The construction materials company said the surfacing project is part of its mission to improve road safety through better colour demarcation.
The project comes at a time of heightened concerns over cycle safety, with latest figures showing the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured in Great Britain has increased by 29% from 2008 to 20181. Aggregate Industries is calling for a standardised approach to colour demarcation across the UK to tackle this problem and improve road safety.
Brown Street in Sheffield is an area of high traffic near the city centre, and Aggregate Industries says it was vital to make the street as safe as possible for cyclists by creating a clearly marked coloured cycle lane. Therefore, the key requirement was to source high-performance surfacing materials for the cycle lane that would not only be easily visible - stipulating a specific colour of BS381C No.537 signal red – but also offer the durability and longevity to withstand high-traffic.
Aggregate Industries’ asphalt division suggested the use of its SuperColour range, a collection of distinctly coloured high-performance asphalts, which can be tailored to produce a bespoke solution in line with a project’s unique specification. To ensure it met the unique specifications of the project, the team initially provided a sample of its ultra-red SuperColour asphalt to check it met the exact colour match.
Aggregate Industries supplied 190 tonnes of 14mm SMA (stone mastic asphalt) from its Sheffield plant, alongside 80 tonnes of 10mm SuperColour ultra-red Express Asphalt. The result was a bright red cycle lane, designed to be easily distinguishable from the rest of the road.
Joanne Wilkins, head of business development - asphalt and ready mix concrete at Aggregate Industries, said: “With 1.7 million people cycling either every day or nearly every day on today’s roads, having clear and coherent road markings has never been more important in helping to prevent road traffic collisions. From the planning stages of the project, it was vital that we used a distinguishable colour solution, along with providing the correct road materials to achieve this."
