The city will start to look at options when it comes to painting roads in Prince George.
At last night’s meeting, Prince George City Council received an update from Director of Civic Operations Blake McIntosh on the city’s annual road marking program.
“With the introduction of regulations by Environment Canada, the City of Prince George has experienced a decrease in paint performance,” McIntosh said.
“Regulations have limited the use of paint containing volatile organic compounds over a specified amount per litre, and defined seasonal application windows.”
According to a report by McIntosh, traffic control marking inventories required for the 2023 season include:
- 600 pedestrian crossings
- 500 stop bars
- 610 directional arrows
- linear lane markings including all linear solid white and yellow, ingle dashed white and yellow, and solid double yellow markings totaling 460 kilometres (including bike lanes).
This year, the city has budgeted $471,976.00 for traffic markings.
“Being a winter city, the new paint standard does not withstand slow plow blades and scouring, as vehicle tires rollover winter traction materials,” McIntosh said.
“There are other longer wearing products on the market, such as inlaid thermoplastic and methyl acrylate resin, but they are cost-prohibitive and would be subject to winter maintenance activities that can be aggressive at times, and would likely impact hteir longevity as well.”
“I would love to see our Intergovernmental Affairs Committee put something together and say ‘we realize that maybe at one time doing this whole doing away with the paint with the volatile organic compounds was a sexy move,'” Klassen said.
“But I would submit that we’re probably spending more and emitting more having to repaint our lines every year.”
Councillor Brian Skakun suggested turning to UNBC students to come up with a solution.
“Just look at different ways to meet the environmental regulations, but do it on our own terms,” he said.
“There has to be options out there, and if we have the skill set in our community to research those options, maybe we should.”
During budget deliberations, Councillor Kyle Sampson had suggested using the old paint and eating the fines.
“I know I was curious about the fines associated with the use of the old-style paint, slightly facetiously, but realistically I believe there’s potential benefit to that,” Sampson said last night.
Councillor Cori Ramsay noted the Pride Crosswalk as an example of a long lasting sidewalk.
“There was conversation about how it was such an expensive paint to use the colour and it used a different type of element in it, and the question was whether or not the cost was worth it, if it was going to last a season,” Ramsay said.
“I don’t think there’s any crosswalk in this town that has lived longer than that one.”
Ramsay posed the question of using more expensive paint in some areas of town knowing it would last multiple season.
“High impact pedestrian areas where it just might be really beneficial for a quick touch up in the spring, but have some base layer that doesn’t completely wash away over the winter,” she said.
“I understand there’s a higher expense for using that type of paint, but we get lots of concerns about safety, about not being able to see road lines, about not being able to see crosswalks.”
Councillor Garth Frizzell said they should be looking to gain funding from the Federal Government who imposed the sanctions.
The city’s Standing Committee on Intergovernmental Affairs will continue to discuss the issue at a later date.