Road

If you want to stop potholes from forming in asphalt roads, you've gotta get 'em while they're still just tiny cracks. A new self-healing asphalt could one day do that very thing, utilizing spores obtained from moss.

Urb is on a mission to remake Dubai's landscape into a lush paradise. Its Green Spine project envisions transforming a major highway in the region with park areas, farms, pathways, and the planting of over 1 million trees.

A new modular mobile flyover bridge allows vehicles to drive overtop of stretches of highway roadwork, instead of waiting to go around them. Known as the ASTRA Bridge, it's intended to make life easier for motorists and safer for roadway workers.

Whether you're on a bike or in a car, potholes are a problem. Maintenance is costly and labor intensive, but UK authorities have successfully tested a prototype autonomous machine designed to detect and seal surface cracks that can grow into potholes.

Incorporating a phase-change material into concrete, this self-heating material can melt snow and ice for up to 10 hours without any help. The novel product could reduce the need for plowing and salting and help preserve the integrity of road surfaces.

While stormwater runoff pollutants in general aren't great for aquatic animals, chemicals from tire particles are particularly harmful to salmon. A study now shows that permeable pavements could keep most of those toxins from ever reaching the fish.

An ambitious project out of the University of Surrey aims to stop potholes from developing, using super-efficient ground source heat pumps and phase change microcapsules. We spoke to team leader Dr. Benji Cao to find out how it works.

Ice on roads isn't a good thing, but neither are the eco-unfriendly chloride-based salts used to melt it. Scientists have developed a greener and more effective alternative, however, that could be mixed into the asphalt and remain active for years.

Switzerland's BMC has been manufacturing elite-level performance bikes since the 1980s, and has now announced the launch of a top-of-the-range Class 3 pedal-assist endurance road bike called the Roadmachine 01 AMP X.

Changing up the recipe could help roads last longer. Researchers in Australia have now shown another advantage of adding rubber from old tires to asphalt – extra Sun protection that could help roads last up to twice as long before cracking.

We first got wind of Ducati's ebike aspirations in 2018 with the EICMA debut of a pedal-assist mountain bike developed in collaboration with Thok. More ebikes have followed since, and now the company has announced its first road racer, the Futa.

Although we've been hearing about stronger forms of concrete, one of the keys to making concrete last longer is to keep water from seeping into it. A new surface sealant could help, as it makes existing concrete 75 percent more water-repellent.