Paint is the problem for Prince Rupert's fast disappearing roadway markings

Prince Ruperts disappearing road markings made for some discusison
Monday at City Council

A topic that has to be in the Top Ten Discussion themes for Prince Rupert City council over the last decade returned for another go around at Monday's debut session for 2024, with Councillor Wade Niesh taking the lead this time on the never ending quest for reliable and long lasting road markings.

"I do a lot of travelling throughout our province an on the highway, our lines, line painting, it is terrible across this province and its not because of anything other than we can't use the good paint anymore because it's not environmentally friendly.

So this is kind of you know a two pronged thing ... could we possibly write a letter to whoever we could to have this discussion, because I truly do feel that people are going to start to get killed in this province, especially on the highway ... 

It's just not a problem locally, it's a problem everywhere and I think that you know we need to go back to being able to use something that stands up to the conditions.

I mean you look at every crosswalk in our town, I mean we paint them and two months later they're gone and it's not like before when they used thick paint that they put the reflective stuff in and it stayed there.

And every year they were just touching them up, well now its basically we having to repaint them because they completely disappear, the  yellow lines disappear  -- Councillor Wade Niesh

The Councillor also asked for staff research other options, noting of how those elements might work to the city's benefit.

"Maybe if city staff could look into maybe other options, I know there is like reflectors that you can recess into the pavement, maybe things like that in certain areas, a good example of that is McDonalds  you know right now we have no lines there and you have two lanes with people trying to turn onto Prince Rupert Boulevard ...  

Look at it as maybe that's something we can do for our yellow lines around town, is recessed reflectors into the ground versus actually painting yellow lines. It might cost us a little bit more upfront but it might be something that we don't have to do year after year " 

The Mayor noted of agreement from Council towards a letter writing proposal, instructing to staff to compose a correspondence. 

That was followed up by City Manager Robert Buchan who suggested that they may want to take their concerns on the road so to speak, asking if Council wished to make it a possible  resolution for UBCM, with Councillor Cunningham also suggesting that they take also take the topic to NCLGA later this spring.

Both Mr. Cunningham and Mayor Pond also shared their own personal concerns, similar to those that Councillor Niesh had outlined, you can review all of those discussion points from the City's Video archive page starting at the 31 minute mark.

As we noted at the top, this was not the fist road rodeo for line marking by Council, it's a topic that has been a frequent part of the discussion over the years, particularly since the City moved to a private operator contractural arrangement for its road marking requirements.

Whether a return to in house line painting and a potential for immediate attention to areas of concern,  might make for an interesting discussion for the council membership once staff returns with the report on options requested by Mr. Niesh.

A cross section of some of those past concerns on the state of line marking can be reviewed below:

October 2021 -- Road marking concerns raised once again at City Council Session
March 2021 -- City Council members see red over white lines 
March 2018 -- Councillor Cunningham seeks report on city's pavement marking program 

Those looking to go way back into the Time Machine can explore the many entries to the topic to be found through our Operations Department archive page.

For more on Monday's Council session see our archive page here.