What are those narrow white lines on Houston highways?

HOUSTON – Have you noticed narrow white lines on highways across the Houston region over the past couple of days?

We did and it made us wonder: “What are they?”

It turns out we’re not the only ones left scratching our head trying to figure out what these are.

“Get ready to paint or do resurfacing. Easier way to space the cars out or to stay in your lane,” Mike Shyrock guessed.

“I thought it was just old skid marks,” added Nilesh Mathuria “Or maybe something with construction, but I really had no idea.”

“Uh, it looks like, a different kind of lane division method,” Sarah Hastings said.

While all of those are good guesses, they’re not quite on the money.

The white lines are actually residue left behind by road crews that are out pretreating roadways ahead of the winter weather Southeast Texas is on the cusp of receiving.

TxDOT and Houston Public Works both tell KPRC 2 that they’re out pretreating bridges and overpasses to prevent the roadways from freezing.

“I’ve read that they were going to do something like that, but I didn’t know it would look like that or how it would work,” Hastings said.

So, how exactly does it work?

The pretreatment is a chemical deicer or brine, which is a mixture of water and salt.

Both help precent snow from sticking and ice from forming on the pavement. This is a big help when it comes to being proactive rather than reactive.

“Versus all the salt like they do in the north,” said Shyrock.

Bingo!

However, if we do get snow or ice, road crews will need to bust out the salt, which TxDOT says they have stored around the state.

“Texas does have nine strategic locations,” said Matthew Heinze, TxDOT Emergency Management Coordinator. “Now, these nine locations are in areas where they have higher salt use. They can be utilized by other districts.”

The closest salt stockpile to the Houston area is roughly 225 miles away in the Canton area. According to TxDOT, approximately 550 tons of salt is stored at the facility.

“We as a city are somewhat weather traumatized, so anything like this is a great thing,” Mathuria said.

Road crews are focusing their attention on pretreating bridges and overpasses, which freeze first.