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Solar paving to make first public US appearance on Route 66

The state’s transportation department will use tough, electricity-generating panels developed by the pioneering husband-and-wife team Scott and Julie Brusaw, founders of the company Solar Roadways, who captivated the US in 2014 with their plan to pave America with solar panels.The department hopes that the Historic Route 66 Welcome Center at Conway will get the country’s first solar roadway panels on a public right of way, in a move one official said would bring “the history and the future together”.

The plan was unveiled this week in Kansas City as one of four pilot schemes to probe future highways technology in the state.“If their version of the future is realistic, if we can make that happen, then roadways can begin paying for themselves,” said Tom Blair, leader of the department’s Road to Tomorrow Initiative, according to newspaper The Kansas City Star.“We expect them to be in place, I’m hoping, by the end of this year, maybe before snow flies,” Blair said, adding the project could generate a lot of interest by bringing “the history and the future together”.It was not revealed how large an area would be paved with the panels. According to the newspaper, to get the most out of the project the department will seek crowd funding.