Submitted by Gem_carver t3_zeyt7r in Connecticut
Can anyone tell me what is happening to the traffic paint on our major roadways when it rains? It’s like disappearing ink. How about we use some money from the rainy day fund to paint lines on the highway that won’t disappear when it rains…
Has anyone else noticed that it gets worse every time we re-pave any roadway? Either money was cut from the budget or a contractor is skimming off the top.
This makes complete sense, But I never knew that was the reason for two sets of paint.
But there are always certain conditions anywhere when it rains that make it difficult to see line markings.
Probably just old paint. Paint goes on and then glass beads are poured on the wet paint. As paint wears down beads fall out.
Fresh asphalt with oil based traffic paint can discolor. That's why any parking lot that gets sealed you must use latex. Otherwise, white traffic paint will turn brown on lots or new asphalt. Yellow does turn as well if oil based.
Most town/city roads are now thermoplastic paint with glass beads added and it dries very quickly. That is more permanent than typical traffic paint.
I worked long ago with a business who did parking and roadway traffic markings .
Never knew what that was when they paint lines an glass bead often pool on sides of road
Yeah, they sometimes add too much. It just pours through a pipe as they apply paint, the glass beads are flowing way too much that what doesn't cure in the paint gets off to the sides.
Also, slippery as hell too...the glass beads.
I'd rather see the imbedded reflective markers. Those light up really well! Cost is high, but they outway other forms of traffic markings in reflectivity at night.
Yeah problem with those is the plows will tear those up fairly regularly too with how often they maintain the roads in CT (meaning not often).
Even the recessed ones are not safe from our big orange boys.
Yep, seen a few times they rip a few up when the blade catches them and the blade does not spring back or if they still use the metal lip vs a hard plastic lip on the blade.
Most DOT are all metal tip bladed as sparks fly when hitting pavement not covered.
Still, love how well those reflective markers light up at night, both yellow and white just blaze up with headlights vs paint with glass beads unless it's fresh painted.
[deleted]
When wet out I behave fallen on my ass a couple times because it is so slippery, and this was in crosswalks.
Yes, traffic paint w/o glass beads when newly applied and it's raining....easily to slip on.
After striping a parking lot and crosswalk before it rained, then as it did I went to pick up cones, landed right on my ass. Crew laughed like hell but hurt like a SOB! Learned from then on to be very careful on those and speed humps when wet
At least the glass makes nice art when you scoop it up from the over pouring
Same when they "oil" a road and apply the bluestone pebbles.
My father and I would go out on our street with the International Harvestor tractor and the trailer to scoop up all the bluestone off on the sides of the road.
We could fill up that trailer with a shit ton of the stone ..thanks to our town..😁
Can we use glow in the dark (either actually in the paint or as beeds)beads in the paint and not just reflection?
Doesn't last long. We tried once at a parking lot and it lost its effectiveness in a month or less.
Only way is glass beads or thermoplastic hot tape which has a more reflective product in it, but in time, you'll see those peel off roadways. Mostly used for temporary marking until Safety Mark gets their truck out with the liquid thermoplastic "paint" and beads.
ConnDOT doesn’t spec thermoplastic for highways. Atleast I don’t see it in the form 818 which is ConDOTs standards on construction materials. It’s usually waterborne, hot applied waterborne or epoxy resin. Epoxy resin has the highest level of wet night reflectivity and lasts 3-5 years as opposed to thermoplastic which is only 2-4 and has medium level wet night reflectivity.
This guy Consults
Yeah I was gonna say I've never seen it either. The final installation is usually just paint that's grooved in i.e. milled lines that have the paint laid in them to increase longevity.
After talking to a senior engineer at my firm he said ConnDOT use to use thermoplastic years ago but they have since moved on to epoxy resin.
Most likely the resin type. Whatever Safety Marking uses on roadways.
They sometimes still use thermoplastic for city and town municipalities just not on highways any longer!
Link?
Link?
You are just used to shiny paint now.
The old stuff disappeared when it was dark. The whole road disappeared when it rained.
My wife went out for an Xmas dinner last night and drove on 91, 691 and then 84 and said she couldn't see a freaking thing.
She said cars were driving erratically, no one was staying in their lanes and she said she was terrified because she couldn't see the lines either.
