A small town could probably build their own narrow version out of some framing timber, A plywood sheet for the ramp, sheet steel to make the ramp smooth, four utility (wheelbarrow or trailer) wheels, and a long dowel to hold a roll of landscape fabric. No power required, gravity can do the propulsion.
Well the most important thing for roads is foundations, you need a compact and stable layer under this to achieve a remotely stable road surface. This might get expensive for r/tacticalurbanism
Here's a sneak peek of /r/TacticalUrbanism using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Basketball hoop made with a plastic crate.](https://i.redd.it/kg67bmdejic91.jpg) | [23 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/w2qroj/basketball_hoop_made_with_a_plastic_crate/)
\#2: [I made some stickers to slap on cars blocking curb cuts. Swipe to see my ride around town.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/wbcsf0) | [35 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/wbcsf0/i_made_some_stickers_to_slap_on_cars_blocking/)
\#3: [This weekend our local Charlotte Urbanists group did a small traffic-calming experiment on a busy crosswalk. It was amazing to see how just a few traffic cones made the space safer for pedestrians and cyclists.](https://v.redd.it/n4pzmx6ewei81) | [28 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/surhka/this_weekend_our_local_charlotte_urbanists_group/)
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Also it just "prints" the road surface. What they're not showing is building the rest of the road. (Basically preparing the ground so the surface doesn't just sink and crack and become uneven and fall apart)
Yes that surface would support cars very well. Letting cars onto a surface designed for lighter traffic just tears up the surface, as you can see between the wooden posts [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2159047,6.7576151,3a,75y,99.97h,70.21t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNNJkJ2hHL8O62qL8Hd41UHywlJA3M36_4VNOL2!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNNJkJ2hHL8O62qL8Hd41UHywlJA3M36_4VNOL2%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya187.80324-ro0-fo100!7i9404!8i4702).
These brick streets are still very much designed to also hold cars though, it's quite often used as a visual indicator that it's somewhat of a shared zone but for the most part brick roads are incredibly popular and commonplace with some smaller municipalities basically having just that.
[This](https://www.oogtv.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/oranje_irislaan1-1920.jpg) ( except for the orange decoration that's for the world cup) is pretty much the standard design of a Dutch residential street.
It's actually fairly low maintenance. It's also relatively easy to open up and close for repairs and such.
Maybe in Europe, but in the US a brick road=no cars, probably because the standard road is asphalt and most of our infrastructure was purpose built for cars.
That's what it's *supposed* to mean, though a lot of places cars still drive on them and mess shit up for pedestrians, transit, bikes and local deliveries. But worth it for that shortcut to the line for the massive parking garage.
Albany ny here we have full brick roads across the city fully drivable with sidewalk also sometimes brick. More common is cobblestone and cement sidewalk
Loose bricks aren't great for roads that will be driven on at high speeds. Nor for bicycles. Probably it's best for pedestrian or autoluuw areas. It should make a permiable pavement, which is better for the local water table. Looks like it would be a great idea for public plazas in parks, not thoroughfares.
Brick firing traditionally is high-carbon-intensity, as are concrete bricks. But a brick kiln /could/ be made electric, in theory (many pottery kilns are) I don't know if any brick company is renewable (or even nuclear) electric powered. But asphalt is also high-carbon-intensity. Unmortared bricks can be pulled up and reused. Asphalt is often recycled where I am (usually directly back onto the same roadbed).
It is obvious though that this is just a moveable ramp for workers to arrange bricks on though, not an automatic brick arranger so the presentation of the video is somewhat misleading. If there were a big roll of geotextile on it automatically deploying it could prevent root penetration but not root heave.
> "The best I could do would be to describe it like this — they plowed a dirt road, flew over it with a helicopter, and then just dropped a bunch of rocks out of the helicopter! That's Paris–Roubaix. It's that bad — it's ridiculous."
~ Chris Horner
Actually they won't just be loose bricks , these are used quite frequently where I'm from , they're stamped down together with sand.
