City looks at private option to bolster road-marking job

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This article was published 26/06/2024 (517 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city will explore contracting out part of its road-marking operation after significantly falling behind this year due to outdated equipment and a high number of rainy days.

Coun. Janice Lukes, chairwoman of the public works committee, said she wants to ask the public works department to dust off and update a report about line-marking from around 2020.

“I wanted to see more line painting and we only had one machine at that time,” said Lukes on Wednesday about the four-year-old report. “It came in at a high cost and it required eight staff… it didn’t happen.

“(But) at that time, it said there was the possibility we could contract out the services. They didn’t have a tight quote at the time of the report, but they seemed to feel if they put out a (request for proposal) then we would know and that it may very well be more cost effective to outsource versus buying a machine and hiring eight full-time staff.”

She said the issue is worth investigating now so, at next month’s committee meeting, she will put forward a motion asking what it would cost for the private sector to conduct a second application of line painting. The earlier report said about 25 per cent of line markings have to be painted a second time during the same season because of weather conditions and resource constraints.

City administration said last week the government may not be able to complete all of its line painting this year.

They said the city’s 16-year-old machine was out of service for almost a week and dry, warm conditions are needed to conduct line painting. The machine paints markings on streets, bike lanes and pedestrian paths. A new unit would cost about $1 million while wages for the staff to run it would cost about $988,000.

The operation normally starts in April and continues for six months, weather permitting, to replace faded or erased road markings. The city’s machine is a 2008 model that is prone to breaking down. Even if it were used full-time, it would be a challenge to complete all of the markings needed in one season.

Lukes said once the report is given to councillors, they will look at moving it into the budget process.

“There’s a lot of priorities in the budget, but hopefully councillors will see it as a priority this time,” she said.

“I just know it is one of the tools we should be addressing in road safety… in the last four or five years, we had added a lot of development and roads. I’m hearing from residents and I’m open to see what it would cost to outsource it and put it in the budget process.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca