By Carl Engelking, Source: Discover Magazine

If you ask for directions in the small city of Oss in the Netherlands, a local may tell you to merge onto Highway N329 and take the first exit after the highway ceases glowing in the dark. No, you haven’t mistranslated the conversation. Dutch engineers are testing glow-in-the-dark road markings along a 500-meter stretch of N329 to see if glowing roads could someday replace streetlights.

The road markings are painted with a photo-luminescent powder that charges during the day and releases a greenish glow at night. Once the paint absorbs sunlight, it can glow for up to eight hours in the dark. The N329 now features a triple-striped pattern of glowing lines on each side of the highway.

The experimental project is a partnership between interactive artist Daan Roosegaarde and Dutch civil engineers. Roosegaarde first introduced the concept in 2012, but government bureaucracy added a couple years onto the process, the Independent reports.

Read the rest at: Discover Magazine