Image by Montgomery County Division of Transportation Engineering.

On Thursday evening workers installed new, separated bike lanes and bike boxes on Spring and Cedar streets in Silver Spring. The construction was surprisingly fascinating, as a series of live-tweets show. It turns out the latest method for painting bike lanes green is to use tiles instead of paint.

The Montgomery County Division of Transportation Engineering, @MoCo_DTE on Twitter, began tweeting out the process around 7:30 pm. Check it out:

The technical term for these tiles is “preformed thermoplastic.” It's more durable than the spray-on epoxy “paint” that graces some of the region's other bike lanes.

Surprisingly, watching paint dry is actually pretty cool!

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Tagged: bicycling, bike lanes, maryland, montgomery county, silver spring

Dan Malouff is a transportation planner for Arlington and an adjunct professor at George Washington University. He has a degree in urban planning from the University of Colorado and lives in Trinidad, DC. He runs BeyondDC and contributes to the Washington Post. Dan blogs to express personal views, and does not take part in GGWash's political endorsement decisions.