Musical Highway

Couldn’t leave New Mexico without driving this brief stretch of Route 66.

Most rumble strips alert drivers they’ve strayed too close to the edge of the road with a loud, grating vibration. The grooved lines on a sleepy stretch of Route 66 near Tijeras, New Mexico have a different trick up their sleeve: They sing.

On this quarter-mile section of the highway, the rumble strips have been engineered to sound like the song “America the Beautiful.” But they won’t croon their patriotic tune for anyone with a lead foot. Drivers have to be going exactly 45 miles per hour (the speed limit) to hear the vibrations in action.Read more