BRIGHTENING OUR ROADS
New paint has lasting power
B.C. has found a potential solution to the problem of rapidly disappearing highway lines, selecting two new paints it says will help drivers see markings far more clearly on provincial roads.
Transportation Minister Todd Stone said crews will soon begin blanketing the provincial highway system with new, thicker, more reflective paints that the ministry has developed after more than a year of testing.
That should address what Stone has said is the single biggest complaint he’s heard as minister: Faded yellow and white road lines that disappear within a matter of months, leaving motorists without a clear indication of the centre or sides of a highway.
“It’s the No. 1 issue I’ve heard about in four years in every community around the province,” Stone said in an interview.
The problem dates back to 2010, when Ottawa banned the oil-based highway marking paint used by most provinces as part of new environmental protection standards.
B.C. switched to a lower polluting alkyd paint for coastal and northern roads, and a water-based paint in the Interior. Neither lasted a full year, prompting complaints from local governments and motorists.
Ministry crews and contractors normally repaint almost 30,000 kilometres of roads a year at a cost of almost $11 million. But they had to use up to five times the normal amount of paint, and apply it more frequently, just to keep the lines on the roads.
The Transportation Ministry tested 18 different new paints over four seasons, and then whittled that down to another four paints over this past winter.
The winners: A new “high build paint” that goes on extra thick to survive the tough winters, salt, chains and plows of B.C.’s Interior and North, and a “premium glass bead” paint that provides reflection better suited to the wet coastal climate of Vancouver Island, the Mainland and Sunshine Coast.
“These two formulations both stood up very very well on the testing we did,” said Stone. “They were still very visible through all four seasons without re-application. In particular, the high build paint was extremely resilient. I won’t go so far to say it hadn’t faded at all, but it was still very prominent through all four seasons.”
The new paints are 30 per cent more expensive, meaning B.C. will have to bump up its line painting budget by $1 million this year. “We think the additional cost is going to be well worth it,” said Stone.
Crews will begin to apply the thicker high-build paint on Highways 1,3, 5, 16 and 97. The reflective glass bead paint will be laid starting in April on Highway 14 to Port Renfrew, on Vancouver Island.
It’s still a tough time to paint the roads, said Stone.
“It’s the shoulder season that’s the most challenging,” he said. “Because right now we can’t go out on the Coquihalla and start putting paint down because the weather is still so volatile it will all wash away the next day. And yet there are huge sections of the Coquihalla at the moment that you aren’t going to see a lot of paint. And at the twilight sort of time, of the night, or when it’s raining or snowing, I think we all feel a little bit unnerved when we can’t see the lines on the road.”