The City of Vicksburg will spend $14,580 on a new method of road striping along 1,200 feet of the busiest section of Washington Street.

The Vicksburg Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted Wednesday to approve the expense, less than a quarter of the amount bid to stripe from Interstate 20 to the Isle of Capri Hotel. The new project, which will cost $12.15 per linear foot of road, will be between I-20 and Ameristar Casino.

James T. “Bubba” Rainer, head of the city’s public works division, said the process called “cold plastic striping” will be longer lasting than painting.

“We can’t keep any paint down there,” Rainer said. “We can paint it and two months later there won’t be any paint.”

The new strips will be made of plastic and glued to the concrete roadbed along Washington Street. The strips are expected to last two to three years, Rainer said.

The city had advertised for bids earlier this year to restripe about 5,000 feet of Washington Street to the Isle of Capri, but took no action on those bids. The lowest bid for that work was $77,844 from Traffic Control Products Company of Pearl, Miss.

Instead, the city’s traffic department took bids for the shorter portion. Traffic Control Products was also the low bidder.

Mayor Laurence Leyens said the process is expensive, but should be worth it in the end.

“I questioned it, too, but I didn’t want to micromanage my department heads,” Leyens said.

Rainer said right now they have to paint that section of road up to five times each year to keep the lines visible. The city purchases paint as needed and paints stripes as they wear down, but Rainer could not give a cost estimate for that specific area.

About 8,900 vehicles travel that section of Washington Street daily, according to the 2004 average daily traffic count by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. About 17,000 travel Clay Street between I-20 and Hope Street and about 16,000 travel Halls Ferry Road between I-20 and Cain Ridge Road.

Rainer said there are no plans to use the cold plastic striping anywhere else in the city because of its cost and because painting works well on asphalt.

In other matters the city board: