Doesn’t it seem like a natural disaster is always brewing somewhere in our nation?
It’s not our imagination. In 2024 alone:
- catastrophic floods washed away communities in the Southeast and Upper Midwest
- horrendous fires blazed in the West and Southwest
- multiple outbreaks of tornadoes devastated communities throughout the nation, including some as far north as Chicago and New York City
This list could go on.
And already this year, wind- and drought-fueled fires have wrecked communities in Southern California as winter storms iced the Gulf Coast.
This volatile weather has been especially tough on our transportation infrastructure. Extreme floods have washed away vital Interstate highways, requiring months, or more, of rebuilding. For example, crews are still hard at work rebuilding Interstate 40 in Western North Carolina after Hurricane Helene’s devastation back in September.
Why has 21st century weather been so hard on our roads and bridges? Here’s one reason: The structure undergirding some of our busiest corridors was laid in the mid-20th century. In some cases, the infrastructure is even older, dating to the 1920s and 1930s.
Engineers in that era couldn’t anticipate the relentless climate chaos we now experience, so they couldn’t build the best roads for 21st century conditions.
Today we have more knowledge. We know today’s weather patterns, of course, and we know the additional pressures climatologists expect in the decades ahead. Our engineers can build a highway system with 22nd century travelers in mind.
Today’s road builders also have more versatile methods than their counterparts from earlier generations. For example, we can build roads higher off the ground. We can use climate and geologic data to find less vulnerable routes for new roads. New building methods can also divert more water through larger culverts and drainage ditches.
Plus, a new type of permeable pavement can relieve the burden on drains and culverts by absorbing instead of diverting rainwater and melting snow.
At InfraStripe, we connect travelers to highway driving patterns by providing the industry’s best pavement marking, traffic control devices, and traffic safety solutions. In other words, our companies create the user experience for our nation’s millions of highway travelers.
As we build infrastructure for 22nd century travelers, we will continue to embrace newer, more durable traffic control and safety solutions. This could mean using generative AI to help plan projects, building traffic patterns with driverless cars in mind, or embracing technology that doesn’t exist yet.
In any case, our goal will always remain the same: to improve safety for anyone who travels on our nation’s roads.