The pavement along Old Route 66 in New Mexico will now play "America the Beautiful"—but only if you're driving the posted speed limit of 45 miles per hour.
"A line of 'rumble strips' were installed on a street betwen [sic] Alberquerque [sic] and Tijeras earlier this month. When motorists drive over the strips at the correct speed (45mph), metal plates under the tarmac vibrate, producing music. The result is something that sounds like a trombone slowly puffing out 'America the Beautiful,'" reports the CityMetric staff.
The CityMetric article picks up on an ABC News report from earlier in October about old Route 66's tuneful new ways. For ABC News, Dina Abou Salem also reports that the musical rumble strips were paid for by the National Geographic channel.
The CityMetric article also lists five other musical streets from around the world.
FULL STORY: Route 66 Adds Singing Road as Speeding Deterrent
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A bit of bizarre news caught my attention recently and it got me thinking. It was about these roads in Japan that had been designed to play music as cars drive over them. The engineers behind this idea cut thousands of grooves into the roadway, separated them by certain specific intervals, and then drove their cars. What resulted is a weird humming melody that reverberates in the cars as they drive. The video linked below showing the roads and their songs is awesome, but so much more could be done.
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research