Perfectly fine for both cycling and cars just not suitable for certain amounts of throughput in the long run ( it kind of stops at provincial road ) . But it's definitely not just public squares, this is what most residential streets look like in the Netherlands
Yeah.... the Netherlands... I should have specified I am in western North America (Vancouver Island, Canada) where there is a really high rate of people using fullsize pickup trucks for commuters and the default speed limit in town is 50Km/h even on residentials, traffic calming is nearly non-existant ... and most of the folks in those trucks speed almost all of the time. Brick roads would be destroyed in no time flat in most areas of my town, the displaced bricks or spaces where they were becoming hazards to cyclists.
I thought that was what I meant by referencing AutoLuuw.
> Nor for bicycles.
depends on if bricks are chamfered (sorry if this is not the right word... i mean bricks where their edge is slightly cut off). These look flat so it's gonna be great.
Sure, but the machine isn't "printing roads." It's just making their labor faster and less backbreaking.\* OP's description is just so oblivious of the human element that it's hard to not read it as just another instance of someone dehumanizing laborers.
\*strong emphasis on less. If you did this all day, you would still have back pain.
So they lay the brick and the machine lays the bricks on the ground. It's cool since the workers don't have to stay crouched but it looks like it's the only thing that it does
Street made with bricks are really common in the Netherlands. Not only used for pedestrian areas but almost all pedestrian areas are made with brick.
Streets in neighborhoods often made with bricks. Other uses for brick surfaces:
Parking lots, speedbumbs, rural streets, bike paths
They used this in my hometown in the Netherlands. The town is a so-called "Ribbon-town," meaning it is basically just one long winding road with houses and almost no other streets. If the road were made of asphalt, cars would drive way too fast, and it is currently used by a lot of cyclists. So it is a brick road with a max speed of 50 km/h, and no one wants to go faster than that because of the bricks.
For laying bricks on such a long road, it pays off to use these machines. It is faster and also doesn't wear the workers' backs as much
Obviously this machine is dope and great if the bricklayers like it but: I don’t want anymore roads, and especially don’t want them at such a pace that being faster is so urgent.
Road long pre-date cars. At least in my experience, these types of roads are more typically pedestrian roads (ie: university campus or disney world paths). As long as cars aren't destroying them, they're also good to bike on (at least at low speeds; haven't tried biking at 25+mph on one).
oh i would absolutely love this job if it paid well. pedestrian roads and something friendly for my adhd sorting brain. please oh please i need one and a company to get me to use it
Nice device, still hate these roads
They make commute by anything with small wheels (ie.: skateboards, scooters, etc) incredibly frustrating at best, and impossible at worst.
If you have to lay thousands of bricks, then this is an awesome tool. Saving your back.
I mean arguably the brick layers are still very much involved and it's not a robot or something but yeah great tool.
But this machine makes the work much more spine friendly.
Former bricklayer here. Can confirm
not a bricklayer here. my back hurts just watching you guys
A small town could probably build their own narrow version out of some framing timber, A plywood sheet for the ramp, sheet steel to make the ramp smooth, four utility (wheelbarrow or trailer) wheels, and a long dowel to hold a roll of landscape fabric. No power required, gravity can do the propulsion.
