Washington touches up street markings

Washington has begun its yearly touch-up of street paint around the city.

“It’s crosswalks, around the schools, along the roads to the schools, parking stalls in the downtown area,” City Maintenance and Construction Superintendent J.J. Bell said. “We do the school, too. Everything that’s city-owned, we paint.”

Bell said the process takes 60-80 gallons of yellow paint and around 150 gallons of white paint in a typical year, a shopping list that runs slightly under $2,000.

While the painting process could take as little as one week, Bell said it would run longer this year due to a staff shortage and unforeseen non-emergency concrete work. He did not expect it to take longer than a month.

Bell said the most difficult area to paint was downtown, which crews usually have to paint at night.

“In the downtown area there’s always a few places we can’t paint because cars are parked over them,” he said. “We get 90%-95% of the cars moved … once in a while there’s a car that’s either gone or you can’t get it moved, and that’s kind of a pain.”