A mile-long stretch of West Exchange Street in Akron, Ohio, opens. It’s the first U.S. road paved with a rubber-asphalt compound.
Rubber was everywhere in postwar Akron. As the home of B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone, and General Tire, Akron dubbed itself Rubber Capital of the World, and the fortunes of the city rode with the tire industry (see here).
As early as the 1840s, scientists added natural rubber to pavement to create surfaces that resisted cracks and repelled water better. Goodyear president Paul Litchfield was so impressed by the rubberized roadways he’d seen in the Netherlands that he donated synthetic rubber for a test of rubber roads in Akron. A sign called it THE FIRST RUBBER STREET IN AMERICA, but the road surface contained only between 5 and 7 percent rubber. The rest was asphalt.
Rubber companies immediately put their show on the road with dry-powder or latex rubber additives sold under brand names such as Rub-R-Road and Pliopave. Roads from Ohio to Virginia got the rubber treatment. Engineers eventually questioned the benefits. Rubberized asphalt was more expensive, and studies didn’t show any clear advantages. West Exchange Street was torn up and repaved in 1959.
But Charlie McDonald, a Phoenix city engineer, found a way in 1965 to blend shredded crumb rubber from waste tires into asphalt. With waste tires in abundant supply, rubber roads became popular again, especially in warm climates, because rubber roads are more resistant to cracking. These “quiet roads” also reduce road noise by up to 12 percent, sometimes negating the need for sound barriers.
Akron? It has a pedestrian walkway made of crumb rubber.—KB