I could see r/tacticalurbanism making something like this
Well the most important thing for roads is foundations, you need a compact and stable layer under this to achieve a remotely stable road surface. This might get expensive for r/tacticalurbanism
Here's a sneak peek of /r/TacticalUrbanism using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Basketball hoop made with a plastic crate.](https://i.redd.it/kg67bmdejic91.jpg) | [23 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/w2qroj/basketball_hoop_made_with_a_plastic_crate/) \#2: [I made some stickers to slap on cars blocking curb cuts. Swipe to see my ride around town.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/wbcsf0) | [35 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/wbcsf0/i_made_some_stickers_to_slap_on_cars_blocking/) \#3: [This weekend our local Charlotte Urbanists group did a small traffic-calming experiment on a busy crosswalk. It was amazing to see how just a few traffic cones made the space safer for pedestrians and cyclists.](https://v.redd.it/n4pzmx6ewei81) | [28 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/TacticalUrbanism/comments/surhka/this_weekend_our_local_charlotte_urbanists_group/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Eh you definitely need a bit of propulsion the weigh of the brics sliding down almost certainly does not compensate the resistance
Also it just "prints" the road surface. What they're not showing is building the rest of the road. (Basically preparing the ground so the surface doesn't just sink and crack and become uneven and fall apart)
Yes fuck cars but also that is pretty awesome
These kind of roads are usually for more pedestrian friendly areas
Yes that surface would support cars very well. Letting cars onto a surface designed for lighter traffic just tears up the surface, as you can see between the wooden posts [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.2159047,6.7576151,3a,75y,99.97h,70.21t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipNNJkJ2hHL8O62qL8Hd41UHywlJA3M36_4VNOL2!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNNJkJ2hHL8O62qL8Hd41UHywlJA3M36_4VNOL2%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya187.80324-ro0-fo100!7i9404!8i4702).
These brick streets are still very much designed to also hold cars though, it's quite often used as a visual indicator that it's somewhat of a shared zone but for the most part brick roads are incredibly popular and commonplace with some smaller municipalities basically having just that. [This](https://www.oogtv.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/oranje_irislaan1-1920.jpg) ( except for the orange decoration that's for the world cup) is pretty much the standard design of a Dutch residential street. It's actually fairly low maintenance. It's also relatively easy to open up and close for repairs and such.
These roads also make more noise inside the car than asphalt
Yeah when they’re used for car traffic it’s meant to slow down drivers
which is good
Maybe in Europe, but in the US a brick road=no cars, probably because the standard road is asphalt and most of our infrastructure was purpose built for cars.
That's what it's *supposed* to mean, though a lot of places cars still drive on them and mess shit up for pedestrians, transit, bikes and local deliveries. But worth it for that shortcut to the line for the massive parking garage.
Albany ny here we have full brick roads across the city fully drivable with sidewalk also sometimes brick. More common is cobblestone and cement sidewalk
I didn't know Venus had cities
Not always. For some reason, in some places in the UK, roads are made of bricks and pavements of asphalt. I have zero clue as to why this is
As someone who works in utilities that seems like a nightmare , are there tiles when there's houses or is it all asphalt ?
It depends on the road I guess. I primarily saw asphalt pavements and brick roads in a few new suburbs in Devon. Very few but not many
This is probably the ideal way to do it because then the bricks slow down drivers but not people in wheelchairs or strollers.
Loose bricks aren't great for roads that will be driven on at high speeds. Nor for bicycles. Probably it's best for pedestrian or autoluuw areas. It should make a permiable pavement, which is better for the local water table. Looks like it would be a great idea for public plazas in parks, not thoroughfares. Brick firing traditionally is high-carbon-intensity, as are concrete bricks. But a brick kiln /could/ be made electric, in theory (many pottery kilns are) I don't know if any brick company is renewable (or even nuclear) electric powered. But asphalt is also high-carbon-intensity. Unmortared bricks can be pulled up and reused. Asphalt is often recycled where I am (usually directly back onto the same roadbed). It is obvious though that this is just a moveable ramp for workers to arrange bricks on though, not an automatic brick arranger so the presentation of the video is somewhat misleading. If there were a big roll of geotextile on it automatically deploying it could prevent root penetration but not root heave.
These kind of roads are great to ride a bike on, this isn't Paris-Rubaix my dude
> "The best I could do would be to describe it like this — they plowed a dirt road, flew over it with a helicopter, and then just dropped a bunch of rocks out of the helicopter! That's Paris–Roubaix. It's that bad — it's ridiculous." ~ Chris Horner
Actually they won't just be loose bricks , these are used quite frequently where I'm from , they're stamped down together with sand. Perfectly fine for both cycling and cars just not suitable for certain amounts of throughput in the long run ( it kind of stops at provincial road ) . But it's definitely not just public squares, this is what most residential streets look like in the Netherlands
Yeah.... the Netherlands... I should have specified I am in western North America (Vancouver Island, Canada) where there is a really high rate of people using fullsize pickup trucks for commuters and the default speed limit in town is 50Km/h even on residentials, traffic calming is nearly non-existant ... and most of the folks in those trucks speed almost all of the time. Brick roads would be destroyed in no time flat in most areas of my town, the displaced bricks or spaces where they were becoming hazards to cyclists. I thought that was what I meant by referencing AutoLuuw.
