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Comment by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF | Hacker News Reader

"The road to hell is paved with asphalt" saw this here on HN not long ago - https://devonzuegel.com/the-road-to-hell-is-paved-with-aspha...

They mention less heat as one of the multiple benefits of pavers / bricks.

I used to dislike them by default - "They're bumpy". They're not bumpy. There's a shopping center in my town, and even a new Taco Bell, that use pavers for their parking lot, and I can't even notice.

We could probably do pavers for new parking lots and keep asphalt / concrete for heavy-duty stuff like interstates and roads over 30 MPH and not lose much except the up-front cost of pavers. (But hey if Taco Bell thinks they're worth it...)

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But bumpy is good!!!! A bumpy street is one where you drive slowly and don't run over children riding bikes to school. A bumpy street is one where you pay attention. A bumpy street says "you may drive here but this is not a space _just_ for your car".

If only they were more common outside the Netherlands. I love my bumpy, brick, tree-lined, narrow, street.

Every residential street should be paved with bricks or other paving stones, instead of asphalt. It's safer, because people drive more slowly. The maintenance costs are also lower.

Bricks and pavers are very difficult to plow safely. They are also more expensive than asphalt.

But for warm, affluent locations, they make sense.

"Bumpiness" could be climate related - I've spent a lot of time in the upper midwest US and Canada, the freeze/thaw cycles mean things move in the earth.

If you've got freeze/thaw cycles, then your asphalt roads will be bumpy as well. Trust me on that one.

Only if the foundations are bad and the road surface is not rated for the axle load of the vehicles that drive on it. I live in Norway where it is hovering around freezing just now. The only places where this affects the road is where water has penetrated the foundations in such a way as to wash away some support or where heavy vehicles have cracked the road surface allowing water in which subsequently freezes. If the road is properly constructed and maintained with sufficiently good drainage on both sides frost heave (telehiv in Norwegian) should not be a problem.

I grew up in Northern Norway, and pretty clearly there are a lot of roads with telehiv. ;-)

You're probably right about foundation quality. But there sure are a lot of roads that didn't get that right.

It might honestly be easier to fix freeze-thawed cracked pavers than having to rip up asphalt and lay it back down.

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