Line marking techniques

[Mergingtraffic]

I noticed this past year in my state (CT) that they basically blanketed all the state roads with new epoxy line markings.  Usually in previous years it was a road here and there or whatever was worn out.  This year, they not only did most roads but they milled the old line and then put down the new one.  This happened on almost all roads, highways, two-lane surface streets etc.

It seems to be a good move.  Have other states been doing this for a while?  I haven't noticed it in NY or MA.  NY tends to reapply their epoxy every year and it gets quite thick in spots but they don't mill it.

[wytout]

Have you also noticed that not only on interstates and limited access highways, but also most state highways, any new paving project taking place is resulting in micro-milled recessed grooves which the lines are laid in, thus making them less prone to being stripped off by snow plows.

on a side note, some recent projects on the limited access roads have also had a lot of exit gores showing up with chevron striping in places they haven't been seen  in decades  , like exits 58-62 on I 84 and exits 74 and 73 and the weigh station westbound on I 84 up in union.

[Mergingtraffic]

Yes I have good move.  I used to hate it when they would reaaply cheaper road paint over the epoxy.  I thuoght it was a waste of resources.  Although on I-95 in Stamford, they painted the lines with regular road paint after a resurfacing project and about a month later milled the lines and put down epoxy.  Why not just put down epoxy to beging with?

[Alps]

Interesting side note re: paint - some jurisdictions find that putting down cheap paint and replacing it twice a year (after winter scraping and a touch-up after summer) is actually cheaper than putting down good epoxy every 3 years (on high-traffic roads). Why? Because they have a lot of equipment that can handle paint, and is in good enough condition that it doesn't make sense to replace it all.

[mass_citizen]

Massachusetts has been expanding into the epoxy as well as polyurea market-both recessed and non recessed. Thermo is still my preference as far as visibility, longevity, and retroreflectivity, particularly when it is recessed.

[spooky]

Massachusetts has also been experimenting with repaving the highway and not bothering to put down permanent markings for months, or at least that has been my experience on the highways I travel daily.

[Mergingtraffic]

Massachusetts has also been experimenting with repaving the highway and not bothering to put down permanent markings for months, or at least that has been my experience on the highways I travel daily.

I noticed this in CT as well, but I may finally have an answer.  Sometimes the line markings aren't in the resurfacing contract.  The contractor resurfaces the highway at night and during the day I'll see the DOT putting down temporary lines.  The temp lines would be there for a month or so and then the DOT would come in and put down final striping.  As to why it took them a month in between is anybody's guess but it does fill in some of the blanks.

[Alps]

Massachusetts has been expanding into the epoxy as well as polyurea market-both recessed and non recessed. Thermo is still my preference as far as visibility, longevity, and retroreflectivity, particularly when it is recessed.

Polyurea - I'm not sure whether I want that to be recycled pee because of environmentalism, or not be recycled pee because I don't want pee all over the road (at least with my tax dollars paying for it).

[Mr. Matté]

Have you also noticed that not only on interstates and limited access highways, but also most state highways, any new paving project taking place is resulting in micro-milled recessed grooves which the lines are laid in, thus making them less prone to being stripped off by snow plows.

The micro-milling and putting some kind of thick material in the grove is something I think Mercer County, NJ experimented on their roads a couple of years ago. After the material is in the grove, some machine comes in and stamps a pattern into it; diamond-pattern on CR 539 and CR 546, straight-grooves on CR 638 and CR 625. As a car driver, they're good because if you cross the shoulder or center line, you hear a noticeable hum but doesn't rattle the car like rumble strips, but as a regular bicyclist on my county's county roads, the material tends to get ripped up forcing me to ride in grooves occasionally (plus the county's experiment with raised reflective markers in the shoulder ticks me off too).

Now I think they just put regular paint on their new mill/repaves. Their striping is "flat" while other counties in which I've biked have a thick strip of something (probably that epoxy) and paint over that.

[Scott5114]

Oklahoma is all cheap paint all the time, but it looks like Norman has been playing around with thermoplastic markings on 24th Avenue NW.

[TEG24601]

I've noticed in Washington that they usually just paint yearly, or bi-yearly (every two years), and usually replace reflectors every two years.  What I have found strange, is that my county has started with, what I can only describe as, bumpy lines.  There are raised sections of both the yellow and white lines, which make a god awful noise when driving over them, and it is very annoying.  I've not seen them on any public roads anywhere else in the US, but have seen them on private roads and parking lots before.


What is also strange is that my city/town used to use a narrow form of the double yellow lines (there was about one line width between the two yellow lines), but the just hired a new Public Works director that made them strip a newly paved section at normal size, and I have to say, it seems to take up too much of the roadway.

