The City of Winnipeg is trying out bright green "anti-skid" strips to boost visibility and safety along bicycle lanes.
City crews were out on Tuesday applying the "durable pavement marking" to two tiny sections of the bike lane on Pembina Highway.
The idea is to alert cyclists and motorists to high-risk areas where there might be a greater risk of collisions.
But it doesn't come cheap.
"We are applying this product to two small 14-metre (45-foot) sections," the city's communications officer, Lisa Fraser, said in an email. "Total cost about $2,000 for material and labour."
The product applied by the crews is called Mmax green and it is undoubtedly eye-catching.
It contains aluminum dioxide to make it anti-skid and is rolled on to create texture. The notion is that the material should last more than five years, making it more cost-effective than the taping now used on bike lanes.
City council this month approved a 20-year plan to enhance pedestrian corridors and crossings and connect the city in a network of bike paths, but the plan was subject to further examination after objections, particularly from downtown entrepreneurs who fear the system will eat up rare parking spots near their establishments.
The city says the current bicycle network encompasses nearly 400 km of facilities in various forms. equal to roughly 8% of Winnipeg's 3,100 km of streets and roads, and comparable in scope to other mid-sized cities in the Canadian prairies and U.S. midwest.
