Rattle & Hum: Five musical roads that play as you go
Top Gear / YouTube
Every road trips needs a playlist – unless you happen to be driving on one of the world’s musical roads.
Devised by a pair of Danish artists named Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus in 1995, the first musical road was known as the Asphaltophone and used carefully-placed rumble strips which would play a tune when driven over at a particular speed. Since then several other countries have experimented with tarmac tunes as you can see below.
California, USA
Avenue K in Lancaster, California became America’s first musical road in 2008. A quarter-mile stretch between 60th Street West and 70th Street West was christened the Civic Musical Road and was designed to play the finale of the William Tell overture when driven over at speed. After numerous complaints from residents about the noise the car-created concerto was moved two miles out of town onto Avenue G. Sponsored by Honda (hence the Civic moniker) the road was visited by the Top Gear trio in 2013. Thanks to a miscalculation in the spacing of the strips even James May’s degree in music couldn’t help make it sound like Rossini intended.
New Mexico, USA
If you want to get your kicks on Route 66 then head to Tijeras, New Mexico where the road will play America the Beautiful as long as you stick to a beautiful 45 mph. Or at least it did. Installed in 2014 thanks to funding from the National Geographic Society “to bring a little excitement to an otherwise monotonous highway” the road fell into disrepair and most of the tune has since been lost.
Japan
Japan has embraced the “Melody Road” idea more than any other nation and there are more than 30 of them dotted around the country. Playing ballads, love songs and local folk tunes from Hokkaido to Mt Fuji (see below) the clever Japanese engineers have advanced their tuneful technique by installing different rumbles strips for the left and right wheels to create a polyphonic soundtrack.
South Korea
South Korea’s Singing Road near Anyang was designed to keep drivers awake, as almost two thirds of road accidents in the country are caused by inattentive drivers. Bizarrely the engineers decided to have the road play Mary Had a Little Lamb, which is lullaby.
Netherlands
The Netherland’s first and only singing road was a short-lived affair in 2018. Installed near the village of Jelsum in Friesland it was designed to play the provincial anthem if drivers hit the strips at the 60 km/h speed limit. Local residents, quickly tired of the tune and the musical strips were removed within days.