Frequently Asked Questions

The Town Public Works Department prioritizes work that keeps our 165 miles of roads and 25 miles of paved trails clean and safe. During summer months, this includes street sweeping (which is required before striping a road), painting of roadway markings, pothole patching, drainage infrastructure maintenance, and street sign repairs. Public Works staff evaluates and prioritizes work on a daily basis based on the conditions and available resources.

Repainting roadway markings is a high priority. Once the surface temperature is agreeable for painting, the crews begin with stenciling school crosswalks, major intersection markings, downtown parking stalls, ADA space stencils, and stop bars, while a separate crew (or crews) simultaneously stripe street centerlines, fog lines, and bike lanes. Often major intersections and parking stalls in Downtown take precedence over other centerline or bike lane markings in order to complete the work before the busy summer season to limit traffic impacts to the community.  

In addition, the road edges where the bike lanes are located tend to be the areas that accumulate the most road sand and are most likely to have isolated pockets of wet pavement in the spring.   To complete the bike lane striping, multiple miles of contiguous road edge need to be fully cleaned and completely dry because having even a few limited pockets of sand accumulation or wet spots on the road edges will result in the bike lane striping being substandard.  On the other hand, the amount of sweeping and the amount of contiguous area that needs to be dry is much less significant for stenciling, allowing for a more focused and concentrated approach to the stenciling work in the earlier parts of the “striping season” when there is still a likelihood of snow events.

Because roadway striping depends on adequate weather and temperatures, as well as other Public Works priorities for maintaining safe road and trail conditions, it is difficult to predict the timing of the striping at various locations. Requests for new roadway painting/markings can be submitted through SeeClickFix (Striping/Marking). 

Bike lanes will be striped when weather permits, and the centerlines have been striped.