Thanks to freezing spring weather in Texas, the Wyoming Department of Transportation is short on highway striping paint for northwest Wyoming and the rest of the Cowboy State.

“Weather and supply chain issues combined in such a way that paint manufacturers were unable to acquire enough raw materials to operate at normal levels, which led to an industry-wide paint shortage,” said WYDOT District 5 Traffic Engineer Jack Hoffman. “The cold weather in Texas impacted the production of resin, a key ingredient in making paint. Paint manufacturers were unable to obtain resin, and therefore were unable to make paint in the same quantities as past years.”

As an example, WYDOT District 5 — which covers northwest Wyoming — ordered 31,260 gallons of white paint in 2021 and received 16,250 gallons, a deficit of 15,000 gallons. The district tried to get another 28,480 gallons of yellow paint, but wound up with 19,480 gallons (a 9,000-gallon deficit).

The lack of paint impacted WYDOT’s two northwest Wyoming paint crews.

In normal years, WYDOT’s urban crew stripes each city and town twice. Due to the shortage, WYDOT was only able to paint stripes in each city/town once in 2021. 

“We did not paint curbs, rest areas or parking lots, unless it was new construction,” Hoffman said.

As for WYDOT’s rural crew, it was only able to stripe about 1,500 miles of highways, about half of normal. In 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, WYDOT’s rural striping crew painted 2,850 miles of highways (1,700 miles of yellow centerline and 700 miles of white edge lines).

Due to the paint shortage, Hoffman said WYDOT was forced to prioritize which Wyoming highways would receive striping paint in 2021.

“Our highest priority for use of the striping paint was to be able to stripe all of our surfacing projects in northwest Wyoming, including new pavement,” Hoffman said. “We then focused on our higher volume highways (U.S. 20, U.S. 26, U.S. 14/16/20) and locations with curvilinear alignments and areas requiring additional motorist guidance (intersections, passing lanes, turning lanes, etc.).”

Hoffman said Wyoming’s other four transportation districts experienced similar paint shortages, too. “Our other districts ranged from 21,000 gallons short to ‘a couple of loads short,’ or 6,000- to 12,000-gallon paint deficits,” he said.

Hoffman said parts of WYDOT’s annual paint order have continued to be delivered throughout the summer and fall.

“These late deliveries of paint helped us to choose areas in the greatest need of striping, especially roads where striping had faded, high snow areas where plows scrape the paint off the road, and areas with higher traffic volumes,” he said.

District 5 received 6,000 gallons of white paint this fall, which is being placed on highway edge lines as weather allows, Hoffman said.

WYDOT’s hope remains that the situation improves in 2022.

“It would help if the [paint] resin supply returns to normal, and that we receive our full paint supply,” Hoffman said. “If there are no issues with the paint supply, our plan is to stripe the yellow centerline on all state highways in northwest Wyoming in 2022. But because we were short a significant amount of white paint this year, it may take a year or two to get back on schedule for white edge line around the district.”