Do We Want $7 Crosswalks Or $1,000 Crosswalks? Which Can We Afford?

Last week I noticed something on the surface of the 500 block of Prison Alley that I honestly never expected to see even though I had pestered the city about installing it for the past few years.  Well, it's true, there is finally a painted pedestrian crosswalk across the alley for people to get safely to and from the busy City Hall Municipal Parking Lot.  As far as I know, this is not in response to a pedestrian or two having been hit in the alley by a speeding car or truck, though I am still surprised that never happened.  Rather, it seems that DPW Superintendent Robert Perry just finally came to his senses for a moment about making the crossing less dangerous and even one bit pedestrian friendly.  Don't expect more of the same elsewhere around town. 

The crosswalk was painted on the pavement by the same street marking painting company that created the accessible parking spaces in the City Hall lot last week.  I happened to see the painters packing up after installing the crosswalk, so I asked the manager a few questions about it.

The latest, and only second, crosswalk in 
Prison Alley.  Approximately $7 in paint was used.

"How much do you think it cost you in paint to mark that crosswalk?" I asked. 

He thought about it for a few seconds, then said, "Oh, no more than seven dollars."

"And how long do you suppose it will last," I asked 

"It will probably need to be repainted in two years, I would say."

"Two years, then another $7 in paint?"  I inquired.

"That's about right," he replied.

At the June 2023 informal council meeting, during his DPW report, Superintendent Robert Perry spoke about the two ways in which his department installs pavement markings, either using paint or special thermoplastic decals bought from a company in North Carolina.  He did his best to explain to the council why his department does not use paint for crosswalks, stop lines and other markings "in the travel lane," explaining, "We have the thermoplastic stuff that is pretty heavy duty that we use for the crosswalks and stop bars." Then Mr. Perry showed a picture of his crew applying white lines along a curb (not in the travel lane) in a NO PARKING zone on Warren Street.  He explained, "This is just a regular marking paint, its nowhere near as resilient but it's also nowhere near as expensive [as the thermoplastic].  We do this because these aren't really a travel lane, so it will last fine here.  If this was put out in the travel lane, like we used to do for crosswalks, it usually wouldn't last more than a couple of months.  It's basically a little power sprayer and a can of paint and a couple of guys spraying it down."

Until recently, this was the only alley crosswalk
in the city. Can you tell that DPW installed it? 
This 8-line crosswalk cost us at least $350!
(Prison Alley at 325 Columbia)

According to the most recent invoice from the company which supplies DPW with the thermoplastic decals that DPW melts into the pavement to create crosswalks and stop lines, DPW spent just less than ten thousand dollars on two types of decals in April of this year.  The bulk of the order consisted of 18-inch-wide white lines which cost $42.24 per 6-foot lengths, plus $273 in freight to get it here.  Let's round it off to $44 even, shall we?

The new painted crosswalk in the alley, installed by a professional hired by the city and using a motorized 4-wheel power sprayer and a can of paint, consists of six 6-foot lines and two18-foot lines.  That is the equivalent of twelve 6-foot lines, which required seven dollars in paint.  Had DPW not hired someone to install that crosswalk in Prison Alley, it would have cost the city a little bit more to create basically the same crosswalk, though using thermoplastic instead of paint that "wouldn't last more than a couple of months."  If my calculations are to be believed (and there's no reason they shouldn't be), the city would have spent around $528 on that crosswalk (plus the gas for the blowtorch).  Instead, a professional using paint spent over $500 less than DPW would have, then probably charged us $75 to do the job that DPW didn't want, didn't know how, or couldn't bare, to do themselves.

The important questions to ask here are these:  Before Mr. Perry hired the painters to create that crosswalk in the alley, did he ask them how long the paint would last and about when it would need to be repainted?  Did he ask them if the paint, since it is in a travel lane, would last "more than a couple of months"?

I wonder how Mr. Perry would respond if 
asked why the paint in the street at Stewart's
is holding up so well after a year and why 
it has lasted more than "a couple of months."

The contractor who late last August installed the four crosswalks and several arrows and stop lines at the Stewarts intersection, by far the busiest intersection in the city and along the truck route, used white pavement paint.  That was nearly a year ago, and the white paint is still white, the arrows still resemble highly visible arrows, and the stop lines and crosswalks are holding up just fine, too.  

