$1.6M per year needed to properly maintain Vancouver's road lines | Daily Hive

$1.6 million per year needed to properly maintain Vancouver's road lines and crosswalks

Road lines in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan)

To maintain road markings at an optimal level of visibility for the safety of all road users in Vancouver, the municipal government would need to more than double the current annual maintenance budget for such work.

Currently, it is quite noticeable that many road markings throughout Vancouver are faded, worn, or barely visible, especially at night or in poor weather conditions. Crosswalks, lane dividers, and other essential markings often become difficult to see, creating potential hazards for drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. This deterioration is particularly evident in high-traffic areas and intersections, where markings fade more quickly due to constant wear and exposure to the elements.

These concerns spurred Vancouver City Council to approve a member motion in November 2023 directing City staff to look into improving its maintenance strategies for road markings.

City staff have now identified this as a budgetary issue.

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At the moment, the City of Vancouver sets aside $700,000 each year for maintaining the most crucial markers, including $500,000 for repainting existing yellow centre lines and white lane lines, which are deemed to be the top priority to reduce the potential for serious collisions, and $200,000 for maintaining existing retro-reflective raised pavement markers that improve visibility during the nighttime and wet conditions.

The City already reinstalls raised pavement markings annually as part of its existing practices.

All other markers are only repaired/repainted on a “reactive” or triage basis — based on the degree of poor condition of the markings — without any assigned budget. This includes crosswalks, stop bars, speed humps, bike lane and bus lane markers, and stencils. The existing budget does not enable the regular proactive optimal maintenance of all road markings.

While $700,000 is set aside each year for maintaining road markings, the municipal government has gone over this budget in recent years due to the inflating material costs and the need to address the most urgent reactive repairs — based on assessments made by City crews and public complaints, such as through 311. The actual expenditures on road markings was $1.04 million in 2023 and $944,000 in 2024.

“The current budget does not allow for regular maintenance of markings for bike lanes, transit priority lanes, speed humps, speed limit stencils and other similar markings. These are initially completed under capital work, and only occasionally refreshed through one-off service requests. The regular maintenance budget has not increased with the growing number of new markings and assets,” state City staff.

For instance, through this existing reactive approach using a very limited budget, the municipal government can only maintain about two per cent to three per cent of Vancouver’s 1,354 crosswalks, even though 18 per cent are deemed to be in poor condition. Another 65 per cent of the crosswalks are in fair condition, while only 17 per cent were rated in good condition.

The estimated cost to repaint one crosswalk area is about $1,500 per location. Crosswalks that see greater wear and tear on busier streets would need to be repainted about once every three to five years, but generally, the average refresh would take place every seven to 10 years.

City staff estimate that to maintain all markings with optimal visibility, the annual budget would need to more than double from $700,000 to $1.6 million to expand both the scope and frequency of maintenance.

City staff suggest this budget increase can be considered as a part of the municipal government’s annual operating budget deliberations, which typically take place at the end of each year.

This expanded budget would be used to not only repaint yellow centre lines, white lane lines, and turn bays of major roadways, but also bike lanes and continuity lines on such routes. As well, the increased budget would bring the lines for crosswalks, stop bars, and other crossing features to a good condition.

Required annual maintenance budget for optimal Vancouver road lines/markings vs. current actual budget. (City of Vancouver)

Also, the conditions of road markings can vary depending on the time of year.

The repainting of lines requires the temperature to be about 10°C, with a minimum 24-hour period of dry weather before installation. This is why such work is mainly conducted between April and October, with the repainting performed overnight to reduce the impact on vehicle traffic.

Heavy snowfall can also cause road paint to degrade much more quickly, while snowplows can prematurely peel off raised pavement markers compared to general road use.

New road pavement uses highly durable extruded thermoplastic to define the lines, while existing pavement projects rely on waterborne or solvent-based paint topped with glass beads for added visibility. However, the waterborne or solvent-based paint has a short lifespan and fades more quickly over time.

As well, certain types of paint materials also have a longer curing or drying process.

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