So much to unpack with some of the City of Vancouver’s most recent initiatives, so let’s get started. If you have been anywhere near Broadway, you may have seen the street appearing~well, red. It appears the City of Vancouver and TransLink decided it would be a Good Idea to use this rather berryfruit juicy colour as a demonstration project to show where the B-Line bus stop zones are.
The City of Vancouver in the twitterverse got right on the messaging by warning drivers to “Steer clear of the red zone! Along with @Translink, we’re piloting red zones at key bus stops to remind people bus stops aren’t for cars. A single stopped car can slow down hundreds of people. If the red zones work, we’ll look for rolling out more in the future”.
Just a small quibble, people don’t need to be reminded that bus stop zones are not for cars, drivers do. And those drivers would also react just as well to increased enforcement at bus zones, so hopefully the Police will work in partnership with TransLink to enhance monitoring.
But back to the temporary installation of this strange red paint on city streets-what is with the really bright colour? Take a look at the Washington D.C. bus lane below which at least is in the more muted burgundy palette and edged and stenciled as a “bus only zone”.
So while the colour plonked down by the City for this temporary installation is a little questionable, PriceTags is hoping that stenciling indicating what the berry red colour is for and some edge treatment is also on the way.
Hopefully there will be some public dialogue and evaluation on the colour and features of the bus’s magic carpet, moving to a more muted colour tone. In the interim, we welcome your creative comment below on what can be done with this current colour, along with any suggestion for a creative edge treatment.
Images: City of Vancouver, Stanley Woodvine
Red is not particularly colorfast. It’s likely that the color will fade with time and exposure to UV. Possibly they are trying to get more life out of it by starting with a brighter color?
it looks like a river of blood. Very “Game of Thrones”.
Agreed that they need to add wording
– otherwise, it’s not obvious that it means “no stopping” given that red typically means “stop”.
They could have also used the typical “keep clear” cross-hatching found on roads outside fire stations, which would be more widely understood by drivers.
There were dedicated bus lanes during the Olympics that worked well, if I recall correctly. Why, nearly ten years later, is such a trial needed? Anyone know why the lanes were given up in 2010 and why all the caution now, in the midst of a climate emergency?