Seattle, did you know that the lines on your highways, roads, streets, and stroads are literally fucking invisible??? 

In recent years, the City appears to have added some reflectors to the lines. Excellent choice. Now we can all see the lines at night when it’s raining and dark, which happens to be much of the year. Hooray! Problem solved, right? 

WRONG. PROBLEM NOT SOLVED. 

Do you know why? Now that this city gets snow pretty much every year, the snow plows that are very necessary come out and scrape the reflectors away. To avoid this issue, cities typically recess their reflectors in the street when they repave. 

So, Seattle, please, for the love of rain and snow and driving in this city, when you repave roads and add the pretty lines, just remember that in like two years those lines will be so faded that you can’t see them anymore and your precious reflectors will be scraped away, so RECESS THE GODDAMNED REFLECTORS. 

And, better yet, just get rid of the cars and give us trains. That would really solve everything, and I do mean everything.

Thank you,

A Woman Engineer Who Has No Power to Solve This Problem

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9 replies on “Blurred Lines”

  1. Amen, #4. It is stunning how bad the road surfaces, striping, signage, and layout of traffic lanes is in the Seattle area. I keep wondering if no one in charge in Seattle has ever been out of state. Surely, if even podunk towns in the Midwest with no money, no resources, have figured this shitte out, all the highly paid people in Seattle could manage the same.

    Can we just get nice trains like the rest of the world?

  2. the amount of times recently when it’s been pouring rain and i’m driving and the road lines are fucking invisible and there are people jaywalking wearing all gray/black, it’s a fucking nightmare sometimes. people need to start building/driving/acting like we live in the climate we are in. like put a damn awning on your building and put reflectors on the roads and turn on your headlights if you’re in a gray car on a misty rainy day. thanks

  3. The real answer is to use modern road marking technology like many other countries have since the 80s. These act like big plastic reflectors themselves, so no need to add separate, bumpy, easily damaged reflectors.

    Having been used to seeing road markings all the way to the horizon at night, since moving here there have been many times with a wet road and a low sun that I’ve struggled to confirm that there are any road markings at all.

    These non-reflective, low-profile one-way signs are also fun for the unfamiliar visitor!

  4. Always on High Beams

    improperly-aimed or

    located too highly

    ultra-Bright

    Headlights

    are helping us to

    Win the War on

    Pedestrians!*

    *those all-Black-wearing

    internet surfing semi-

    Hign/fully Drunk

    Peds don’t have

    a Snowball’s

    Chance

    in Hell.

    and YES

    TURN ON

    THOSE HEAD-

    LIGHTS — ‘specially

    when oncoming drivers

    are facing a low-lying Sun

    & their windscreens opaque

    unless!

    you, Too

    just wanna Be

    Infucking visible.

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