Cycling in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

When discussing future bike lanes in the redesign of Dundas Road nearby with a regional planner, he actually said that the bike icons painted onto the road are “too expensive” and they likely won’t do them for this specific project. Meanwhile, the whole lane is painted red in the Netherlands!

I believe in the Netherlands they don't paint it red, they use red asphalt. Better durability.

The newest standard is to use red asphalt in the last lift, both for bike lanes and segregated paths. This is definitely much more expensive though, so it isn't used in all places, especially locations that are fairly far from any roadway or rural areas (except for major commuter routes), are often just in black asphalt, although it definitely varies. The main goal seems to be to limit confusion.

But there are definitely places where some municipalities have used red paint as well. It is possible this is mainly used to retrofit, but obviously I don't know the history. Also red tiles are historically very common but not preferred any longer because the surface is not smooth.