A possible solution to Ireland's gridlock and a way of disposing of thousands of used car tyres emerged last week, writes Patrick Logue.
A company in the UK unveiled its product that turns disused railway lines into functioning roads made entirely of rubber.
The Holdfast Rubber Highway was invented by Peter Coates Smith, who owns HoldFast Level Crossings Limited. The company already uses millions of waste tyres in rubber level-crossing platforms, but now says entire roads can be built in the same way.
The rubber roads are made of panels of shredded car tyres, locking together and laid over the existing tracks. They allow trams and cars to travel on the same road at up to 80km/h, and the "roads" would be too narrow for overtaking.
A 300-metre demonstration track has been built in Corby, Northamptonshire, and will be subject to more than 8,000 cars being driven on it over eight weeks to test its resilience to wear and tear. "There is a real need for new and affordable options to realise much needed infrastructure opportunities," Mr Coates Smith said.
"There are no potholes, there's no cracking, no spoiling from frost and it's very quiet," he added. Some 354,000 old tyres are needed for each mile of rubber track, making it an attractive environmental option. By July 7th, Ireland, along with its European neighbours will have to enforce EU legislation making it illegal to bury car tyres in landfill sites or burn them.
There could be financial savings too. Mr Coates Smith says it took four men five days to build the 300m demonstration track but with longer panels they could build almost one kilometre in the same time. He also claims that the cost is €2million per mile, a fraction of the cost of building traditional roads. Ireland had more than 5,500 kilometres of railway at its peak in the 1920s.
Nowadays there is less than half of that amount in use. There were scores of local and independent light railways across the country, starting in the 1800s.
In the 1950s and 1960s large amounts of the rail network were mothballed as the car became king.