City manager: Street markings took ‘a beating’ this winter

The harsh winter in Hays was rough on the streets.

In addition to numerous potholes caused by freezing and warming temperatures, a lot of sand and salt was applied to the streets, and the snowplows were kept busy.

As the plows moved snow to the street edges, the machines were also scraping the street markings.

“Our street markings have taken a beating,” says Toby Dougherty, city manager, “especially on the arterials. They’re very rough and they degraded very quickly over the winter.” Typically, the city improves the street markings as they begin to deteriorate. Employees can do some thermoplastic applications and painting in-house.

This year though, given the scale of the deterioration, the Public Works Department and the city project planner are devising a project to bid “a rather large marking project,” according to Dougherty, “probably a $150,000 to $160,000 project to get all the arterials back into place with professionally applied paint and thermoplastic markings.”

(Read more: Hays Post)