August 14, 2009 - Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) reports the successful implementation of coloured pavement markings in construction zones.

“The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) enforces safety in construction zones by requiring contractors to inform road users of construction with visual signals: signing, lane striping, raised lane markers, painted symbols, and messages on the road surface. With these safety measures, driver confusion may still arise due to scarred pavement from previous marking removal and remaining traces of old markings. In response to this, MTO has been looking to other highway agencies and countries for additional visual solutions to improve road safety during construction.

For some time, the Netherlands and Germany have been using temporary, special coloured, pavement markings to help guide traffic through construction areas. Similarly, MTO is adopting the use of temporary special coloured markings to minimize the probability of driver confusion while approaching, driving through, and exiting a construction zone.

MTO is also taking this idea a step further by choosing fluorescent orange pavement markings to provide colour correlation with the existing orange, visual construction signs and barrels in Ontario construction zones. MTO is restricting this new tool to alignment changes in construction zones on divided multilane roadways only. This construction season, the orange construction zone pavement markings can be seen on Highways 427, QEW, and 409, where they have received many positive reactions from road users.”