Faded road lines: Vancouver City Council to consider upping painting game

Road line painting. (Government of BC)

Faded paint markings on the road are a major safety issue that needs to be properly addressed, according to a Vancouver city councillor.

Next week, City Council will deliberate Green party councillor Pete Fry’s member motion to direct City staff to create a regular maintenance strategy for keeping clear, visible line markings on road surfaces.

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As it turns out, the City of Vancouver does not have a dedicated maintenance strategy for paint markings on roadways, as any repainting is only done on an ad hoc basis.

Paint markings delineate not only the traffic lanes on a roadway, but also stop lines, hazards, turning lanes, crosswalks, and other markers, such as HOV lanes, bus zones, bike lanes, parking zones, and restrictions.

Fry’s motion suggests a “safety hierarchy” for maintaining paint markings should be created, along with the inclusion of a new permanent budget item to effectively support such work starting in the City’s 2024 budget.

Markings fade over time from not only heavy traffic, but also weather, including snow, ice, and extreme heat.

“Damaged paint resulting in incomplete or degraded road markings can create compromised visibility for all road users, especially in rainy or dark conditions, and for active transportation users can further result in uneven surfaces that create potential surface hazards in particular for cyclists and micromobility road users,” reads the motion.

“Many Canadian cities and provinces have regular scheduled full or (more typically) partial rotating road marking re-painting programs to proactively address wear and tear on surfacing, prevent substrate damage, and promote greater visibility and safety.”

Since 2010, oil-based paint markings — commonly associated with superior visibility for its reflectiveness, especially in nighttime and poor weather conditions — have been banned by the federal government due to environmental concerns and worker exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOC).

To mitigate the restrictions, according to the provincial government, since 2019, the provincial highway maintenance contractor has painted 20% more lines annually across BC, installed larger glass beads in areas for increased reflectivity and visibility, and applied a second coat of paint to areas that experience premature wear. Ever since the federal ban, the province has refined its paint mix with low VOC alkyd and water-based formulas.

The provincial government typical repaints 20,000 km of highways and provincially-owned roads each year for proactive maintenance.

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