Commercial and public property such as highways, roads, and parking lots are essential for any city or town today, or anywhere else where motor vehicles will drive around. Maintenance and construction for roads and parking lots involves not only creating them with asphalt and concrete, but also decorating and treating them so that they can do their job well. Striping for parking lots is one such example, as a parking lot cannot simply be a large, bar patch of asphalt where cars can drive around at will. An asphalt company will lay down the asphalt itself and allow it to dry and cure, and then painting companies will deploy vehicles and crews alike so that striping for parking lots and markings on roads can be made, such as yellow, white, or even blue lines to divide lanes, show turning lanes, and of course, striping for parking lots to keep cars lined up properly. Concrete maintenance is done for highways and overpasses, while pavement services can employ painters to ensure that the right markings are put down. Why is striping for parking lots and other types of paint so important for drivers today?
The Industry
Where striping for parking lots and asphalt are concerned, one may first consider how big this industry is. After all, the United States is a highly developed nation, and every day, cars and trucks are driving and parking everywhere in American towns and cities, and they need the right markings so that this can be done effectively and safely, or chaos may ensue. The first concrete road poured in the United States was in Detroit, Michigan in 1909, and at the time, it was one mile long and cost $13,492 to construct. Today, the American road system is vast, and the Highway Act of 1954, signed by then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower, aggressively expanded the amount of paved highways and roads as cars became ever more commonplace among American consumers following World War II. While Americans have been owning and driving cars since the 1910s and the days of Ford’s Model T, the car industry started to expand during the economic boom of the 1920s, and cars really started becoming standard means of transportation in the 1950s.
This also means that the road and pavement industry had to grow to give all these cars and trucks somewhere to drive, and by the modern age, the figures have grown vast. As of 2017, for a recent example, the American paving industry employs around 284,626 people across 1295,603 businesses, and in that same year, the paving industry brought in $36 billion in profits. New roads are being built all the time, and road maintenance is another major aspect of this industry today. Potholes, cracks, and much more need to be paved over all the time, and very worn out roads can be torn up in great amount and replaced with brand new pavement.
When pavement is put down for a road, highway, or a parking lot, this pavement cannot be kept bare for long. Drivers need to know how to navigate these roads and parking parking lots, which is why they are painted with all kinds of standardized marlkiongs. In fact, those learning to drive will learn not only how their car works, but also to read road signs and the markings on roads to understand how traffic moves, and know what to do or avoid doing. Parking lots, too, must be painted so that drivers can park neatly with other cars. What is more, specialized parking spaces can be created with paint. Handicap-friendly parking spots, for example, tend to be close to the building and are often marked with blue paint to set them apart. These lots also have zones next to them where a person may exit a vehicle on a wheelchair, since regular parking spots won’t have the room necessary for wheelchair transport.
On roads, markings may not only divide lanes with white stripes, but also divide different directions of traffic with solid yellow lines and also mark crosswalks with thick white lines. On top of this, markings can be made for the shoulder of the road or showing how turns can be done in lanes with large white arrows.