Laying Down the Tape: An Hour with the Crosswalk Crew (Part 1)

Years ago, when I was an environmental consultant, I lamented to a civil engineer that at the end of the day, all I had to show for my hard work was a permit from the Corps of Engineers. In the most typically dry engineer way, he replied, “Do you think ANYONE ever notices my sanitary sewers?”

Infrastructure goes unnoticed until it breaks, but we fail to praise it when it’s working as it should. So, in that vein, I had an opportunity to tag along with one of the City of Omaha’s pavement marking crews this morning to see how crosswalks are installed!

When I arrived at Florence Boulevard & Pinkney Street this morning, I met:

From left to right: John Pollreis (City Traffic Maintenance Foreman II), Tracy Schonberner (PMT – Pavement Marking Technician), John Herren Jr (City Traffic Maintenance Foreman II), Jay Nelson (Semi Skilled Laborer), and Jeff Riesselman (City Traffic Engineer).

The City of Omaha spans about 144 square miles with about 5,000 miles of roadway, which means a lot of pavement markings over a large distance. The City employs six pavement marking technicians (PMTs) who are tasked with 100% of pavement markings. When needed, these PMT crews receive support from Semi-Skilled Laborers (SSLs) from other departments. The pavement marking crews take the non-winter months (about 6 to 7 months in total) to stripe pavement markings, including lane striping, bike lanes, crosswalks, etc,. Normally, there are two-man grind crews (prep) and two-man tape crews (install). During the winter months, the crews plan for the next season by cutting rolls of plastic marking tape, conducting assessments of existing crosswalks, and other preparatory activities.

Paint or Tape?

When folks are concerned about the number of crosswalks in the City, you’ll often hear the public cry “Paint is cheap! Paint more crosswalks!” However, not all crosswalks in the city are painted. About 40% of the crosswalks in the city are actually created with an application of 3M plastic marking tape, not paint! This post is all about crosswalk tape, but our next post will be all about crosswalk paint.

The crosswalk that was being installed this morning had already been prepped the previous day. Preparation includes cleaning the surface of any previous applications, cleaning the road of oil, dirt, etc., and then grinding it down. When crosswalks are installed, the road surface is first ground down about 1/8 of an inch to create a recess in the pavement that will prevent the crosswalks from being scraped by plows or eroded by traffic.

Let’s look at the qualities of tape:

Cost:

Yes, tape is much more expensive than paint.

. . .however. . .

Longevity & Durability:

Tape can last up to 5-7 years without needing replacement—this, of course, varies with conditions - whereas paint needs to be reapplied on a yearly or sometimes twice-a-year basis.

Increased longevity of crosswalks results in reduced disturbances to traffic AND reduced exposure to city workers.

Sometimes, the initial cost of the tape can be covered by a resurfacing project, rather than as a maintenance cost. Additionally, since plastic marking tape can last up to 5 years - unlike paint - using tape can reduce the cost of annual maintenance. This also reduces the workload on the pavement marking crew.

Where Paint is Better:

Tape CAN degrade quickly in turn lanes, especially those on truck routes. You can see an instance of this here at the intersection of 16th and Cuming where truck traffic has thrashed the tape in the turn lanes. This intersection will likely be reinstalled with paint and then repainted on an annual basis.

Reflectivity:

Like crosswalk paint, the plastic marking tape is also reflective. The reflectivity comes from reflective glass or ceramic beads embedded in the tape. See the video below.

Application:

Since the intersection had already been mostly prepped, it was time for the application! The crew cleaned the area with a leaf blower and steel rotating brush.

Then they applied an adhesive with a roller.

We waited a bit for the glue to become tacky, but not stringy.

And then it was time for the magic of application! The tape was aligned to make sure it went with the flow of traffic but was also not directly in the tire’s path to prevent degradation. Once the backing is removed from one end of the tape, the crew lays down that end and then peels off the remaining backing, laying the tape down perfectly in place at the same time.

Close up up the peelable backing.

After the tape is applied, Tracy precisely and thoroughly tire-rolled the tape to press it down into the pavement, and voila, you have a safely designed intersection!

But design can’t always dictate safety. . . .I say this because one of the things that absolutely shocked me this morning was the dangerous carelessness of drivers. While maybe two cars slowed down while passing, the rest of the cars sped by on a narrow roadway with seemingly no concern for the city crew. The guys explained that while they may flinch, they also expect it because this is normal behavior for drivers in the city. Notice the speed of this truck flying through the intersection while Tracy applied glue. . .

Since these crosswalk projects are what are termed “short duration,” the MUTCD doesn’t require much more than “high intensity flashers” (which were activated on the city truck) and orange warning cones. In longer-duration projects, there are often a few other signs, and flaggers are used in projects that take place on curvy roads or roads with sightline issues. But as you see in the video above, this is dangerous work. What do you think could be done to keep our street crews safer or to get passing vehicles to slow the f*+% down? Equip everyone with body cams? Increase our traffic enforcement? Organize volunteers to wave “slow down” flags on the approach to pavement marking crews?

I asked both the John’s what they thought would make our roads safer, and their answers both focused on phone usage and distracted driving.

Beyond learning about how plastic marking tape is used in crosswalk applications and seeing first-hand how dangerous street crews' jobs can be, I was again reminded that this city runs because of the good people on staff. Lastly, and most importantly, I got my very own safety vest to wear, and it’s the little things that elate me in a big way!

Thanks to John Herren Jr and Jeff for organizing this informative demonstration today, and thanks to John, Jay, and Tracy for allowing me to tag along on your job!

Stay tuned for the Part 2 in July!

Leave a comment or question below, and thanks for reading!