The Florida Department of Transportation says they are utilizing a street sweeper with a wire brush to go over the yellow paint to try to dislodge and loosen it up.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Cleanup efforts for a stripe of yellow paint coating more than 20 miles in distance from the Acosta Bridge to Northern St. Johns County are currently underway Wednesday morning.
The yellow paint, which appeared on Interstate 95 Friday, has caught the attention of drivers in Jacksonville.
“I definitely noticed it,” Richard Campbell told First Coast News Sunday while filling up at a gas station off I-95. “You couldn’t not notice it.”
The yellow line starts at the base of the Acosta Bridge and stretches 23 miles to St. Johns County Road 210 in St. Augustine. First Coast News traced the line to a business in the Cumberland Industrial Park in St. Augustine, where stacks of road paint sat outside. As of Wednesday morning, Acme Barricades – a road construction company, cleaned up approximately three miles of the paint from the bridge to between the University Boulevard and Emerson Street exits off I-95.
“At first, I saw it come on and I got over into the other lane because I thought it was merging me somewhere, then I was like, ‘It’s in the middle of the lane,'” a driver said after exiting the interstate.
A Florida Department of Transportation spokesperson told First Coast News Sunday that the paint is a spill from a truck, and on Wednesday, FDOT told First Coast News Acme Barricades is responsible for the spill. FDOT also says the cleanup efforts aren’t costing residents any taxpayer money and that crews will start cleanup at 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. everyday until it is completely gone.
“We’ll utilize a street sweeper with a wire brush to go over the entire stretch of the roadway where the yellow paint is to try to dislodge and loosen it up,” FDOT Spokesperson Hampton Ray told First Coast News Monday.
While FDOT takes care of cleanup, the department is asking drivers to give the sweeper room to let it do its thing as well as urging them to be aware of the yellow line and do their best to simply ignore it.
It’s a temporary fix – one they know will work better on the concrete portions of the road than the asphalt.
“We’re being very thoughtful in our approach because this is something – we don’t want to have the roadway unravel or compromise the integrity of the structures themselves,” said Ray.
Once it’s finished, they’ll evaluate how effectively it took the paint off before deciding if they need to pivot to another solution.