This PAINTED crosswalk at Stewart's is holding 
up well despite part of it being removed by National 
Grid's contractor early this year.  That missing 
portion should have been replaced by now.

It's difficult to believe a word of what Robert 
Perry has to say when you see how well this
PAINTED crosswalk is holding up after one year.

The contractor replacing the missing white pavement markings along any of the streets that were dug up by National Grid's contractor last year used white pavement paint, not thermoplastic decals.  In fact, any thermoplastic markings installed by DPW that were removed in the excavation process were replaced with paint.  This work was done by the same company that painted the crosswalk across Prison Alley using just seven dollars in paint.  We can only assume that since they are in business and were hired by the city to mark our streets that they know what they are doing and that Robert Perry is confident that they know what they are doing.

Last fall, a month or two after the pavement markings were PAINTED at the Stewart's intersection, DPW installed an 11-line crosswalk with thermoplastic decals on Prospect Avenue at Rossman, using a heat gun to melt the 6-foot lines into the pavement. The surface area of that crosswalk is essentially the same as the surface area of the crosswalk installed in Prison Alley last week (the lines on Prospect are a little wider).

In December, HUDseen wrote about that very quickly deteriorating crosswalk as an example of DPW's wastefulness and inability to get things done right, claiming that that crosswalk cost the city around $450.  My calculation then failed to take into consideration the cost of freight associated with the delivery of those lines.  That ugly and insulting crosswalk actually cost us closer to $500 (including the gas for the blowtorch). 

Our thousand dollar crosswalk!

Since I can't find the picture I recently took of that crosswalk on Prospect, you will have to take my word that it was a complete mess, with two of the lines completely gone and the rest in some sort of partial or nearly full decay.  DPW's installation of that crosswalk was a complete failure.  However, sometime within the past week, DPW replaced those 11 lines by heating 11 new lines directly over the $500 in failing and disappeared lines they installed just last fall.  Yes, DPW just spent ANOTHER $500 on installing thermoplastic decals for that crosswalk, making that our ONE THOUSAND DOLLAR CROSSWALK, something we should all be proud of.  Hell, given how much Robert Perry is comfortable spending on that crosswalk and how few people actually use it, I think we should all walk over there soon and put it to use to get our money's worth out of it.  We all paid for it twice in the past 10 or 11 months!

Notice the burn spots, showing where the 
DPW worker with the blowtorch got too 
close or remained too long over the decal.
The lines are damaged already.

The contractor who repaved several portions of our streets earlier this year as part of the State-funded CHIPs program was required to install stop lines and crosswalks where necessary.  Do you think they used paint or thermoplastic decals installed with a heat gun?  Of course they stuck with paint!  Why would they be so friggin' stupid to spend so much money on plastic decals that are expensive, difficult and time-consuming to install, look awful when they begin to decay, and, well, sometimes disappear after just 6 or 7 months?  Only an idiot with unlimited funds would create pavement markings using something besides paint meant for pavement.

If it's a stop line made with paint, you can be assured 
that DPW did not install it, and we should be
happy they didn't.

If it's a crosswalk that was made with paint, 
 DPW did not install it and we should be 
thankful for that.

If you pay close enough attention to what Robert Perry does and what he says, you begin to see common threads: he is often and mostly full of bullshit and he loves to waste our money.  Somehow, though, the mayor, the Treasurer's office and every member of the Common Council are all fine with that, and that may be the bigger story here.  Basically, no one is making sure Perry is not wasting our money and feeding us his bullshit.

Here are some pictures taken recently of DPW's crosswalk and stop line work using Robert Perry's favorite pavement marking material, thermoplastic (just what the world needs, more PLASTIC!). The dates of installation are unknown unless noted.

Union at 5th headed east

South 5th Street at Union, no need for 
a stop line.  Big $avings!

South 2nd & Union (?)

This one I love. Earlier this year, DPW installed 3 crosswalks
at Warren & 2nd. Almost every one of the 31 lines was burned,
and it cost us over $1,360 to install them. The DRI project will
likely replace the crosswalk that DPW ignored.

DPW installed this stop line at the bottom 
of Rossman last fall.  At 18 feet in length, 
it came at a cost of at least $170.  Had paint
been used, it would have cost us no more than $4.

South 2nd at Union, thermoplastic decay
and neighborhood beautification.  What's the 
delay? It's only going to cost about $100
to replace it with more plastic and then do 
the same thing all over in 4 or 5 years.