Alaskan Road-Painting Crew Had One Job...

'Something was clearly wrong with the equipment'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 26, 2017 11:36 AM CDT

New yellow painted highway lines in the Alaska Panhandle city of Ketchikan are crooked, and the paint that's been used by state transportation officials has stained cars, officials say. Among those affected was Ketchikan Gateway Borough Mayor David Landis, whose car ended up with yellow paint on it. "You come to expect having highway striping like that to be straight and have orderly looking lines and be professionally applied," Landis says, per the AP. "Something was clearly wrong with the equipment or the operation of that equipment to have so many things wrong all at once."

The problems emerged after the state Department of Transportation tried out a new line-painting system on the Tongass Highway, per the Ketchikan Daily News. Department spokeswoman Meadow Bailey said the paint is "not drying as quickly as it should due to humidity in southeast Alaska." A Ketchikan City Council member called it the poorest line-painting work he's seen. Bailey said the state won't repaint the yellow lines and that people with cars that got paint on them should have affected areas pressure-washed after a coating of WD-40 lubricant or Vaseline for best results. (More Alaska stories.)

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