Dear Action Line,
Recently, the city repainted the street lines on several streets including on Eighth street. Not long after, crews repaved Eighth Street, completely covering up the painted lines. Why did this happen? Signed, Trying To Stay In My Lane
Dear Trying To Stay In My Lane,
That’s a good observation.
Action Line regularly travels along Eighth Street, and the freshly repainted lane lines were a good sight to see. But they are indeed covered up by black asphalt now. Certainly the city wouldn’t just ruin an already completed project ... or would they?
Luckily, Laura Rieck from the city of Durango Public Works Department was the right person to ask as she gave us more detail about paving and striping than we ever thought we needed to know.
The paving that took place on Eighth and other streets throughout the city is what’s called asphalt treatment and more specifically seal coating. The treatment is a preventive maintenance technique “that extends the life for a fraction of the cost of milling up the pavement and overlaying it with new pavement,” Rieck said.
“You can think of it almost like applying a permanent coating of lotion over the pavement,” she said.
How exactly does the city decide which roads to perform maintenance on? Every five years, the city assesses all of its roads with a machine that gives each road a score from 0 to 100 on the Pavement Condition Index. This was most recently done in 2023. All of the roads that received asphalt treatment received scores that were higher than 60.
Scores that fall below the high 50s or lower need major rehabilitation or reconstruction if they’re really bad.
That’s great information about asphalt treatment, but what about the painted lines?
“Although it uses more paint, painting prior to seal coating actually reduces the amount of time the Streets crews spends painting after the seal coat,” Rieck said.
The seal coat treatment is relatively thin, so the previously painted lines are still raised above the pavement by about 10 millimeters. This means that crews can simply go back and paint over the covered up lines without having to remember where the lines were in the first place. If that wasn’t the case, crews would have to go back and measure from curb-to-curb to determine where the lines should go.
It’s all about saving time, albeit with using a bit more paint.
New lane lines and centerlines should be painted soon, but for now when you’re driving along Eighth Street trying to stay in your lane, you can rest easy with the knowledge that the lines didn’t disappear for no good reason.
Submit questions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail questions to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301.
