What Price Crosswalks?

About 4 or 5 years ago at a Common Council meeting, I listened as 3rd ward alderman Shershah Mizan pleaded with DPW Superintendent Robert Perry to install crosswalks on the pavement at the intersection of Prospect Avenue and Rossman Street.  Shershah claimed that the crosswalks were needed for children who are picked up and dropped off by a school bus at the intersection along the speedy and busy Prospect Avenue hill.  Mr. Perry was not interested.   Shersah asked Perry how much it would cost for the intersection to have crosswalks across Prospect.  Mr. Perry responded, "Close to five thousand dollars."  (I kid you not, he actually said this!).   As it turns out, if you can believe it, Mr. Perry wasn't too far off. 

Curious as to the cost of the crosswalk and stop lines that DPW installs on our streets, a few years ago I FOILed for the invoice for the purchase of the material DPW uses for those lines.  DPW does not paint the crosswalk and stop lines -- instead, they use heat-applied decals that melt into the pavement, known as thermoplastic pavement markings, from the manufacturer Ennis-Flint Company. 

This morning, DPW finished installing crosswalk lines at all 4 sides of the intersection of 7th and Warren Streets.  They used a total of exactly 50 thermoplastic decals, each measuring 6 feet long by 18 inches wide.  According to the invoice I got a few years ago, each one of those lines cost the City of Hudson just over $40.  Which means that the 4 crosswalks at 7th and Warren cost us a total of over $2,000.  2 grand and not even a stop line!  Of course, the price for the decals has likely risen recently, so the cost could be closer to $3,000. (I hope to have the most recent invoice in hand soon).

Last May I was in downtown Great Barrington and came across a city crew of two installing multi-colored crosswalk lines using a rolling paint machine -- laying down white, red, blue, purple, and yellow lines!  I have seen white pavement markings being installed in Albany, also with a paint machine.  Both of those municipalities probably realize that decals may last longer than paint, but using paint is the much, much less expensive approach in the long run, even if the paint needs redoing every year.  Let's see... Install one $40 decal with a heat gun or use 50 cents worth of paint using a paint machine? 

Can you spot the two or three thousand
dollar intersection improvement?

Hudson DPW had 4 employees doing the crosswalk work today, plus one employee directing traffic.  2 of the workers used heat guns attached to propane tanks to melt the decals into the pavement (and they seem to have burned many of the decals).  I'm thinking that these new lines are replacing lines which were installed 3 or 4 years ago.  Paint, even when used on streets, fades nicely and predictably.  Thermoplastic decals tend to break away from the pavement and make the crosswalks look horrible.

The DPW crew then went on to 6th and Warren to melt some more $40 (or $50?) plastic crosswalk lines into the pavement there.

 
There are still no crosswalks on Prospect at Rossman.  It would probably be too expensive for Mr. Perry to justify.

There are no crosswalks or stop lines along our truck route at Columbia and 6th; one stop line at Columbia and 5th; nothing at Columbia and 4th.  Are the missing lines there also a result of the decals being prohibitively expensive?  And why wouldn't DPW bother just using paint instead, to at least have something on the pavement?  Or are the crosswalks only necessary and affordable on Warren Street?