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Smart Highway: A Glow-in-the-Dark Road in The Netherlands

05.06.14 | By
Smart Highway: A Glow-in-the-Dark Road in The Netherlands

Last August, Design Milk ventured to Copenhagen to check out the finalists in the INDEX: Award 2013 pool of truly innovative designs which all focused on improving life. The top design was Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde’s Smart Highway which was a plan to bring intelligent roads throughout The Netherlands and eventually, the world. Now, eight months later, the first stretch of glow-in-the-dark road has opened on highway N329 near the city of Oss.

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A 500 meter stretch of basic highway in the province of Noord-Brabant has been outfitted with Glowing Lines, which is the first step in Roosegaarde’s master plan. The painted lines on the side of the road and markings absorb light all day and then glow for up to eight hours at night, helping to guide motorists down the highway. Roosegaarde, and construction group Heijmans, developed the special paint for the project.

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Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.