The Red Ways of Milton Keynes are a great help to the commuting cyclist. Red Ways are for use by pedestrians and cyclists. The tarmac is not really red, but defiantly a shade of pinky grey. There are also bridal ways for horses although not so many of these. The Red Ways typically run along side the road, but are almost always totally segregated. Wonderful. But they could have been better by simply labelling up the Red Ways with the name of the road it follows. As a newcomer to MK, I got totally lost on them. The problem is that they defiantly don’t always follow the road, and can disappear into a housing estate. Trying to find your way out and recover your direction is a matter of trial and error. That said, they are far better than anything in my home town area, Manchester. Imagine the Fallowfield Loop, but all over Manchester. The thorny question of how to get a push bike across a roundabout is totally solved by bridges for the use of pedestrians and cyclists. This type of infrastructure could not realistically be retrofitted to Manchester. But, all in all, a pretty good solution for Milton Keynes.
A Red Way cycle route with bridal way alongside.
Here is a Red Way / Bridal way crossing.
