NEWBURYPORT — This month’s hot weather may be too much for many Greater Newburyporters, but the high heat has helped the Department of Public Services get a quick start on its annual street painting schedule.
DPS began painting stop lines and crosswalks in the West End Monday night and by Wednesday had applied roughly 10,000 linear feet of new line paint, according to DPS Deputy Director Jon Carey.
“We’re pretty much on schedule,” he said. “I’d say we’re probably going to be doing close to 30,000 linear feet this season.”
The same couldn’t be said for last year, due to challenging summer weather that pushed the painting schedule into the fall. That didn’t end well for some Plum Island car owners when overnight line improvements in October left some vehicles on Plum Island stained with yellow paint.
Carey said the goal is to paint during warmer weather so July’s heat wave has been helpful. The city budgeted roughly $78,000 for the project, he added.
“The pavement temperature was over 100 degrees, Monday and Tuesday night,” he said. “So, the line is pretty much drying up as we’re laying it down.”
Tuesday night’s thunderstorms, however, caused some work delays, according to Carey who added Wednesday’s painting was outright canceled, due to a wet-weather forecast.
“Those thunderstorms are really kind of killing us,” he said. “We didn’t get as much done as we wanted to, Tuesday night. But we were able to do close to twice as much as we were planning on, Monday night.”
Street painting and water don’t mix, according to Carey.
Freshly painted street lines are usually dry by the time the eight-vehicle caravan of workers pass by it.
But DPS Director Wayne Amaral said last October cooler fall weather kept the paint from drying as quickly. At the time, just under a handful of people, including Plum Island resident Gina Tallarico let the city know they found streaks of yellow paint along the undercarriage of their cars.
Needless to say, they were not happy.
Tallarico said she received a roughly $1,500 payout from the city for the damage to her 2013 BMW 135i. But the work to fix the car, she said cost over $2,600.
“The city should really put up clear signage that the road’s are being done, to give people the head’s up,” she said.
Mayor Sean Reardon said the city is looking to avoid any such entanglements this year.
“The weather looks good and we can hopefully get this all done quickly,” he said.
Fresh street lines, according to Carey, improve visibility.
“We do it for public safety, with visible stop lines and crosswalks,” he said. “We also want to make the center (traffic) line visible, as well.”
Carey also said he expects to see the Plum Island and Green Street municipal parking lots completed sometime in the near future.
He also said DPS should be moving on to painting yellow traffic lines, as well as white bicycle lanes by the middle of next month.