Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Green Roads

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

The disadvantage to doing living pavement, ala, the plastic or concrete
matrix that you plant with grass is that your road becomes much much more
maintenance. It gets full of weeds, and has to be mowed, and stays wet and
gets your shoes much wetter than hard surface. In our climate, grass grows
very fast and so somebody would need to mow the road regularly. If it gets
too high, when it gets wet your feet get soaked.

The advantage is that it is a softer, hard surface treatment. They use it a
lot for firelane access roads where I work. After a bit, it looks just like
the surrounding lawn which is nice. This would be a good treatment for
parking perhaps? In my experience, pedestrian walkways are better if they
are hard surfaced for ease of use and maintenance.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood