White Paint or Green Paint?
County officials disagree on what color for bike lanes when Mason St. bridge repainted.
Bike lane on E. Mason Street Bridge. Photo taken by Graham Kilmer.
What color should bike lanes be: green or white?
A bridge project has prompted Milwaukee County Supervisors to consider the question.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) plans to rehabilitate the E. Mason Street Bridge, which spans N. Lincoln Memorial Drive, bending past the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center. The $2.65 million project will repair spalling and cracking on the bridge deck, which will eventually require the re-striping of bike lanes along Mason Street.
But what color? County transportation officials favored green paint when the issue was discussed in September, while Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman offered a resolution to repaint the bike lanes white.
“The first question is the question of need,” Wasserman said during a meeting of the board’s Committee on Parks and Culture in September.
The supervisor said most bike lanes around the city are painted white, questioning the point of breaking from that pattern. His resolution was chiefly concerned with the aesthetic appeal of the future bike lanes, given that the bridge is in view of the War Memorial and the Milwaukee Art Museum.
“These architectural landmarks, which are seen by thousands of visitors to our community each year, demand that the aesthetics of the nearby area not detract from their historical significance and beauty,” his resolution stated.
Sup. Jack Eckblad waxed metaphorical on the color question, declaring that “a mangled body is a lot less pleasing than green paint.”
Jeff Sponcia, MCDOT transportation planning manager, told supervisors at the meeting in September that the green paint is much more visible that white paint, and contains reflective particles. But committee members weren’t sold.
“This is definitely not ready for primetime,” said Sup. Steve Taylor, and the committee laid the resolution over, delaying any action for now.
In December, Milwaukee County Parks returned to the board with a justification for green paint during a meeting of the Committee on Parks and Culture. James Tarantino, deputy parks director, shared information from the WisDOT bicycle facility manual. For starters, green, as a color in signage and direction, is often associated with “safety and permission” that can reassure bicyclists and alert drivers. Secondly, green paint is becoming a standard for bike lanes being adopted in Milwaukee, and across the state and country.
Wasserman said he spoke with a national expert who told him there is no evidence green bike lanes reduce fatal crashes.
“I’m still against green paint on Mason Street,” Wasserman said.
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Delineation and symbols, white. Lanes themselves, green. Case closed. Always this. As it was in the beginning. So shall it be in the end. ;b
Obviously green. The good bike lanes are all green. Widow-and-orphan generator lanes are white.
Yes…GREEN. Part of the problem with the new North Avenue bike lanes was that drivers didn’t really get that something new was happening. All they saw was a confusion of white lines and ill-spaced planters.
If it’s not standard yet, GREEN lanes are notably used for bike lanes and RED lanes are used for dedicated bus lanes. (Except in Europe, where bike lanes are typically red.) BLUE is already commonly used to identify handicap spaces.
https://nacto.org/publication/urban-bikeway-design-guide/bikeway-signing-marking/colored-bike-facilities/
Colored lanes will in no way deter from architectural landmarks. They don’t elsewhere.
Follow the MUTCD. It’s green. Why do these random politicians want to stick their nose in and complain about lane colors? “I don’t like green” ok, complain to the DOT then. What a joke.
Green is distinctive and tips pedestrians off that bikes are nearby better than white. Until we have as many bikes on the road as Amsterdam or Copenhagen, we need to make things safe and simple for all.
Always look for the money trail. Guessing some rich benefactor to the War Memorial complained and threatened to stop donating; probably looking for some excuse to to stop donating and this fit the bill.
Omission from this discussion is the cost differential between the white paint and the green reflectorized paint. I understand that the green is more expensive, but it would be helpful to know from experts.
@mkeumkenews09, well, you know, the address of [Friends of] Sheldon Wasserman is 3487 N. Lake Drive, at the very north end of the protected bike lanes and street reconstruction being installed on Lake Drive. The same stretch that the Abele’s and other “Guardians of Historic Lake Drive, Inc.” live on, and are suing WisDOT and the City over.
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2024/12/14/do-protected-bike-lanes-violate-historic-preservation-standards/
These are Wasserman’s constituents and neighbors.
The “Guardians” have a website *exceedingly similar* to lakedriveguardians. org where it identifies itself as a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, an IRS designation for public benefit orgs. Sure would be interesting to learn who is behind its incorporation, its address, and who its top funders are. That kind of thing can usually be found on its annual Form-990, which should be made public once the org starts filing them…
I’m sure Wasserman and the “Guardians—if he is not one himself—are all cut from the same cloth. Self-serving, self-indulgent, Cyril Colnik gate-owning, mansion-demolishing preservationists, and “private benefit” entities…
We don’t need any more white elements confusing the situation.
A well-chosen green would be nice with architecture,
if not made too blue or too raw, especially in winter
when it may be the only green present.
Green absorbs infrared, and there may be a way to
tune the green for optimum heat drying of wet pavement,
though water itself absorbs some infrared,
and may make this unnecessary.
If there is a tie, or close competition between greens, consult with cityscape photographers and artists, who in an important way will have to put up with it
or ‘tune’ it in their works.
“The supervisor said most bike lanes around the city are painted white, questioning the point of breaking from that pattern.”
Does anyone recall the transition from the old yellow stop signs that had been converted to red in the 1950s? Conversion from white to green should be no less problematic, and it is much more distinct than white especially on partial snow covered and at night.