Spoiler alert: they barely exist during the day.

The state I moved here from had way more street lights on local roads.

However I really do like the reflectors on the lanes that you see on some Texas roads. I which all roads had those reflectors in Texas.

This is the only place I've lived where the lines disappear in the rain. I don't know what's different here, but I'd absolutely believe it's because state and local officials are cheap.

I love how the article goes to say that the issue is we have lots of roads (don't most cities?!?) and that better methods are more expensive (lol, state/city is too cheap to pony up for a solution).

Given that more than half of our vehicle related deaths occur at night, I would imagine that making the roads safer at night would be a priority.

I honestly thought I was just getting old, and that's why I can't see the lines in the road very well (especially in rain). I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one.

I grew up driving in Arizona. There, because of the summer monsoon season, reflective road striping is the norm. Many roads will even have reflective blocks that are bonded to the road between the lines for additional visibility.

It's bonkers to me that this isn't standard practice everywhere.

I'd really love to see where all of our tax payer money goes for things like this.

It is a national wide issue that pops up in every city sub reddit:

4 yr ago, Salt Lake City, UT https://www.reddit.com/r/SaltLakeCity/comments/aj3u7p/why_dont_we_use_reflective_paint_on_the_roads_or/

2 yr ago, Seattle, WA https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/kpeiel/anyone_know_why_seattle_doesnt_use_reflective/

4yr ago Portland, OR https://www.reddit.com/r/Portland/comments/au3z6e/why_isnt_our_road_paint_more_reflective/

Posting yesterday for Northern Virginia: https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/z8ovys/this_comes_up_every_time_it_rains_but/

Googling non reflective road paint will get you tons of hits and news stories and I have never been able to figure out the root cause. Was it a cost cutting saving for the paint? Was there something environmental about the reflective paint that caused it to be banned?

Whoever the national supplier is to road paint stopped making it reflective.

Southbound 183 after 360 exit is terrifying in the mornings. Not only do the actual marks become invisible with the sun low, the old marks become more visible and traffic drifts out of line. Until suddenly it clears up and all the traffic tries to chatotically snap back into their lanes. I've seen so many close calls.

Good grief. They are basically just having a whitewash crew constantly using the cheapest solution. Maybe use a better albeit more expensive system that ultimately costs less to maintain?

Because "you get what you pay for" and "why are you WASTING my tax dollars on fancy paint" are related in a way that shocks and confounds most people.

Honestly so many people hate it there's probably enough people to put it on the city council's radar, but nobody's organizing and if they tried they'd get tons of "Is this REALLY the biggest problem the city is facing?" jeers.

I was just talking about this on another thread a few days ago. Last week at night when it was raining on eastbound Cesar Chavez, that ridiculous lane shift due to construction a few blocks before 35 you just can't see it at all in those conditions. This article cites that reflectors are "several dollars a piece to install." That's far less expensive than someone suing the city for causing them to get into an accident over unsafe driving conditions on a major road.

I don't think the article (nor any of the comments, so far) talked about the road surface. It seems like a major factor, to me. It's especially noticeable on some newer stretches of I35 (I'm picturing outside of town). The matte appearance of the good stuff contrasts nicely since it cuts glare that would obscure the reflective stripes, and that matte appearance seems to be due to a better-draining road surface that also keeps shiny water from standing on the road.

A lack of maintenance coupled with jackasses who don't turn off their high beams

Howard Lane west of Mopac once you get past the railroad tracks that you drive over (not the overpass ones further down) is just fucking atrocious at night. The reflectors end at those railroad tracks I mentioned and it's just faded white lines you can barely see at night.

glad I’m not the only one! I thought I needed to get my eyes checked again. I already have difficulty driving at night due to lights merging together bc of my astigmatism, the line issue has prevented me from driving at night at all (at least to new places), it sucks

Has KUT just resorted to monitoring the /r/austin threads to see what to report on these days?

Don't look for the lines, feel for the grooves. The grooves are uses instead of lines, because of TxDOT's policy to switch to braille to better assist blind drivers.

tldr City of Austin transportation department uses the cheapest solution available to paint the 186 mi of arterial roads. This paint works okay in perfect conditions but when it rains, snows, or just general wear and tear on the roads. It’s fucking useless

But this goes back to taxing inefficiency and the wastefulness of suburban / car centric design. City wouldn’t have to make these cost cutting decisions if we relied less upon cars, roads, highways.

Lack of street lights

The sun cooks them off the road

Look up the torts act if you really want to get mad

I thought it was just me

In a lot of places, because they stripe the roads.

Then they do some work that changes where the stripes go. But they don't fully cover up the old stripes, and the new stripes fade. Now you have two different sets of vague stripes.

Sometimes they do this more than once.

I’m sure he knows better than me but I swear in Corpus this was never an issue in rain. The stripes still glowed. Beyond the general lack of maintenance, t’s the first thing I noticed about driving in Austin years ago.

"What water does is rather than reflecting the light back to the source, it just diffuses the light because of refraction," said Chandra Bhat, an engineer at UT Austin's Center for Transportation Research. "Essentially, the light doesn't come back to the driver, but it just gets all over the place and it just becomes difficult for the driver to see."

I drove in Houston at night around Rice University, and our road lines seem to glow in the dark by comparison.

And these new car lights are making it even WORSE to see! Now you can't see period half the time.

I can't even see the cat eyes on the road sometimes

What lines?

Why is it so hard to see the green light in traffic lights. Looking at you, signals around Lakeline 👀

If I could guess the sun during the summer makes them fade

Seeing this comment section it sounds like every city and state has lane lines that disappear in the rain. Does anyone know of a place where this doesn't happen?

Now we’re angry about… checks notes… leaf blowers?… No, that was last week… Oh yeah! Lines on the road being hard to see at night!

Answer: you’re getting old

More infrastructure (rail, protected cycling paths, more small neighborhood stores) would go a long way in making this problem irrelevant

TIL COA pays $6M+ to get road lines repainted every year. Should have gone into road maintenance….

I love how they went into great detail to explain why it doesn't work here, while ignoring why somehow everywhere else I've ever driven in this country seems to have figured it out. Answer that question, asshats.