These streets are both a good and a bad idea in an economical view. They're good in the sense that the government would be paying glass companies quite a bit of money to replace the streets and in the long run would theoretically spend less money, because they wouldn't need the snow clearing vehicles. The bad thing is that asphalt companies would most likely all but go out of business without the government needing their services, which would hurt the economy because money wouldn't be getting pumped into it by the government. With asphalt companies shut down all the workers would lose their jobs and their paychecks. This whole ordeal would mean that less people are spending money, hurting the economy. With over 3 million miles of highway in the US the impact would be quite severe given how many workers are needed to maintain the upkeep of those roads. Overall I think that the idea of these green roads is cool, but I don't think our nations economy is quite ready to have all those people unemployed.
10 comments:
I am wondering what the initial cost would be to install the green roads? How do they choose which roads get the green treatment?
Would all major highways receive the green roads? They seem like a really cool idea, but I completely agree with you that the economy will probably be better off not installing the green roads. The economy just deosn't need that many people unemplyed right now, we have more than enough unemployed citizens without the asphalt business going under.
Sounds like a good idea. The only problem is who it's going to affect later down the road or instantly. We save money in the long run, but with economy in the toilet right now, we need more jobs not less ones. This will affect the asphalt companies just like what you and Curt said, but it will also affect those who keep the roads clear. Another thing would be when the roads are wet on that glass, cars will hydroplane like nobody's business. I can't even imagine driving on hard glass.
Since the asphalt jobs would go out of business, wouldn't more jobs open up in order to begin the green road treatments? I think this is a very smart idea when you consider how much easier the care would be. Would this also mean that construction workers lose their jobs since they won't be working on fixing the streets?
Overall this plan is useful for certain geographical locations. This type of road would be great up in the Northern United States yet in Texas it is a waste. So to answer the question of what will happen to asphalt companies, yes they will shrink but not vanish. In areas such as Texas with the normally warm to hot climate, these Green roads would actually cost more money then they would save. Also think of the additional waste implementing this plan would create, thousands of tons of old asphalt or concrete would just be thrown away or what? what to that? also wouldn't it take more time and effort to repair a road? if a section of heaters goes out having to pull that entire section out, fabricate a new one and lay it in. With asphalt you can just do pot hole repair. Which is also cost effective being that you don't have to remove anything you just fill the hole.
If they replace each road with a green road when an old road needs to be replaced anyway, I would not think that is wasteful. But, if they replace perfectly good roads with green roads that would be a waste of money. They should over time start replacing roads as needed and eventually we would have all green roads. That time span would give asphalt companies a chance to adapt their business to building these green roads instead.
I agree with what Matthew said about the plan being useful for certain geographical locations. I think it would balance out the jobs lost and gained from both sides of making glass roads and asphalt. But the jobs lost in asphalt companies up north might have to move south to get an asphalt job. This might have a small, but positive affect in the housing market. I also think this plan would be useful if it were limited to certain locations of the United States.
I agree with Taylor in that if the asphalt companies withered, more jobs would open up for building and constructing the new green roads. Also I agree with Tyler in that if a new road was redone with a green road, it would be wasteful, but if an old road needs to be redone, we should just go ahead and start building green roads.
To Garret: The roads wouldn't be made out of straight glass they would be made out of a glass mix with some sort of grip on the top. To the comment on people losing their street cleaning jobs, I think it is highly unlikely that these roads would have self service in that way, so we would probably still have street cleaners. One thing I would also like to point out, that I forgot to on the main post, is that even though a lot of people would lose their jobs at the asphalt companies, they could get new ones as upkeep-ers of these new roads. I say this because there has to be some form of upkeep involved with these roads to maintain their ability to melt the snow/ice, whether it be replacing parts or tweaking settings etc.
To Smith: Like I said in the post, they haven't even begun to test the roads yet so I doubt a cost has been calculated. If they were to figure out a cost though it would have to include not only the parts, but also all the labor used for removing the old road and installing the new one. Choosing which roads would be replaced would most likely have to do with the location of the roads. Like Matthew said we probably wouldn't need heated roads in Texas, Florida, or any of the other southern states, but up north in Washington, Missouri, etc. it would be extremely helpful.
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