Outside of the Consortium Library on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus is a concrete slab 8 feet wide and 20 feet long.
It looks like your average sidewalk, but it could potentially hold the key to solving a perennial Alaska transportation problem: road ruts.
For the past 15 years -- and the past eight in Alaska -- UAA professor of civil engineering Osama Abaza has been developing a road surface that can stand up to Alaska's road-rut problem. The concrete slab at UAA is the first practical test of the solution. Abaza plans to work with the Alaska Department of Transportation to install a 180-foot lane of the concrete on Abbott Road next summer.
"I'm not going to say we have the magic solution, but we're trying," Abaza said in a September interview.