My wife is a fine driver and normally doesn't worry about driving. But she seldom drives at night, so having to do that while it was raining last night really stressed her out big time.
She was certain she was going to get into an accident.
It's bad in the entire tristate area. Driving at night in the rain, it's nearly impossible to see the lines.
I road trip every year to the Midwest to see some family and it's amazing how much better the roads are especially during bad weather. They use a more reflective paint then also have those little stand up reflectors between the lines that you can drive over.
We need to use the better paint because those little stand up reflectors would get peeled off by snow plows in the northeast!
Yeah but doesn't the mid west have worse snow storms? If it works for them... maybe for us too. Gotta do something. Between the shite paint and the overly bright headlights I am fearing for my life at night these days.
The Midwest gets much more snow. Doesn't seem to be an issue. They're meant to collapse when you drive or push snow over them etc.
so weird that not one single highway department in one single town in New England knows about these snow plow resistant glue-on-the-road reflectors. You'd think this being their business and all, they'd know something.
Very strange. Once you hit Ohio going west you start running into highly reflecting lane markers. That continues from OH, IN, IL and WI. Of course OH, IN and IL are mostly toll roads. But even the non-toll roads are better.
I drove last night and I couldn’t see anything. I was so confused. I found myself in a turn only lane when I meant to go straight, on a road I’ve been driving on for 30 years.
All I could see well was the reflection of the street lights and headlights, I could barely make out any other things on the road.
Okay, I thought this was just me and was talking to my therapist about how driving either at night or when it rains is more nerve wracking than ever.
Driving home from work when it rained last week felt absolutely terrifying. I never loved driving at night in the rain, but now it feels straight up like guessing where the road is.
It’s not just you everytime I have to drive home in the dark and it’s raining I just wing it the entire time and hope I make it home safe. And I wear glasses too.
It's definitely not just you, because I have the same problem. Driving at night in the rain has definitely been very scary lately.
Same here - I had to pick up my Fiancé from the hospital the other week when we had that brief snow squall. Of course, it turned to rain by the time I was leaving home at night for the pick-up. I was on Day Hill Road in Windsor about to get onto 91 onramp and legitimately almost drove off the road, extremely nerve-wracking. I just chalked it up to eyesight but after reading everyone else's responses I wonder myself now...
[deleted]
I thought it was just me getting older and worse eyesight that I can't see the lines when it rains. A lot of times I'm using the rain/fog/shoulder line to navigate especially when there are cars with lights coming toward me.
I've also noticed the really bright LED lighting they are using in street lights is making the glare significantly worse than the prior yellower street lighting. It used to be that you could tell when a car was coming the opposite way and dim your bright headlights but now it might just be a street light.
The company that paints roadways lost their contract with CTDOT last year. CTDOT hired a new contractor who midway through the summer turns out they couldn’t handle the workload. This caused CTDOT to need to rehire the original company and for them to do twice their workload in half the work time including all the municipalities they work for. After December 1st and on highways where painting needs to be done immediately they generally paint with water based paint and not epoxy as it is quicker to paint with and doesn’t require a certain temperature to be applied. All this water based paint and the recent cold temperatures caused a weak bond which is why some of it washes away with the rain.
Personally I appreciate the super detailed description of why the paint is vulnerable to wash away in the rain, but I think OP is talking about how its hard to see the paint when it rains.
Ugh. We are all at risk because some paper- pusher tried to cut a few $$, and then ended up spending more?? Hope that ass-hat loses their job. We've had way too many night time head on collisions recently. This paint debacle could be one of the reasons.
Um no… this is in the contractor entirely. Also highly Doubtful there is a correlation between paint and head on collisions. The majority of head on collisions are caused by impaired driving, which is a consequence of personal choices not roadway design.
Yeah, especially roads with street lights. Makes it near impossible to see the lines in the road. I have noticed they are fixing the issue. The newly paved roads now have a ground down strip the width of the line, it definitely keeps it more visible, plus you can hear and feel the lines due to the grooves it made.
This state has had a reflective paint issue for a long time. They must use something different than MA or RI as their paints last longer. It is night and day when driving from CT to RI in a heavy rain at night.
Link?
