Road Line Spacing


Does anyone know what the distance is between the dashed yellow lines on the highway? I am getting ready to put in a road and want to paint them on. Thanks!
 
Funny, I just measured that 3 days ago for a cityscape project. Here in British Columbia, on Highway 97 north, the yellow lines are 3 inches wide with a 3 inch space between them.

The lanes themselves tended to vary a bit between 124 inches and 126 inches.

The parallel parking spaces also varied a bit, between 66 and 75 inches wide. The real shocker was the length of these spaces where they were marked in town. That distance varied between 120 and 140 inches, even on the same street!

I found city streets to be marked based more on the distance between buildings than anything else, so they come out kinda random.

Hope this helps,
SRT.
 
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I assume you're talking about the lengths of the dashes and spaces and not the lane width. The answer is probably more complicated than you think. It will likely vary with both the era and locale and is also dependant on the speed of traffic on the roadway. The faster the speed, the longer the painted dashes and the spaces in between. To start, try searching online for department of transportation traffic striping details. Most likely these will be fairly recent standards. You'll find a whole bunch of sites such as this http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/TRAFFIC-ROADWAY/striping.shtml#Traffic_Line_Manual to get you started. Finding striping dimensions from eras past will be a little harder.
Doc
 
You could also check out the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), which probably bears a great deal of resemblance to the link Doc posted. The online version is here:

http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/

Check the section on striping widths, striping lengths and spacing between stripes.

This information is the current FHWA standard for the US and virtually every governing transportation body in the US will follow it to the letter. I'm not sure if there's any historical information available, but you might also check the Library of Congress.
 



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