The two contractors responsible for repainting lane lines and road markings across Bangor are still running behind schedule long after the city’s initial end date goal came and went.
The contractor responsible for painting both solid and dotted lane lines, called road striping, is about 75 percent finished as of Friday, Aaron Huotari, Bangor’s public works director, estimated.
For the contractor tasked with painting anything requiring stencils — such as turn arrows, crosswalks and stop bars — work has been slower. Huotari estimated road stenciling was about 45 percent finished as of Friday.
In the meantime, Bangor’s unmarked roads have caused confusion and hazards for residents and visitors alike and resulted in people getting unintentionally stuck in turning lanes, driving in the middle of two-lane roads and blowing through crosswalks that have faded beyond recognition.
Initially, the city hoped road striping along 270 miles of Bangor roads would be finished by July 1 and road stenciling would be completed by Aug. 1. By Aug. 15, workers would double check all crosswalks around schools to touch up any areas that had faded.
Huotari credited the delay to labor and equipment setbacks that have plagued both contractors. For one, the engine of a truck blew up, Huotari said. For another, an essential employee was out for weeks due to pneumonia.
“That’s the reality of life, you’re going to get thrown curveballs that are out of your control,” Huotari said. “I don’t feel that either of them have been willfully negligent.”
This significant delay in road painting is unusual for the city, as it has previously hired the team in charge of painting road lanes without issue. The contractor tasked with stenciling, however, is new to the city and had only ever painted parking lots before, Huotari said.
The city is partially to blame for the delay, Huotari said, as the request for proposals for the work was issued in March, which doesn’t give contractors much time to prepare an offer, come to an agreement with the city, assemble a team and equipment, and finish the work by the city’s initial deadline.
If the work delay problems persist, Huotari said he hasn’t ruled out approaching the city in the future to purchase specialized equipment to do the work in-house.
The focus now is to make sure road lines and markings — especially crosswalks — are finished in the areas surrounding the city’s schools so students will be safe when classes resume.
“Here we are in the first week of August and it might as well be the last week,” Huotari said. “This month is going to go by so fast.”
If a company the city employs to do a job can’t complete it, Huotari said the city can hire someone else to finish the job. However, that option isn’t on the table when other local companies capable of doing the work are busy.
Huotari’s only option now is working with the companies so they know the city is tracking their progress.
“Contractor maintenance is a juggling act because you want to hold them accountable while also not alienating them,” Huotari said. “If there aren’t many contractors and they’re all so far booked out, what do you do?”
Despite the delay, Huotari said he’s pleased with the work that has been done, as the contractors are using thicker paint and the markings are laid into groves where the pavement has been ground down. These factors should keep the paint in place through the winter when plows scrape over the road and layers of salt turn the lines white.
“They may be going a bit slower, but I feel we’re getting a better product, which was our hope,” Huotari said. “It’s daunting to paint out in the middle of the road when you’re closing lanes.”
