Europe isn’t one country, and there is differences between places on which colour was picked.
The Netherlands was an early adopter and they picked red. So countries close to the NL (like Germany and Flanders in Belgium) and countries inspired by the Netherlands also defaulted to red.
Denmark went with blue, which is also in turn inspiring some countries to go with blue instead of red.
France seems to have gone with green, and by extention I’ve seen quite a few green bikepaths in the Francophone sphere. (Though Paris seems to have gone with purple for some of its paths?)
It doesn’t really matter which colour is picked, as long as it is distinctive colour that clearly communicates that this is a space for cyclists.
There is actually an interview online with the people who picked the colour of the path for the pilot project that caused the Netherlands to go with red for it’s bikepaths.
But when they went to inquire about cost, yellow tiles cost twice as much as red tiles. And red tiles would be clear enough for the purpose. So they decided to go with red for the pilot project instead.
The rest of the NL followed from there.
Edit: I do quite like the earthern red colour of Dutch bikepaths. It fits very well in the Dutch urban spaces which use a lot of brick.
So if i’m getting this right, in europe they are red, in china blue, and in NY (North america ?) they are green…
Europe isn’t one country, and there is differences between places on which colour was picked.
The Netherlands was an early adopter and they picked red. So countries close to the NL (like Germany and Flanders in Belgium) and countries inspired by the Netherlands also defaulted to red.
Denmark went with blue, which is also in turn inspiring some countries to go with blue instead of red.
France seems to have gone with green, and by extention I’ve seen quite a few green bikepaths in the Francophone sphere. (Though Paris seems to have gone with purple for some of its paths?)
It doesn’t really matter which colour is picked, as long as it is distinctive colour that clearly communicates that this is a space for cyclists.
There is actually an interview online with the people who picked the colour of the path for the pilot project that caused the Netherlands to go with red for it’s bikepaths.
https://youtu.be/kJqtR7M9PG4
They initially wanted the bikepath to be yellow.
But when they went to inquire about cost, yellow tiles cost twice as much as red tiles. And red tiles would be clear enough for the purpose. So they decided to go with red for the pilot project instead.
The rest of the NL followed from there.
Edit: I do quite like the earthern red colour of Dutch bikepaths. It fits very well in the Dutch urban spaces which use a lot of brick.