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I can't help but look at the roads and sidewalks and think there's a solution that could be implemented there. I'm no engineer, but I expect that you could install something along the fault line that allows the road to slide apart without disruption. It seems like a waste to just keep repaving the same spot over and over, just for it to crack again.

Maybe tear up a couple feet of pavement and put in two metal grates that can slide past each other. That should at least buy you a decent amount of time, until the road is so warped that the lanes don't line up.



The Alyeska pipeline in Alaska is built on rails just like this over the parts near the Denali Fault.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/2002/...


I stared at that for far too long, waiting for the animation to start.


This was one of my thoughts as well; as a software developer I'm always trying to figure out solutions to problems but I know just about nothing when it comes to civil engineering. So naturally I keep coming up with crazy ideas to prevent / fix this and none of them are probably feasible :)

But it's certainly interesting to review stuff on the internet about how structures can avoid these issues.




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