Science: Steel Highway

Startled motorists in Darien, Conn. buzzed along the first steel roadway last week. It was a test strip of steel grid, like the landing mats that surface emergency military airfields. The builders believed they were pioneering the highway of the future.

In the new road the steel mesh, laid on the roadbed, is filled with sand and pebbles and coated with road oil. It costs more than a concrete surface, but its builders, Irving Subway Grating Co., claim that it can be laid much faster, is easier to maintain, may prevent road washouts. Biggest expected advantage: better protection against skidding. This has already been proved on at least 200 U.S. bridges with steel decks: a Seattle bridge that used to be very dangerous in wet weather has not had an accident in the ten years since a steel surface was installed.

If Darien’s experimental road stands up under ice, snow and other punishing weather conditions, its engineers expect at least two postwar results: opening of a vast new market for steel and swift rebuilding of the world’s bombed roads.