Roughly 70,000 students, faculty members, and staff travel to and from Texas A&M; University daily by foot, bike, or car. That makes traffic safety at the school a big concern—especially in one particular place.

The intersection of Ross & Bizzell Streets "was a mess; lots of people made wrong turns and it was hard to navigate,” says Robert E. Brydia, a senior research scientist with the Texas A&M; Transportation Institute. Doubly concerning was that this was a key intersection on nighttime cycling routes. But the intersection made a turn for the better when Brydia began looking to the bike-friendly Dutch for inspiration: His team recently completed installation of the United States' first-ever illuminated protected intersection, or 'Dutch Junction.' The intersection keeps cyclists separate from four-way traffic, and with help from solar-reactive paint, its bike lanes glow in the dark.

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“The combination [of the junction and paint] brings together the best of both worlds,” Brydia says.

It works like this: Cyclists using the junction ride in a bike-specific lane that keeps them out of drivers' blind spots. They can either ride through the intersection in a crosswalk-adjacent path; turn right, separated from traffic by an island; or turn left by first riding to an island in the middle of the intersection, then continuing in a bike lane. Each of these options forces drivers to look for cyclists and pedestrians before turning, increasing protection for riders while improving the flow of traffic for all travelers. (Hear all about the latest innovations in bike infrastructure and technology by !)

Texas A&M

The glow-in-the-dark bike lanes illuminate commuters by combining post-consumer recycled glass and green paint infused with a luminescent mineral. The mineral stores solar energy during the day, and by night, gives off a bright glow by reflecting off of the glass. It's reminiscent of the Starry Night bike path in Eindhoven, which glows with solar-powered LEDs.

Get a good look at how to make a lefthand turn at an intersection:

The glowing intersection, which has been open to the public since October, is part of a larger transit initiative at the school that brings in students and researchers across disciplines to create safer, smarter solutions for transportation.

The glow-in-the-dark paint, for instance, was developed in a campus lab with some private sector input, while Texas A&M;’s Transportation Services and Transportation Institute worked together to create the Dutch Junction. Meanwhile, the school newspaper helped publicize how to use a Dutch Junction, and through this Spring semester, two of Brydia's engineering classes will be analyzing the success of the project.

Texas A&M

By May, the industrial systems engineering class hopes to survey 3,000 cyclists and pedestrians, and collect more than 100 hours of footage, which will be studied to see just how much the junction increased safety and improved traffic flow. In the meantime, though, Brydia has been excited to see positive responses and use of the junction firsthand.

“It’s the nation’s first unsignalized junction, so it’s unknown, really, how things are going to be operating," he says.

Whether the project is the first true Dutch Junction, or only the first junction to use glow-in-the-dark paint, is tough to tell. Riffs on the Dutch Junction have been spotted across the US with varied success—Davis, California, created an analog in 2015 it claims is the first Dutch Junction in the country—but the combination of luminescent technology and a full application of the traditional Dutch design is unique to Texas A&M.;

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