Discontinuing striping of roads

[ACtrafficengr]

We typically stripe center and edge lines on all of our roads each year, regardless of ADT or functional class. I was just told this year's adopted budget does not have enough money in the pavement marking item for this.

My first reaction is, if asked to advise on what to cut, I want it in a memo. Also, cuts should be made on the basis of an engineering study, or I'm washing my hands.

Taking off my P.E. hat and putting on my county employee hat, we should consider the following before making any decisions:

• 
  * MUTCD standards for volume, RR Xings, multi-lane roads, etc.
  * Safety history - keep markings on roads with lane departure crashes
  * Weather conditions - some of our higher elevation roads get frequent fog from what the flatlanders call clouds
  * Safety performance - e.g. cut a marking with a .95 CMF before one with a .7 CMF
  * Whether to consider using a more durable marking material every other year. We use carbide snowplow inserts, so epoxy historically haven't always survived more than one winter
  * Politics & public relations - e.g. crosswalk markings have not been shown to increase pedestrian safety, but removing one by a grade school would not be politically popular.

Have I missed anything?




"...students of traffic are beginning to realize the false economy of mechanically controlled traffic, and hand work by trained officers will again prevail." - Wm. Phelps Eno, ca. 1928

 

[msquared48]

Liability. Lawyers cut into the budget too, frequently bigtime, and more than some striping.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask

 

[ACtrafficengr]

Yeah, liability was driving much of what I wrote above. CYA and CYDA (cover your department's ...)

"...students of traffic are beginning to realize the false economy of mechanically controlled traffic, and hand work by trained officers will again prevail." - Wm. Phelps Eno, ca. 1928

 

[Debaser]

If you use retroreflective material could you use a threshold value for performance? In particular see Annex A of;

http://www.standardsforhighways.co.uk/dmrb/vol8/section2/td2607.pdf

 

[civilman72]

Seems to me like striping every year is overkill.

Are you losing that much striping each year that it's not longer visible? If this is due to snowplows, you may want to consider embedding your striping.