[thenetwork]

Western Colorado (I-70) installed about 100 miles of some sort of reflective rubberized strips that are used for the white dotted lines that are "adhesived" into a grooved indentation.

They have held up pretty well -- this is about the 3rd or 4th year of their existence -- they haven't been scraped away by plows and still can be seen at night. 

C-DOT still annually paints the solid yellow and white lines along the shoulders.

[Scott5114]

What is also strange is that my city/town used to use a narrow form of the double yellow lines (there was about one line width between the two yellow lines), but the just hired a new Public Works director that made them strip a newly paved section at normal size, and I have to say, it seems to take up too much of the roadway.

Going from Oklahoma to many of the surrounding states, particularly Arkansas and Texas, is kind of jarring because Oklahoma uses this 'narrow form' but Arkansas sets the lines very far apart.

[myosh_tino]

What is also strange is that my city/town used to use a narrow form of the double yellow lines (there was about one line width between the two yellow lines), but the just hired a new Public Works director that made them strip a newly paved section at normal size, and I have to say, it seems to take up too much of the roadway.

Coming from California, I always though the "narrow form" double yellow was more the norm rather than the exception seeing how California, Nevada and Washington use the "narrow form" while Oregon uses the "wide form".

One interesting note though on California.  On certain two-lane highways where there's a higher than normal rate of head-on collisions, Caltrans now uses a modified "wide form" double yellow so it can place a rumble strip between the two yellow lines.  CA-152 east of Gilroy and CA-58 east of Kramer Junction are two roadways that feature this type of double-yellow plus rumble strip.

Does the MUTCD have a preference between "narrow form" and "wide form" double yellow lines?

Note: I realized that I could have looked this up but I thought I'd pose the question anyways to further the discussion.

[roadfro]

Coming from California, I always though the "narrow form" double yellow was more the norm rather than the exception seeing how California, Nevada and Washington use the "narrow form" while Oregon uses the "wide form".

One interesting note though on California.  On certain two-lane highways where there's a higher than normal rate of head-on collisions, Caltrans now uses a modified "wide form" double yellow so it can place a rumble strip between the two yellow lines.  CA-152 east of Gilroy and CA-58 east of Kramer Junction are two roadways that feature this type of double-yellow plus rumble strip.

Does the MUTCD have a preference between "narrow form" and "wide form" double yellow lines?

Surprisingly, there is no standard for the spacing between double yellow (or double white) lines in the national MUTCD...it only mentions there needs to be a "discernible space" between the two lines. However, all the figures in the MUTCD seem to use the narrow form from what I can tell. Which begs the question how the wide form developed in the first place...


Interesting that California is using a wide form double yellow around the centerline rumble strips. Nevada is applying the normal double yellow striping directly on top of the centerline rumble strip to create what the MUTCD calls "rumble stripes". On higher-volume two-lane roads (i.e. most of US 95 between Las Vegas and Fallon), NDOT is increasingly applying centerline rumble strips to the entire roadway, which means you can see the whole array of yellow markings painted directly on top of the centerline rumble strips.

Nevada is now also making rumble stripes with right and left edge lines as well, both on two-lane and divided highways. Previously, the rumble strips were located just outside the edge lines in the shoulder.

[realjd]

Coming from California, I always though the "narrow form" double yellow was more the norm rather than the exception seeing how California, Nevada and Washington use the "narrow form" while Oregon uses the "wide form".

One interesting note though on California.  On certain two-lane highways where there's a higher than normal rate of head-on collisions, Caltrans now uses a modified "wide form" double yellow so it can place a rumble strip between the two yellow lines.  CA-152 east of Gilroy and CA-58 east of Kramer Junction are two roadways that feature this type of double-yellow plus rumble strip.

Does the MUTCD have a preference between "narrow form" and "wide form" double yellow lines?

Surprisingly, there is no standard for the spacing between double yellow (or double white) lines in the national MUTCD...it only mentions there needs to be a "discernible space" between the two lines. However, all the figures in the MUTCD seem to use the narrow form from what I can tell. Which begs the question how the wide form developed in the first place...


Interesting that California is using a wide form double yellow around the centerline rumble strips. Nevada is applying the normal double yellow striping directly on top of the centerline rumble strip to create what the MUTCD calls "rumble stripes". On higher-volume two-lane roads (i.e. most of US 95 between Las Vegas and Fallon), NDOT is increasingly applying centerline rumble strips to the entire roadway, which means you can see the whole array of yellow markings painted directly on top of the centerline rumble strips.