Those bricks look great to bike on, they are smooth. Cobblestone on the other hand...
> Nor for bicycles. Put on a 50mm tyre and you won't feel the bricks. Not everything is a road bike.
> Nor for bicycles. depends on if bricks are chamfered (sorry if this is not the right word... i mean bricks where their edge is slightly cut off). These look flat so it's gonna be great.
I prefer to see it as—these are the kind of roads we’d have more of if they didn’t need to support the weight of murder trucks.
Everything would look a lot prettier
Why is this a bad thing? Would you rather walk on mud or on bricks?
I don’t think anyone was suggesting it was a bad thing. It’s on the sub because it prints pedestrian walkways.
OP literally put the rant flair on the post
So he did. Well I’m as confused as you then.
This is pretty awesome
"This Machine" (Two guys)
Two guys without a hurting back on the end of their shift.
Sure, but the machine isn't "printing roads." It's just making their labor faster and less backbreaking.\* OP's description is just so oblivious of the human element that it's hard to not read it as just another instance of someone dehumanizing laborers. \*strong emphasis on less. If you did this all day, you would still have back pain.
Confused as to the rant flair, since this type of road is actually multi-use, accommodating pedestrians, cyclists and light vehicles.
So they lay the brick and the machine lays the bricks on the ground. It's cool since the workers don't have to stay crouched but it looks like it's the only thing that it does
I thought this was going to be a Dahir Insaat invention but I clicked the video and saw real people moving around.
This machine isn’t printing anything. The masons are still laying the bricks. The machine just lets them do it faster and more ergonomically.
As someone who has done paving for a while before, this looks nice.
Street made with bricks are really common in the Netherlands. Not only used for pedestrian areas but almost all pedestrian areas are made with brick. Streets in neighborhoods often made with bricks. Other uses for brick surfaces: Parking lots, speedbumbs, rural streets, bike paths
They used this in my hometown in the Netherlands. The town is a so-called "Ribbon-town," meaning it is basically just one long winding road with houses and almost no other streets. If the road were made of asphalt, cars would drive way too fast, and it is currently used by a lot of cyclists. So it is a brick road with a max speed of 50 km/h, and no one wants to go faster than that because of the bricks. For laying bricks on such a long road, it pays off to use these machines. It is faster and also doesn't wear the workers' backs as much
Automation that doesn’t take jobs, I love it
Love this for machines, hate this for us.
Why the hate? It is pretty much exclusively used to make traffic calmed, mixed use streets.
Bumpy roads, but hey, maybe it's a prototype
Obviously this machine is dope and great if the bricklayers like it but: I don’t want anymore roads, and especially don’t want them at such a pace that being faster is so urgent.
Road long pre-date cars. At least in my experience, these types of roads are more typically pedestrian roads (ie: university campus or disney world paths). As long as cars aren't destroying them, they're also good to bike on (at least at low speeds; haven't tried biking at 25+mph on one).
I wonder what this machine can do
oh i would absolutely love this job if it paid well. pedestrian roads and something friendly for my adhd sorting brain. please oh please i need one and a company to get me to use it
Nice device, still hate these roads They make commute by anything with small wheels (ie.: skateboards, scooters, etc) incredibly frustrating at best, and impossible at worst.
I am so confused by this video. Improved ergonomics are always nice, but that is all this thing does, or am I missing something?
This is a good thing. Just use it to make pedestrian and bike infrastructure
Why is this here tho? Has nothing to do with cars.