Los Angeles spending $40K/mile painting city streets white to combat climate chg

Re:Los Angeles spending $40K/mile painting city streets whit... by poulsbohemian on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @10:58PM (#16864266)

Anybody here have knowledge into why it wouldn't be possible to just formulate the pavement itself to be lightly colored? I'm wondering out loud here why you couldn't mix something into it that would alter the color and be a more permanent solution than a top coat.

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Re:Los Angeles spending $40K/mile painting city streets whit... by newnewpdro on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @11:39PM (#16864429)

I'm no expert but asphalt is bitumen for a reason, and bitumen is blacker than black.

If you were to mix in something in sufficient proportion to lighten the color of the asphalt, it seems likely you'd change more properties than just its appearance, like its durability and water resistance.

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Re:Los Angeles spending $40K/mile painting city streets whit... by mc32 on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @11:12PM (#16864323)

Concrete topped roads are lighter than asphalt. But yeah, no reason they cannot have some coating mixed in with the paving material to make it lighter.

Whenever I'm in Vegas, I do wonder why they don't use lighter paving material --you see the warped asphalt from the Summer heat.

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Re:Los Angeles spending $40K/mile painting city streets whit... by flashman on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @11:11PM (#16864317)

You probably could. But there are a lot of roads that already exist.

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