Concrete Road vs Asphalt Road: The Great Debate!

Discover the pros and cons of concrete and asphalt roads in this informative video. From durability and cost-effectiveness to safety and eco-friendliness, we explore which road pavement reigns supreme.

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[ron]

The biggest advantage of concrete was not even mentioned: its lighter color makes driving at night much safer. At night, asphalt roads can disappear unless they are well illuminated, which is unlikely in rural areas and on turnpikes.

[priyanksaklani]

I think the most important reason to use concrete road is weather. In India the temperature in summers regularly goes over 45° Celsius. I have seen Asphalt roads literally melting in summers.
Also concrete roads are imune to water logging damage which helps in torrential monsoon weather.

[glennvanzandt]

As a truck driver, I do not like concrete to drive on. Some of the roughest road I drive on are concrete. Additionally, I drive in some cities with concrete roads that aren't close to 20 years old and they are terrible.

[tysonplett]

Here in Canada concrete doesn't last any longer than asphalt because our intense freeze-thaw cycles destroy it.

[jgroenveld]

I remember living next to a concrete interstate freeway and I was curious why they had massive stones wall that separate the residential areas from the freeway. I had assume it was for safely but it was more for sound proofing due how loud traffic is when driven over concrete.

[Yui]

One thing not mentioned about concrete roads is the difference between adhesive and abrasive friction. Concrete roads have less adhesive friction than asphalt, but higher abrasive friction. While both can be engineered to provide similar levels of traction, the difference is in what happens when you lose traction on each surface. On concrete, losing traction is more abrupt and less controllable. This makes for more dangerous situations in the case of brake lockups or oversteering/understeering in a turn.

[DistributistHound]

Opinion from Mexico, concrete is more durable and I believe is the best choice for trucks and heavy vehicles however once its life span is finished is supernoisy, new asphalt is like silk but is prone to potholes.
Although U.S. concrete is really good even compared to countries like Canada or Australia

[humanguu]

Asphalt is smooth to ride.
Concrete is rough to ride.
As myself motorcycle & scooter rider

[lkstov]

In europe you'll almost never find yourself on a concrete roadway. Now that I think about it the only places where concrete is used are toll booths on the highway and border checkpoints. Asphalt is the clear choice, both for safety and comfort. I've heard stories from my dad about a part of the autobahn where there used to be concrete pavement. Absolutely horrendous and unacceptable.

[rizalinodelsocorro]

Here in the Philippines, concrete pavement which started to deteriorate on its surface were overlaid with asphalt to prolong its life. As to night time driving, even in the rural areas, asphalt pavement were illuminated with thermoplastic pavement markings with glass beads to be reflective at night.

[kmf]

I live just north of Dallas in Richardson, and work just east in Garland. When I use Dallas, I'm actually meaning the greater Dallas metro.

So, Dallas uses concrete almost exclusively for road construction....and overall, it's horrible. We're known for our bad potholes. I'm sure we're not the only ones, but we have a bad combination of factors that make either material have disadvantages.

It's a known issue here that the ground soil contains a high degree of clay, which itself, expands and contracts with the temperature. Home foundations often crack and shift, causing repairs a common issue. The roads must also be built on this, with concrete being more inflexible than asphalt.

The weather is another factor. Dallas can get hot as hell for long stretches during the summer, making concrete the better choice. But we also have wet, cold, freezing winters with ice storms that wreak havoc with the same concrete. Any cracks get moisture in them, then the freezes just tears them apart and we end up with countless unforgiving potholes everywhere. To make it worse, there's so many repairs that need to be made, it seems like to fix a concrete pothole, the repair crews just shovel some asphalt into the hole and leave. Now, instead of a hole, we're left with an uneven mound of material the can both stick up from road surface, and still have a depression in the same spot. Many of the concrete sections also become uneven, causing a slight rise or drop at the expansion seams.

So, basically, the Dallas area has a problem with either choice. Personally, I'd wish they had more asphalt in the non-highway areas. The concrete everywhere tears up people's vehicles like you wouldn't believe.

[retiredcolonel]

I read a story a few years back where a company had developed a road paving material from old tires. It was great idea. I was more durable than asphalt, much quieter, and helped the economy. The draw back was cost but that was more than offset by the longer lasting material compared to asphalt. The story went that both the construction unions and the asphalt companies used their influence with legislators, eg, political donations (aka, bribes), to put barriers in place to stop the use of this material on government contracted roads (which accounts for almost all of the revenues for paving companies). I don’t know where this is today but it’s typical with the whole unions, corporations and government stepping in to quash innovation history.

[arnoudjanschut]

I miss one important point. The type of underground the road is created on. In the Netherlands concrete roads are rare, due to our soil. If you cross the border into Germany, there is more concrete. On a soft soil, the concrete construction can break and crack due to sagging, while an asphalt road gets unpleasant but does not break. And in the Netherland we have ZOAB, which is "very open asphalt concrete", due to the open structure the water does not stay and there is hardly any spray from the cars and no aquaplaning. Great! Unless there is icerain, then you can't drive on it at all (the salt goes in the holes, the black ice sticks on top, nothing can be done)

[onurgns]

Concrete durable but I like to drive on beautiful asphalt smooth and quite

[MarcosCityXD]

I think that in the part of Spain with a Mediterranean climate, concrete would be great for us. The asphalt gets super hot, and in cities like Madrid and Barcelona there are always streets/roads closed to repair the asphalt.

[nunya]

Concrete roads are supposed to last 40 years but are slicker when covered by ice and asphalt is better in areas with earthquakes

[MikeMessiah]

ASphalt has the lifespan of 10-20 years? Someone plz tell this to our politicians 😫😫

[pookatim]

Here in New Jersey, it is easy to compare since the two major highways are the Garden State Parkway (asphalt no trucks) and the New Jersey Turnpike (concrete cars and trucks). Asphalt is great for cars and concrete is great for Trucks. The biggest problem I see with asphalt has to do with heavy trucks. It isn't so much them driving along on it but if there are roads with intersections or driveways the Heavy Trucks have to make turns on. The heavy loads on the tires tend to tear up asphalt quickly. You can see this near places like Home Depot where large Trucks making deliveries have to make 90 degree turns out of the driveway and again where the access road meats the main road. The surfaces of these intersections are always being torn up. They can lay new asphalt there and in a few weeks it is nothing but potholes. The Parkway here has the asphalt roadway completely resurfaced every year. The snow plows wreak havoc on the road surface. In Spring, the process of resurfacing commences. The best part is that they can close one lane at a time for quite a distance for the repair. They strip the top layer off and a then reuse the old asphalt mixed with new and put down a beautiful new road surface. On the concrete Turnpike, the roadway doesn't need to be resurface nearly as often but the concrete tends to absorb carbon from tires and oils leaking from vehicles then when it first rains, it can be pretty treacherous. When the road surface does need to be replaced it takes a hell of a long time before the lanes are usable again.

[ianbelletti]

I've seen plenty of concrete highways get an asphalt top cover when the surface starts getting too much wear. Also, the higher emmission cost of asphalt is somewhat of a misnomer because the bitumen is a byproduct of separating fuels out of crude oil. You need to divide the emission cost between all crude oil products.

[AB-jzns]

I live in Pennsylvania and there are plenty of concrete highways around. The main drawback is that they are VERY noisy as the tires produce this loud humming. The road near my house (Route 22) was totally rebuilt about 20 years ago and in all those years only once they had to resurface a few sections. The road still looks almost like new. So the big benefit is longevity especially for roads that are very busy full of heavy semis like RT 22 from Pittsburgh all the way to NYC.