Contractor to help speed Winnipeg’s road painting

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This article was published 15/06/2025 (483 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While Winnipeg motorists may be finding it tough to stay in their lane this year with no evidence of any visible road markings on many streets, the city says it is right on schedule applying paint on the thousands of kilometres of roads and bicycle paths in the city.

Julie Dooley, the city’s acting manager of corporate communications, said about 25 per cent of the streets in the city have received their first coat of line painting while 30 per cent of the intersections have been painted to aid both pedestrians and motorists.

“This is on-par with where we’d want to be at this point in the season,” Dooley said.

“We did have the machine down for a minor repair earlier this month, but the downtime was within what is typical for any year.”

Dooley said the second application of lane paint should go faster because the city will soon tender a contract for a private company to help out this year.

Winnipeg has about 7,000 kilometres of streets in the city, but not all — including most residential streets — need to be painted.

At this time last year, the city said it was behind in the road painting, because of a combination of wet weather and faulty equipment. The city’s lone machine, owned since 2008, was out of service for about a week.

This year, Coun. Janice Lukes, the chairwoman of the public works committee, said weather was still a factor, but not because of any rain.

Lukes said the winter, while having below average amounts of snow and higher average temperatures, required city crews to spread more gravel to aid traction for motorists.

“We have to clean all the streets before we can paint,” she said. “This was a very hard year for gravel and it took awhile to get it off.

“This year’s program has kicked off and we will be supporting the program with an additional $600,000 in outsourced contract work. The union was against it, but now that it sees us ordering a new $1.5 million machine, which takes a year to get, they have agreed to it.”

Bike Winnipeg’s Mark Cohoe said he’s pleased to hear that the city will increase its lane painting ability this year, with a contractor, and in future years with the second painting truck.

“Certainly, for the last number of years, (the painting) has been down,” Cohoe said.

“We don’t have the capacity to get out there quickly. It takes a little too long to get the lines out there. Anything which speeds this process up is good.”

Cohoe said it makes sense for the city to buy a second truck because, as the city grows, there are more streets to paint.

“We’re hopeful things like the bike lanes will be marked faster,” he said.

“Sometimes, smaller things like this get missed by the city, but, as the city grows, there are additional costs which have to be paid and this is one.”

Lukes, who said she has been fighting for more street painting resources for several years, said “I’m really happy with it because of the vulnerable road user.

“I know it’s important for the motorist, but I wanted it for the cyclists and the pedestrians.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca