Passing a parameter with slashes to the REST call

I need to pass a parameter string that contains slashes to a REST call.

I tried URL encoding, or making URL map to accept query parameter instead of path parameter but apparently we only allow for path parameters.

I can come with several workarounds, but these involve some transformation at client and then on server, but I'd prefer a direct support.

Q1: is there any Cache specific trick to pass slashes in path parameters

Q2: are we going to support query parameters in REST?

something like this would help: 

<Route Url="/test?var=:var" Method="GET" Call="Test" Cors="true"/>

 Dan Kutac