Goodbye cars, hello colour: the great reinvention of city intersections | Hacker News Reader

Goodbye cars, hello colour: the great reinvention of city intersections

theguardian.com

44 pointsTomte7 comments

Where I live they have been using really bright green paint to designate certain spots for bicycles. For example, where a bike lane crosses a car lane.

Lately I've noticed that with the accumulation of road grime and/or with the paint fading in the sunlight, the green no longer stands out. The painted areas are getting less and less obvious.

Point being, the idea has a lot of potential, but it is going to require a lot of maintenance. All that paint needs to be redone (cleaned and/or repainted) periodically.

Whereas if you put in a curb or physical barrier to demarcate where pedestrians can stand or where bikes should be, that lasts longer / is more permanent.

Not all "paints" are equal.

In Indianapolis, for a while they were primarily using "Ride-A-Way", but recently switched to "CycleGripMMAX", which is more expensive per square foot, but lasts longer. Additionally, there were complaints that the Ride-A-Way would wear down to where it was difficult for bikes to get good enough traction to safely take curves; CycleGripMMAX is way grippier.

For smaller sections (like crosswalk-type "dotted" strips, like these[3]), they might actually be strips of thermal-plastic melted in to the asphalt. That should last as long as the asphalt does; yeah, it will eventually need re-done, but at about the same time that the asphalt needs re-surfaced.

Then you'll talk to a city council person from another town who says that they tried doing green bike-lanes, but they wore out very quickly... and reveals that they just used outdoor paint from the hardware store.

[Ride-A-Way]: https://www.ennisflintamericas.com/catalog/product/view/id/1...

[CycleGripMMAX]: https://www.ennisflintamericas.com/catalog/product/view/id/9...

[3]: https://www.google.com/maps/place/New+Albany,+IN+47150/@38.2...

As a car driver, I love the brightly painted bike lanes. Helps decrease my cognitive load for knowing where I should and shouldn't drive, and where I should expect bicycles to be when turning right.

A old term used by traffic engineers... Paint is the cheapest form of traffic management.

Should people be encouraged to hang around near an intersection? Surely the pollution is off the charts. How about just banning cars 1 day a week? Then 2, then 3...

Banning cars is a political disaster without serious alternatives. The paint is mostly to improve public safety when crossing the road, and if you have a lot of leftover space all of a sudden, it's better to convince people to use it rather than turn it into a desolate space orphaned and abused by the community that becomes dirty and crime-infested.

The base idea is pretty good, but I guarantee some of those designs are going to seem tacky as hell in a couple decades

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