Five musical roads from around the world

Forget about the introduction of road reflectors, painted lines and safety barriers, the fact that road engineers can cut lines into the asphalt so when a car drives over the lines a musical tune can be heard is madness. These unique roads are usually on a section of road in a regional or remote area which when driven on causes a tactile vibration and audible rumbling that can be felt through the wheels and heard inside the car as well as echoing around the surrounding area.

The phenomena of inputting music into road surfaces was originally discovered in the 1950s using parallel corrugations in the road surface. It wasn’t until 1995 that Danish artists Steen Krarup Jensen and Jakob Freud-Magnus invented the ‘Asphaltophone’ which transformed musical roads with the use of spaced out raised pavement markers.

While there are none currently in Australia (driving on some of our national highways do make some noise which could be described as bad music) there are a dozens around the world with their own quirky tune and story. Here are five of our favourite musical roads from around the world.

There are around 30 Melody Roads across Japan playing various tunes from Japanese culture. These unique roads act not only as a tourist attraction but as a road safety device because to hear the song correctly you have to travel at the signposted speed. The Melody Roads are highlighted by coloured musical notes painted on to the road and road signs so you can prepare for the 30 seconds of music. The tune of "Fuji no Yama", which is a traditional song about Mount Fuji, plays as you drive up to the famous mountain.

In the city of Anyang, just south of Seoul is a section of highway that plays the children’s nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”. Unlike other musical roads across the world which have become tourist attractions, the South Korean road’s purpose is to keep motorists alert and awake. 68% of traffic accidents in South Korea are due to inattentive, sleeping or speeding drivers so the hope is this unique road feature will help save lives, as well as entertain commuters.

The Musical Road is located in Lancaster, California and was originally built as part of an advertising campaign for the Honda Civic. The Musical Road became the first road of its kind in the United States to play a tune when cars passed over the grooves for it to play the finale of the "William Tell Overture". Due to the noise complaints from residents who lived alongside the original road, the city was forced to resurface the road and remove the music. Keen to keep the musical spirit alive (and the tourism), the city relocated the musical road to a more secluded area and it still plays on today.

The Route 66 Musical Highway was built as part of social experiment for a TV series on National Geographic. They wanted to see whether people would obey an unpopular law if a reward was offered. The law being the 45 mph (72 km/h) speed limit and the reward being a singing road that would play a short snippet of "America the Beautiful". There is another small stretch of musical road just after the initial song that plays the jingle to one of the show’s sponsors. Only in America.

The Route 66 Musical Road has proven popular with tourists and remains intact today, albeit slightly out of tune.

In 2019, Hungary opened its first musical road. Road 67 is the main road connecting the city of Kaposvár and the M7 motorway and already has a song about it by Hungarian band Republic, aptly named Road 67. What better opportunity when resurfacing a main arterial road that has a song written about it then to turn it into a musical road so drivers and passengers can sing along as they go.

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