Liam Beran
A damaged BRT bus lane.
Metro Transit officials 'don’t know for sure' why sections of bus lanes in downtown Madison and near campus are chipping.
Before the September launch of Madison’s bus rapid transit system, Metro Transit officials said the red traffic paint covering bus-only lanes “should last 10 years” before needing repairs. But less than four months later, the material is already chipping in campus and downtown areas, where flakes of the red, methyl methacrylate-enhanced paint have accumulated along the sidewalk and curb.
The cause is unclear. According to Mike Cechvala, Metro capital project manager, the degradation seems related to high bus traffic, “but we just don’t know for sure.”
“It could also be [that] the surface preparation or installation was different in the UW and downtown areas,” he adds. Cechvala notes plowing could “be a factor,” but it’s unlikely since the entire route gets the same plowing treatment.
Along most other areas of the corridor, the paint seems to be intact, says Mick Rusch, Metro’s chief development officer. Metro officials are already preparing to work with vendors and contractors to fix problematic areas once the weather warms up, Rusch says; thermoplastics like methyl methacrylate are not recommended for application below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Cechvala says the vendor also seems willing to make adjustments to the make-up of the paint and how it is applied.
Liam Beran
A close-up of red paint chips on the sidewalk.
Fragments of the red methyl methacrylate paint on the curb and sidewalk on University Avenue on Jan. 7.
When the city council approved putting the BRT project out for bid in September 2022, its durability standards mandated that 90% of any colored area remain intact — if not, the city engineer may “require partial or complete replacement of the colored area under the warranty terms.”
The material is under a one-year warranty, and any required touch-ups in that period come at no cost to the city. After that warranty expires, the city will be responsible for maintaining the pavement, Cechvala says: “We will probably go through it sporadically every few years and touch it up.”
Supplying and installing the MMA material cost around $2.5 million, according to the $65.7 million contract between the city of Madison and Zenith Tech Inc., the BRT project’s general contractor.
In all, the federal government covered 75% — nearly $140 million — of costs for the east-west BRT route through infrastructure funding; for its portion of spending, the city authorized $21.7 million in general obligation borrowing and expended $20 million in tax increment financing funds.
Rusch and Cechvala note that this kind of traffic paint has been used without issue for the city’s green bike lane markings and for red bus-only lanes in other cities with cold climates, including Chicago and New York City. Though the traffic paint is toxic when first applied, “once hardened, it’s inert,” says Cechvala. The city’s streets department is monitoring and sweeping up any paint chippings to ensure they do not get washed away, says Rusch.