Nevada is now also making rumble stripes with right and left edge lines as well, both on two-lane and divided highways. Previously, the rumble strips were located just outside the edge lines in the shoulder.

The wide form is more old fashioned. Previously, many states used a dotted white line down the middle to separate traffic. A solid yellow line on your side of the white line prohibited passing. A double yellow situation would be two yellow lines with the white dotted center line in between. When they eliminated the white center line, not everyone brought the yellow lines closer together.

[roadman]

The wide form is more old fashioned. Previously, many states used a dotted white line down the middle to separate traffic. A solid yellow line on your side of the white line prohibited passing. A double yellow situation would be two yellow lines with the white dotted center line in between. When they eliminated the white center line, not everyone brought the yellow lines closer together.

Common practice in many western states was to have the dashed white line and a solid yellow line on each side of the white line in areas where passing was prohibited in both directions.  Use of this treatment. although not specified, is nevertheless implied in the pavement marking diagrams in the 1961 MUTCD.  The original Vanishing Point (1972) has several scenes where this type of marking is shown.

[Brandon]

The wide form is more old fashioned. Previously, many states used a dotted white line down the middle to separate traffic. A solid yellow line on your side of the white line prohibited passing. A double yellow situation would be two yellow lines with the white dotted center line in between. When they eliminated the white center line, not everyone brought the yellow lines closer together.

Some states use a system whereby three stripes could potentially be used.  Illinois does this.

No passing in either direction is two solid yellow stripes with space for a line in between.



No passing in one direction is a solid yellow stripe with a dashed yellow line where the gap between the two solid yellow stripes was.

https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=41.591735,-88.435637&spn=0.018519,0.042272&t=m&z=15&layer=c&cbll=41.591735,-88.435637&panoid=B7B9G40tqk0QzWy4vwaA5A&cbp=12,171.32,,0,19.19

And the single dashed line in the middle.



This may be due to how the striping machine is set up (up to three possible positions), but I don't know.

[hbelkins]

I'm old enough to remember when a no-passing center stripe consisted of two solid yellow lines with a broken white line in the middle. The first two-yellow-lines-with-no-white-line stripe I can remember seeing was on US 23, just north of the Tennessee state line in Virginia, when I was a kid and our family was returning home from a family vacation to the Outer Banks. (Would have been sometime after 1967).

[KEK Inc.]

OR/WA does the 3 pain system.  CA doesn't, but they usually put a strip of black paint to add contrast for the light pavement often used.

[theline]

I'm old enough to remember when a no-passing center stripe consisted of two solid yellow lines with a broken white line in the middle. The first two-yellow-lines-with-no-white-line stripe I can remember seeing was on US 23, just north of the Tennessee state line in Virginia, when I was a kid and our family was returning home from a family vacation to the Outer Banks. (Would have been sometime after 1967).

I'm even older than you, and I clearly remember the three-stripe pattern used in Indiana and at least some surrounding states. It really surprised me when we traveled to other states that omitted the center white dashed line where passing was prohibited in both directions.

[realjd]

The Philippines do it the old American way as seen in a few of the pictures in the Philippines thread in the International forum, particularly the last photo in this post:
https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=10070.msg237711#msg237711

New Zealand does it similarly also. They don't do a three stripe system but they use yellow for solid lines in the center and white for dashed lines in the center.

[myosh_tino]

OR/WA does the 3 pain system.  CA doesn't, but they usually put a strip of black paint to add contrast for the light pavement often used.

I know Oregon uses the wide-style double yellows but I was under the impression that Washington used the narrow-style like California and Nevada.  After looking at some photos in the AARoads' Gallery and some Google Map satellite images, it hit me that my trips to Washington were primarily to the Seattle area to visit relatives and it's these, more urban, areas that use the narrow-style double yellows (presumably done by the local DOTs and not WSDOT).

[KEK Inc.]

OR/WA does the 3 pain system.  CA doesn't, but they usually put a strip of black paint to add contrast for the light pavement often used.

I know Oregon uses the wide-style double yellows but I was under the impression that Washington used the narrow-style like California and Nevada.  After looking at some photos in the AARoads' Gallery and some Google Map satellite images, it hit me that my trips to Washington were primarily to the Seattle area to visit relatives and it's these, more urban, areas that use the narrow-style double yellows (presumably done by the local DOTs and not WSDOT).

Only rural King County uses California's narrow style (even with the reflectors on the outside). 

[Brandon]

The Oregon/Washington pattern is what Illinois uses, but with a bit of a twist.  The downstate districts use the reflectors on the inside of the double yellow.  IDOT District 1 (Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties) does the reflectors California-style, on the outside, even with the Oregon/Washington striping pattern.