Why don't we use reflective paint like they do out west? That paint makes driving at night pretty sweet.
Edit:: especially during fog! Like now.
Yess it’s so scary I hate it
I have no idea but I can say it's not just you. And it seems like it's mostly in the last couple years. Paint used to be made of some kind of very bright multi-faceted reflective stuff (glass beads or something) and now it's just paint that disappears when damp
I've noticed this as well.
is it me or does it feel like headlights don't do jack shit in the rain?
RI and MA never had that issue when I used to commute to work locations in both states. Whatever they are doing, CTDOT needs to adopt as well. Its literal night and day with our neighbors.
I wonder if anyone in a position t do anything about this reads this sub? Discount paint isn't the way to go.
I was thinking the same. Who can we get to do something about this?
It's unfortunately been like this for at least a decade and I wish CT would do something about it.
I used to commute to Hartford, and whenever it rains, the Merritt was especially atrocious since there were no lights to even make the faint lines visible. Not to mention the bright glare from cars going the opposite direction.
One upside to the pandemic is that it's forced employers to allow remote work flexibility. Hopefully that sentiment is to stay (despite some employers who will and/or have already tried to bring employees back in).
The glass beads they spread on the paint while it dries are supposed to stop this. Never noticed it being a problem around here.
Oh god I thought it was just me. I even went to the optometrist to get my eyes checked. It’s terrifying to drive at night in the rain on 84. And then they turned off huge swathes of street lights on route 9 so it’s pitch black.
So happy to know it’s not only me. Tonight’s commute added fog to the mix. Good times.
It’s actually none of the above. Specifically on limited access highways, FHWA now mandates the lines be laid into grooves that are milled just into the top surface of the asphalt; 80mil to be exact. The issue is rain water at this depth fills the groove just enough to create a mirror effect that obscures the paint by reflecting the light from headlights off the top of the water.
Voila, can’t see lines. FHWA is aware of the issue and ongoing testing with grooves of varying depths are still being tested to try to balance elimination of the issue with increased longevity to the epoxy resin paint with glass beads used as the final striping.
As for thermoplastic, it damages the pavement and can only be replaced by milling and overlaying then painting with epoxy.
None of it is an exact science.
Yes!I was driving on 95 after New Haven in heavy rain and the road markings just disappeared. Got a bit hairy, I was basically following the tracks of the car in front.
Also. It’s the reflection of the lights ur seeing off the water on the pavement. It’s not the paint. It’s ur eyes
Just ignore the lines like half of everybody else driving around. Problem solved.
I'm glad you brought this up. It's bad.
I drove almost the entire stretch of I-95 through CT yesterday and there were spots where I ended up on the shoulder because I couldn’t tell where the lines were.
At route 8 and 84 mix master i cannot see anything when it rains. It gets pretty crazy sometimes
This is SO TRUE! Just last year they resurfaced US-6 in Bethel/Danbury and it’s literally impossible to see in the rain at night. I wanted to complain to the highway department about it; it feels so unsafe! Even in regular nighttime weather it’s like if you don’t know the road from driving it regularly I don’t see how it can be safe because it takes so much of your attention span to focus on figuring out where the lines are taking you and not to accidentally go into the other lane lol
I experienced the same thing recently. Was driving at night on highways I wasn’t familiar with, in the rain, and was scared because I couldn’t tell where the roads were curving. Was driving so slow with the wipers on full speed. It’s so scary too with all the two lane highways because there’s no barrier to prevent head on collisions.
Must have been the latex paint they use temporary to stripe a roadway until Safety Mark gets their truck out that uses a hot plastic type of paint with glass beads (thermoplastic).
Not too many states allow oil base traffic paint any longer. Back then, white is lead free, but yellow and black contained lead.
Now, states and towns only allow latex base traffic paint if it's striping a lot of part of a roadway.
People find anything to complain about on here lol
sweaterandsomenikes t1_iz95cv3 wrote
Can’t answer to the first part of your question, but for the second part:
Temporary paint is used immediately after repaving a road because the fresh oils in asphalt would dissolve away the new paint. The temporary paint is a different chemistry that’s is more resistance, and I believe they do not put the little glass beads that form the reflective paint in the permanent stuff. Permanent paint will go down after a month or two.