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Awwww yeah. It’s November. This week’s installment brings a double whammy of traffic-related trivia. Because November = traffic. It does. Really. Personally, I think of singing polar bears and the Ice Capades, but that’s really on the brain all the time for me. I know you care about traffic, so here goes. Should you have more traffic related questions, or others pertaining to various local topics, send the questions via e-mail to marissa@225batonrouge.com. I know. I know. Last week I said I was going down to one question per week, but this week I’m feeling extra philanthropic. So you’re getting a bonus one solely as a bonus for that trick you can do with your eyeball and a noodle. If you can’t do that yet, you should start practicing. It’s a hoot. Anyway…

Question: How much paint is used annually for maintenance of city-parish roads?

Answer: Excuse me, sir. Do you prefer paint or plastic?

The city-parish uses paint for loading zones, no-parking zones and handicap zones. Per year, that’s 2,900 gallons of paint. And the colors? Well, I really shouldn’t be aiding and abetting your ignorance of basic motor vehicle rules, but the colors they use are red (385 gallons), white (1,220 gallons), blue (150 gallons) and yellow (1,145 gallons). For a nugget of knowledge, most people use an average of 80 to 100 gallons of water a day. At the least, imagine yourself using a daily 80-gallon dose of paint for 36 days and you’ll reach 2,900 gallons. Since people don’t use paint like water, I don’t know why I’m drawing that analogy, but work with me. All I’ve eaten today is chocolate. As for those white lines and yellow lines in the road, they aren’t paint. Don’t try to make luxury lanes a la Cosmo Kramer because that’s not how it works here. Those lines are actually plastic. Yes, plastic really does make it possible. It’s a type of thermoplastic striping that is heated to a high degree and sprayed onto pavement. When it hits the pavement and starts to dry, it flattens and forms a very thin layer of hard plastic. A majority of the city’s streets do not have striping, but those that do are generally re-striped every seven years. Every year the city hires a contractor to do the striping work and approximately 200,000 linear feet of thermoplastic striping is applied. That’s about a one-way trip from Baton Rouge to Donaldsonville or Albany, depending on which way you split. (Also the State Capitol would take 900 feet of striping to go up one side and down the other, so you could stripe it up and down 222 times.) Thanks to Todd Sumrall at the DPW Traffic Engineering for going the extra mile to get these answers.

Question: What’s the busiest street in Baton Rouge?

Answer: Depends.

This should be a static number, but oh no. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Every year the Capital Region Planning Commission provides the Department of Public Works Traffic Engineering department with a list of streets to count traffic flow. For the measurements taken in 2005, O’Neal Lane between Interstate 12 and Harrell’s Ferry, had the highest total, with an average daily traffic count of 26,089 vehicles. Records since 1995 show Interstate 10 between College Drive and the I-10/I-12 split had 134,224 cars worth of average daily traffic in 1996. But if we’re not counting interstates here, then we default to Airline Highway between Old Hammond and I-12, which recorded an average daily traffic count of 58,526 in 1996. If you want to discredit Airline for being a highway, that’s fine too. That leaves us with 1996 counts from Florida Boulevard between Lobdell and Wooddale (47,808) and Essen Lane I-12 to Jefferson Hwy (44,708). So however you want to slice and dice it, those are the numbers. The key thing to keep in mind here is these are DAILY averages. Whoa buggers. Those numbers multiply faster than I can say “candied yams.” But before I start running around muttering “candied yams,” there’s one more answer today. In addition to asking today’s questions, reader Tony Boudreau wanted to know how many cars pass in front of his Coursey Boulevard office on a daily basis. Well, Tony, here you go. In 2003, Coursey Boulevard’s average daily traffic count for the eastbound lanes between Stumberg and Jones Creek came to 15,160. If you want to add the westbound lanes to that tally, that adds another 15,118 cars for a total of 30,278. Thanks to the aforementioned Todd Sumrall and also loyal reader Tony Boudreau. Looky there folks. I really do answer your questions. So ask. E-mail them here.