Parking Lot Line Striping in Sioux Falls, SD

Line striping is the painted layout of a parking lot, from stall lines and arrows to accessible spaces and fire lanes, and in Sioux Falls most commercial lots are required to have it. Section 160.556 of the zoning code says parking, loading and drive areas shall be hard-surfaced and striped, and that stall locations be indicated by paint on the surface, raised signs or markers. Lines wear quickly here. Plow blades scrape them all winter, sand grinds at them, and a new sealcoat covers them completely. Parking lot striping is therefore part of every sealcoat job and a routine item of its own between seals.

Accessible spaces follow federal rules as well as local ones. The U.S. Access Board's guide to the ADA standards sets the number of accessible spaces by lot size: a lot of up to 25 spaces needs one, a 100-space lot needs four, and a lot of 151 to 200 spaces, the largest field the city's zoning allows before a lot must be divided, needs six. At least one of every six accessible spaces must be van-accessible. Car spaces are at least 96 inches wide with a 60-inch access aisle; van spaces are 132 inches with a 60-inch aisle, or 96 inches with a 96-inch aisle.

Aisles must be marked to discourage parking in them, and accessible spaces and aisles may not slope more than 1:48, which matters when a lot is overlaid or patched. Paint goes on after sealcoat has fully cured, per SealMaster's sequence, and SealMaster recommends acrylic water-based traffic paint. HomeGuide estimates that a well-maintained striping job lasts about 2 to 5 years. Lots plowed and sanded through a Foss Field winter, with snow falling on about 32 days a year, are likely to wear toward the short end of that range.

Line painting on an existing layout is a restripe; a new layout costs more because the lot has to be measured and snapped out first. HomeGuide puts the extra cost at 20 to 50 percent and SealMaster at 20 to 30. Stall angle matters too, since SealMaster notes that 90-degree stalls cost more because the lines are longer. On large lots, the city's requirement that anything over 200 spaces or 32,300 square feet be divided into smaller fields adds islands, crosswalks and directional arrows to the plan. Parking lot sealcoating comes first when both are planned for the same season.

Beyond stalls, a lot may need fire lanes, crosswalks, stop bars, arrows and stenciled words such as NO PARKING. SealMaster prices these separately, by the letter for stencils and by the unit for arrows and crosswalks, and adds a mobilization charge for each trip, while curb painting is priced by the linear foot. Grouping restriping with the sealcoat, or with other lots on the same schedule, spreads that mobilization charge across more work. The cost page lists the standard stall rate.