I don't see much talk about that self-evident fact. Asphalt sucks in so many ways. What would be a better alternative that needs not worry about cars but mostly bicycles?
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
1. Be Civil
You may not agree on ideas, but please do not be needlessly rude or insulting to other people in this community.
2. No hate speech
Don't discriminate or disparage people on the basis of sex, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, or sexuality.
3. Don't harass people
Don't follow people you disagree with into multiple threads or into PMs to insult, disparage, or otherwise attack them. And certainly don't doxx any non-public figures.
4. Stay on topic
This community is about cars, their externalities in society, car-dependency, and solutions to these.
5. No reposts
Do not repost content that has already been posted in this community.
Moderator discretion will be used to judge reports with regard to the above rules.
In the absence of a flair system on lemmy yet, let’s try to make it easier to scan through posts by type in here by using tags:
Have a look at Dutch streets. Many of them are paved with bricks. It allows rainwater to be absorbed rather than running off causing flooding.
Not Just Bikes did a great video on it a while back.
There's an old theater I performed at twice in Southern Ohio. Built before the Civil War, and surrounded by brick buildings, a brick street out front, brick alley, and brick parking lot area.
The second time I was there, the street had been paved, as had the back parking area, and large portion of surrounding alleys. Only the single side alley was still brick.
The first time it rained the week I was there, the basement, while not flooded completely, had so much water running through it to the sunken boiler room, the owners had to toss down some quick 2x4 walkways so nobody was ruining costumes and footwear or slipping and suing. The walls of the basement looked like mini waterfalls.
I popped outside during a lull and the back parking area and alley were basically acting as a funnel, pushing all the water right up to the sides of the building.
I just checked a satellite map view and it looks like they've at least re-paved the back alley (don't know if it drains any better but it's clearly much darker and there's lines painted) and the building beside it is gone and instead there's a ton of grass. So maybe it's better, but I'm sure they shortened the remaining life of the building by a ton.
That doesn't work everywhere. The netherlands doesn't experience too many freeze/thaw cycles and their ground doesn't freeze for half the year.
Not being a solution "everywhere" doesn't negate its value, but having lived in the Netherlands and visited Copenhagen myself, I can tell you that paving bricks are applied well in both places and that they hold up just fine against frozen weather.
Is there some kind of drainage system under the bricks? If the ground is frozen, id assume meltwater will collect between and under the bricks.
Absolutely there is. Nobody except ignorant homeowners DIYing a patio ever puts pavers directly on dirt; we've known better than that since at least Roman times, if not earlier.
(source)
It's still done the same way today.
Yes, klinkers aren't laid directly on the ground, it usually has a layer of sloped gravel and another layer of sand/fine gravel compacted with a vibrating plate, which prevents water pooling between and beneath them in the first place
But isn't asphalt even more susceptible to frost related damage?
I come from an area with both types of road surfaces and the condition of the asphalt is generally much worse after winter.
A massive part of that is water instrusion under the road or into cracks of the surface itself. The frost also expands the underground material sometimes leading to humps on the road that develop to cracks that make the problems worse and worse.
Exactly.
But so far mainly seen this for asphalt once it is a few years old.
It also is much harder to rectify again for asphalt without tearing it all up and rebuilding it from scratch, leading to the emergency pothole covering cycle of death, ending in the typical uneven patchwork asphalt surfaces l see everywhere.
I've seen a lot of brick driveways and patios warp and heave from the winters in my area. The patios aren't built to the standard of a road of course but asphalt driveways do seem to outlast the brick ones. The brick driveways have the same benefit as the road with increased permeability.
l guess that's the relevant difference. Brick needs good groundwork and proper drainage.
That's the case for the official brick town roads here, some of which are hundreds of years old. (although these really old ones are not nice to ride with a bike on, rough stones with huge gaps)