Prince George, B.C. – it has been a source of contention and subject of discussion on the Friday Free For All  on 250News,  for several weeks.   Today,   we can tell you,  the process to  have  lane markings painted on Prince George roads  has started.

Yesterday morning, Yellowhead Pavement Markings began painting in the Hart area and continued painting on roads downtown and on other higher volume routes through the evening and into this morning. All work is expected to be completed by mid-June,  with the exception of  markings that  will need to be done on  newly rehabilitated roads through the summer. 

The City’s roadway marking program has three components;  survey layout work, painted “handwork” pavement markings, and painted lane markings. Survey layout work includes all preliminary markings required by the contractor to correctly apply traffic markings. This work began weeks ago as the City’s sweeping operations neared completion. 

Once the layout work’s been done, and  Mother Nature provides  warm enough temperatures for the paint to bond with  asphalt,  the  real work can get underway.  There must also be enough ambient light present at 5:00am for crews to be able to paint safely at intersections too busy to be worked upon during the day. 

The current painted lane markings required for the 2016 season include all solid white and yellow, single dashed white, and yellow and solid double-yellow line markings – totaling 459 kilometers. Painted handwork includes the markings found at intersections such as crosswalk lines, stop bars, and directional arrows. The handwork required for the 2016 season includes 595 pedestrian crossings, 463 stop bars, and 609 directional arrows.

In the interest of safety, crews will are also putting line markings down along 15^th Avenue and 5^th Avenue. These lines will have to be removed and repainted later in the spring or summer.