No good deed goes unpunished.
You try and help, and all you get is criticism.
Selectman Simolaris committed not one, but several criminal acts.
Count 1: Failure to sand, prime, and clean the surface
Count 2: Failure to paint straight lines
Count 3: Failure to use masking tape
Count 4: Failure to apply paint evenly
Count 5: Use of a brush and roller instead of a spray gun
Count 6: Application of one thick coat instead of three thin coats with drying time in between coats
Count 7: Use of off-the-shelf color instead of consulting Pantone swatch book
The judge needs to impose the strictest sentence the law will allow to stop this crime trend of do-it-yourself crosswalk painting!
Whoah, pal, you just took away five public employee union jobs there.
Also Iāve got to wonder if he even used the right kind of paint. Traffic paint is very different from the kinds of paint youāre likely to find on the shelf at most hardware stores.
Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode of āThe Potholeā, even though this guy was just fixing an existing (and fading) city feature. https://youtu.be/bewrXPdwhYE?t=2m38s
Doubtful. And based on the mention at the end of his paint job smearing all over the road, it sounds like he didnāt do a particularly good job of refreshing the crosswalks, either. I mean, if you want a send a message, do a shitty job painting ONE crosswalk. But to do 6 of them? Come on, man. Great intentions, terrible execution. Now somebody has to go and undo the job that you did, and then paint them properly.
Given the amount of smearing and the substantially uneven opacity visible in the first picture; Iād be pretty certain that he didnāt use the right stuff.
For low traffic, temporary, or other light duty use asphalt paints arenāt particularly exotic, the asphalt surface itself isnāt especially tricky, so people can and do get away with using ordinary paint of adequate weather resistance and opacity.
If you actually want the markings to survive under heavier use, though, you would normally be looking at either thermoplastic paints that are applied hot and bind to the asphalt or epoxy based paints.
You can see the contrast in the first image between the white āpaintā areas(which are visibly raised, especially where the cross-stripes overlap the parallel lines and they were applied in double thickness) and the green areas, which appear to be an ordinary paint layer. Hard to say from just that picture if the white areas have any retro-reflective beads embedded or not.
It seems like quite a dick move to make a fuss about it, especially since those smears arenāt going to last long under traffic, weather, and snow plows; but I would be very, very, surprised if this DIY marking attempt lasts properly. The ārespect for the governmental processā nonsense is too silly to even pretend to engage with.
Not to mention, from the article, the crosswalks in question are due to be torn up due to construction any way. So painting them (properly) now would just be a waste of money when theyād have to be repainted afterwards any way.
Then the city should have communicated that to the public or the officials who have to handle public comments.
āThis is due to be fixed as part of a major road upgrade that is happening at X. Weāre not doing it now to avoid spending taxpayer money on improvements that will be destroyed soon.ā
Problem solved!
Based on this more detailed article, it sounds like itās a case of him knowing full well that they were part of the ongoing project, but he was just annoyed that it was taking too long (they were supposed to be painted in May).
Also - dude is a painter by trade. He didnāt know that this paint would be an awful choice for the crosswalks? At the very least - block off a section, paint it, wait for it to mostly dry, then paint the next section. Look at how the paint smeared out into the intersection in the main picture. That means that there are at least a handful of people out there with green paint splattered up on their cars from going through that intersection.
The plans were available for public scrutiny in a locked filing cabinetā¦ (fill in with description from Hitch-Hikerās Guide).
Yeah, if this was some kind of viral marketing stunt for his services Iād say it backfired pretty badly.
If the public-works guys were actually sandbagging selectmen such that they couldnāt get a straight answer on a fairly simple āWhat is the timeline on repair for X, Y, and Zā, then somebody needs to crush them with extreme prejudice.
If, however, the selectman in question couldnāt be bothered to take his constituentsā questions about an infrastructure issue and send them off to the correct public works person; I am unimpressed. Yes, in an ideal world, it would be 100% obvious for even the layman exactly who you need to ask about a specific thing, and this isnāt always true as organization get larger; but if you are supposed to be a representative, itās arguably your job to be able to bring a modest amount of organizational knowledge to bear on getting questions routed to the right people.
If those people deliberately make wringing information out of them harder than needed, then they need a smackdown; but if you are supposed to be a representative but canāt be bothered to familiarize yourself with who to call for various questions, you might not be doing your job.
Wish I could get me a cap like those!
