Coloured asphalt bus rapid transit lanes in the regional municipality of York: Integrating laboratory performance testing into sustainable pavement asset management

Located north of Toronto, Ontario, The Regional Municipality of York, the sixth largest municipality in Canada, is a thriving community and home to a well-established service sector. York Region's population is expected to grow from 1.1 million in 2013 to 1.8 million in 2041. With more people coming to the Region every year, Rapid Transit projects provide significant benefits. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lanes are built or being built along the three most heavily travelled roads in York Region: Yonge Street, Highway 7 and Davis Drive. To improve the level of safety through enhanced visibility and help residents and motorists easily understand this new transit system and follow the right-of-way, York Region uses coloured asphalt pavement design for its dedicated BRT lanes. York Region and Metrolinx, an agency of the Government of Ontario created to improve the coordination and integration of all modes of transportation in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, retained the Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology (CPATT), located at the University of Waterloo, to identify innovative and sustainable future preservation and maintenance solutions to ensure durability and high performance throughout the material's life cycle. This paper highlights information on how coloured asphalt can be used to achieve technical and social benefits in a number of transportation applications. This paper also looks at pavement performance results obtained from conducting material testing at the state-of-the-art pavement laboratory at CPATT. These results provide insight into the level of resistance the pavement structure will exhibit to loss of surficial colour and friction due to inevitable wear and tear. These results are used to compliment performance prediction models describing the expected path of deterioration over time. Materials under evaluation included those collected during paving operations and those produced under controlled laboratory conditions.