Road Warrior: The scoop on street stripes; why can't we see the medians in the dark?

THE METHOD TO STRIPING OUR CITY STREETS: Celina Salazar emails, “I’ve been meaning to write this for quite some time. I travel Candelaria and Menaul, between Louisiana and Rio Grande, every weekday. Does the city have any plans to stripe city streets any time soon? On almost any street I travel, you can’t see the striping in broad daylight. Going to be very dangerous come monsoon season.”

Street striping is an ongoing part of road maintenance, and city of Albuquerque spokesman Tim Walsh has the lowdown.

“Since 2020, the city has spent over $3 million on striping, primarily using RoadSafe Traffic Systems, a local contractor and valuable partner of ours. We’ve re-striped roads such as Montgomery/Montaño, Wyoming, San Mateo, Tower, Sage and West Central,” Walsh says. “The Traffic Engineering Division has also completed 233 intersections in that time. We expect to spend about $750,000 on road striping of various types this year. At this time, we are focusing on our short-line program, which covers crosswalks, arrows only, bike symbols and the like. We expect to have long-line locations dispatched in late summer, which covers the 4-inch stripe that delineates lanes along roads.”

At the end of June, Walsh says, the city had “RoadSafe actively working on four locations, and further locations will be tasked as those are completed. Locations are prioritized according to need, whether it’s a school crossing, and whether it’s on the city’s High Fatality & Injury Network (HFIN). Needed school crossings are completed first, and I believe all those were completed early this spring. We are now working on needed locations on our HFIN network. At this time, we have identified 171 intersections that need stripe today.”

In addition, Walsh says the Streets Division “re-stripe(s) roads as part of their annual rehabilitation program. They place new stripe on new pavement but will also refresh crosswalks and stop bars on intersecting streets that were not repaved so all the stripe in the area looks the same. We also work with the New Mexico Department of Transportation and try to refresh locations that are adjacent to their striping and pavement rehabilitation program.”

All that said, not every stripe that appears faded really is. Walsh explains “when it’s been a long time between rain storms, the stripe on the roads gets dirty. Roads can look like they need a new coat of paint, but a couple good rainstorms will wash the dirt away, and the stripe is much easier to see.”

CAN’T SEE NOSES IN THE DARK: Tom says in an email, “ I thought in the past, concrete medians had some fluorescent paint on them so drivers could see where they should be going when making a left turn at an intersection.

“There is far more lighting on our streets these days, but many still are not and so are hard to navigate at night. This is especially true if there is no car ahead of you that you can follow. Will the city/ state ever be treating these obstacles so they are more easily visible when making a left turn?”

Gallegos says, “I mentioned this in our staff meeting and the engineers informed me when there is low visibility, they will paint the nose heads with florescent paint. They will be evaluating areas throughout the District Three area to identify which ones need to be painted. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.”

And a city spokesman says, “Currently, the city addresses these median concerns reported to 311 based on the availability of time and resources. We are working to acquire a new piece of equipment that will increase our capacity to make these important improvements as soon as this fall.”

HOW FLASHING YELLOWS WORK: As flashing yellow-turn-arrow signals become more common in New Mexico, and some driver confusion follows, Walter Dutton points out via email, “Las Cruces has flashing yellow arrows on several of its traffic lights, and several of them also have signs describing what the flashing yellow arrows mean. Maybe Albuquerque needs to invest in some signs?”

And Dennis Angellis shares, “It seems New Mexico motorists don’t know the New Mexico rules. (State statute 66-7-107) says, “Flashing yellow (caution signal): when a yellow lens is illuminated with rapid intermittent flashes, drivers of vehicles may proceed through the intersection or pass such signal only with caution.” Dennis adds, “I’ve lived in Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New York, all of which whom have the question on their driver’s test and flashing yellow lights were common at intersections. I hope this helps. It seems the NMDOT/Motor Vehicle Division need to do a PSA campaign as many N.M. drivers need a refresh of this rule.”

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