
The total cost of ownership differences between asphalt and concrete roads is astronomical.
A single pothole in concrete is a very invasive fix with significant amount of debris, but asphalt can be almost infinitely recycled.
Replacing asphalt means eating up the debris and putting it right back in the ground. Replacing concrete means toting truck loads of the stuff _somewhere else_ to sit
