The Maine Department of Transportation is gradually changing its now blend-in brown fleet of vehicles to a state-flag blue to give the trucks a unique identity and to head off some complaints from residents that state workers are standing around doing nothing at road projects.
“It’s not being done for public perception purposes,” said the department’s deputy commissioner Bruce VanNote, but he agrees it couldn’t hurt. “What often happens is we get calls that there’s a DOT crew in the road and there’s too many people standing around,” he said.
But it’s not always state workers and is just as often contactors or sometimes even municipal employees.
“If they want to call and let us know someone’s not working at a pace they think is appropriate, check the color of the trucks,” he said.
VanNote announced the color change to the Appropriations Committee last month in response to a question from Rep. Stephen Bowen, R-Rockport, about what the department was doing to try and make up a projected shortage in the highway fund. Bowen said a constituent had complained about the stereotypical scene of a bunch of workers standing around looking at one guy in a ditch.
VanNote said his department was painting its trucks blue so the public could tell the difference between state workers and contractors, who do up to 75 percent of highway capital projects.
“If there’s six people standing around and looking into a hole, it’s their funeral,” he said of the contractors, if the trucks on the job aren’t sporting state colors.
The change to blue will be gradual and it could take 10 years, since vehicles are only being replaced or repainted on an as-needed basis. But the blue pickup trucks are starting to pop up already.
“It’s branding,” much like UPS or Federal Express have clearly identifiable colors, said VanNote, clearly ready to stand up for the work his department does.
“There’s no way you’re going to change public perception with a paint color,” he said, but “people will know who they are and will know why they’re there.”
And there’s one other benefit, VanNote said. “It’s cheaper.”
As it turns out, the blue, which is remarkably similar to the background color in the state flag, is stock order on pickups, where the brown costs extra.
The Maine Department of Transportation is gradually changing its now blend-in brown fleet of vehicles to a state-flag blue.Send questions/comments to the editors.
