City starts painting roads

Many city streets show only the faintest of road markings, but starting this week that will slowly start to change.

The City of Prince George announced crews had started roadway line marking operations this week and will continue to paint over the weekend.

The contractor, Yellowhead Pavement Markings, is first focusing on the "roads downtown and on other higher volume routes" as well as the Hart area. The contractor was brought on board after last year's company was given the boot for subpar painting that left the city riddled with wobbly markings on its roadways.

Despite starting early on road maintenance work, the city couldn't start putting lines in until the street sweeping and survey layout was complete, it said. Paint is also dependent on temperature. If it's too cold, then it won't bond with the asphalt.

"All work is anticipated to be complete by mid-June, except those markings that must be done on recently rehabilitated roads through the summer," the city release said.

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

2016 roads by the numbers:

459 - number of total kilometres to be painted

595 - number of pedestrian crossings

463 - number of stop bars

609 - number of directional arrows.

That includes all solid white and yellow, single dashed white, and yellow and solid double-yellow line markings found at intersections such as crosswalk lines, stop bars, and directional arrows.