Pavement Marking

You know your parking lot striping needs to be repainted when drivers aren’t able to see the stripes, lettering, and pavement symbols clearly enough to maneuver safely. 

A good rule of thumb is that a parking lot needs to be re-striped every one to two years. If your pavement marking is just starting to fade, you might be tempted to wait another year to re-stripe, but there are good reasons not to put it off. In fact, the two most important reasons for freshly painted parking lot striping are accident prevention and ADA compliance.

“On average, more than 50,000 crashes occur in parking lots and parking garages annually, resulting in 500 or more deaths and more than 60,000 injuries.” In addition to distractions and lack of attention, “inadequate pavement striping, potholes or cracks, lack of signage, debris, poor lighting, puddles, and snow and ice also can lead to pedestrian injuries.”

In addition to the importance of providing safe parking areas, it’s a requirement that they be accessible by persons with disabilities. In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed and additional requirements for parking areas were added in 2010. They regulate features such as minimum number of accessible parking spaces, their location, and required signage and pavement markings.

Parking Lot Striping Q & A

Why would I need to re-stripe as often as every year? How often you need to re-stripe depends on the volume and type of traffic you get. If your parking facility is exposed to the elements and busy year-round, your parking lot striping will fade quickly. The markings on a less trafficked site, such as a school or community center, will stay bright and readable longer. The problem we often see is when facility managers decide to make their pavement markings wait another year. If a heavy rainfall prevents drivers from seeing your parking lines, you’ve waited too long to re-stripe.

How do I know if my parking facility complies with the ADA? The U.S. Department of Justice has an excellent ADA compliance brief on their website. We recommend reading it so that you’re familiar with the guidelines. Other than that you don’t need to be concerned when you hire Wahlen Works. We’re thoroughly conversant with the ADA requirements for striping, marking, and signage.

How do I maximize the safety of my parking lot? Road surface markings convey information to both pedestrians and motorists. They show pedestrians where they can walk safely and direct vehicles to where they may drive and park. Properly placed arrows, crosswalks, symbols, and signage clearly define who belongs where and who must yield to whom. It’s important to provide enough spatial margin so that 21st century distractions don’t turn into tragedy. If a driver is looking at his phone, misses a stop sign, and hits the brakes late, a little extra room can make all the difference.

What else do I need to know? It’s important to pay attention to raised embankments and changes in elevation. Painting them a contrasting color alerts pedestrians that they need to take a step up or a step down, reducing a common cause of falls. 

Re-striping is a necessary part of parking lot maintenance. Vivid color contrasts and uninterrupted traffic flows direct visitor movement correctly and safely. Wahlen Works offers professional parking lot striping, pavement marking, and signage services for newly paved lots and lots that need to be re-striped. Call us today for a quote.

Do you realize that your pavement marking can talk? Well maybe not talk exactly, but it certainly can communicate. In fact, that is its primary function. It’s like the project manager on your team or the traffic officer at Miller Park. Fresh, high quality pavement marking keeps vehicle and pedestrian traffic organized and moving smoothly which keeps everyone safer and happier.

What Is The Purpose of Marking?

Pavement marking is so ubiquitous and so expected that most people rarely give it a thought — until it isn’t visible when they need it. If you have ever been caught in a blinding thunderstorm or found yourself with seconds to decide if you need to merge or stay put, you know that proper road surface marking is the difference between fear and confidence. 

The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) published by the U.S. Department of Transportation says, “Pavement markings are used to convey messages to roadway users. They indicate which part of the road to use, provide information about conditions ahead, and indicate where passing is allowed.” Symbols, such as for bicycles, tell you how you are permitted to use the lanes. They can also warn you of areas where you might want to exercise caution, such as at railroad crossings.

In parking structures and on other private property, clear easy-to-understand striping tells drivers where to go and what to do. A prominent crosswalk tells pedestrians that it is safe to walk there. Signs and symbols tell both foot and vehicle traffic where they are permitted to move, wait, and park. This is good for customers and business, but it also complies with the law, specifically in regard to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). When creating handicapped parking areas, a combination of clearly marked stalls and proper signage sends a warm welcome message to all visitors.

What Do Parking Lot Pavement Markings Mean?

When you enter a ramp or other parking structure, you are confronted with markings that are more complex than the standard yellow and white of the highways. Pavement marking works in conjunction with signs and (sometimes) traffic signals to direct traffic through a parking area and a yellow line (either solid or broken) is still used to indicate two-way traffic. However, you will also see stop lines, crosswalks, painted curbs, and symbol markings. 

• A stop bar marking is a single white line that tells you where to stop.
• Word and symbol markings, such as yield or directional arrows, communicate to you without diverting your attention from the road.
• Crosswalk markings are parallel double white lines that tell pedestrians where they can cross the roadway. Sometimes they are accompanied by the symbol “ped xing” on the road just before the crosswalk that tells the driver to prepare to stop.
• Curb striping is used to communicate curb use rules such as no parking, fire lanes, handicapped zones, loading and unloading, parking for a short period of time, and parking allowed.

$136M Pavement Marking Project

In California, they tested a new 6-inch wide, highly reflective road striping in 2017. The $136 million project was implemented on I-80 in the capital city of Sacramento. The test was so successful that Caltrans decided to re-stripe 50,000-plus lane miles of state highway system in the next decade. 

Their reasoning is that markings “must be capable of conveying information during inclement weather and evening hours when there may be little to no illumination from overhead lighting. The 6-in.-wide striping provides a valuable continuous stream of information about the roadway that signs or signals cannot supply. They alert drivers to changes in the roadway and help them maintain their position inside of the lane without requiring the driver to take their eyes off the road.”

While pavement marking obviously can’t talk, it does tell us things and communicates valuable information that we literally cannot live without. If your striping is faded or inefficient, give us a call. We’ll have it “talking” to you again in no time.