Council Discusses Thermoplastic Crosswalks

A question from a member of the public led to a discussion of new crosswalks at Tuesday night's Town Council meeting.

Jim Baker, a regular attendee of Council meetings, raised a question regarding the town's decision to replace all of the painted crosswalks in town with thermoplastic versions this year. The town included the thermoplastic crosswalks in the 2009 capital budget earlier this year and contractors have been around town in recent weeks replacing all the crosswalks.

The town historically had painted the crosswalks with a water based paint, using town employees and repainting as needed, which could be every few months in terms of heavily trafficked roads. The thermoplastic crosswalks use a hot liquid to lay down a sparkling crosswalk, which are anticipated to last between three and five years. Because of the nature of the equipment involved to thermoplast crosswalks, an outside contractor is used. The old painted crosswalks could take several minutes to dry compared to the 15 seconds needed for a thermoplast crosswalk. According to Town Engineer Kris McAloon the town has approximately 487 crosswalks.

Baker aksed the Council why the town did not thermoplast crosswalks before this year, prompting Town Administrator Jim Gildea to respond that the project had only been adopted for this year's capital budget in a change of how crosswalks were placed in town. The thermoplastic sidewalks are considered easier to see than the painted sidewalks.

"You can see the crosswalks that are done from a while away," Councilman Mark Ciarrocca said.

Ciarrocca said the first priority over the summer was replacing the crosswalks near the schools before placing new crosswalks in the rest of the town. Baker asked if there was a "sense of urgency" in the government about replacing crosswalks, which Ciarrocca said exists.

Gildea said the contract for the crosswalks replacements came in slightly under the $55,000 set aside in the capital budget and are on track to be put in quickly.

"This contractor has been here five days and we expect to be done by the end of the month," he said.