TxDOT Item 668 Prefabricated Pavement Markings and Rumble Strips: Bid Code Spec, Pricing and Adhesion Risk
Item 668 pays for furnishing and placing prefabricated markings, the tape and preformed symbols that get laid down rather than sprayed. What drives the price is geometry, a foot of line and a railroad crossing symbol are both Item 668 and they're 50 times apart. But the money you lose on this item usually isn't in the geometry. It's in the prep. You own adhesion for 30 days, you own almost all of the surface preparation that makes adhesion happen, and the one cleaning method that gets paid separately only gets paid when the plans happen to show it. Here are the 5 bid codes that show up most in recent TxDOT lettings and what separates one from the next.
TxDOT Item 668 Bid Code Variants: What Determines Pricing
The spec measures this item two different ways in one sentence:
"This Item will be measured by the foot, with longitudinal markings measured longitudinally and transverse markings measured transversely, or by each word, shape, or symbol."
Four things decide what you're pricing:
- Line or symbol. One of the five codes below is a solid line priced by the foot. The other four are words, shapes, and symbols priced by each. That's the first thing to sort out on a bid tab, because a per-foot number and a per-each number under the same item number look identical until you check the unit. Confirm the unit against the proposal before you price any code you haven't bid before.
- Size, and it's an explicit pay attribute. The payment article prices markings "of the type, color, shape, width, and size specified." Size isn't an incidental. A railroad crossing symbol covers a lane. A word covers a fraction of one. The pricing below shows exactly what that difference is worth.
- Type B or Type C. Type B is pre-coated with a pressure-sensitive adhesive on the back. Type C is heat-applied and may need additional beads during application. Different application method, different crew and equipment. Every code in this data is Type C, so this data can't tell you what the Type B premium looks like. If your plans call for Type B, price it on its own.
- Reflectorized or contrast. The item covers both retroreflectorized and non-reflectorized contrast markings. For the black contrast portion, the spec relaxes the DMS-8240 color requirement that applies to white and yellow. All five codes here are white, so there's no color comparison in this data either.
Item 668 is also a plans quantity item, same as Item 104. You get paid the proposal quantity unless an Article 9.2 adjustment applies.
One naming note. Clarement says bid item throughout. TxDOT's own contracts and this spec say pay item, so both point at the same thing and people search both.
TxDOT Item 668 Pricing: Key Takeaways
- Surface cleaning is inside your unit price, with one exception. Abrasive cleaning, water-blast cleaning, and milling go to Item 678, but only when the plans show them.
- Sealing, priming, and adhesive have no separate line here. On Item 666 pavement sealer is its own bid code. On Item 668 it isn't.
- You own adhesion for 30 calendar days, and the replacement restarts its own 30-day clock.
- Placement has a temperature ceiling, not just a floor. Below 60°F or above 120°F pavement temperature is out, when the manufacturer hasn't set its own limits.
- Four of these five codes are priced by each, one by the foot. Check the unit before you compare anything.
- The railroad crossing symbol prices at 2.6 times a word and about 50 times a foot of 24-inch line.
Cost Factors for TxDOT Item 668 Prefabricated Pavement Markings and Rumble Strips
Cost Factors That Vary by Bid Code
How much material the shape covers. This is the whole story on the symbol codes. Arrow, word, and railroad crossing are the same material, the same crew, and the same placement method. What separates $216.90 from $715.80 is area. The spec makes size a pay attribute, so price the specific symbol on the plan sheet, not a generic symbol rate.
Whether you're pricing a line or a count. A foot of 24-inch solid line is production work with a linear rate behind it. A symbol is a setup, a placement, and a move. Those build up differently and a per-foot rate won't get you to a symbol number.
Beads, on Type C. The spec says Type C markings are heat-applied and may require additional beads applied during application. That's an added material and an added step that Type B doesn't carry.
Cost Factors That Apply to Every TxDOT Item 668 Bid Code
The weather window is narrow and it has a ceiling.
"Do not place material when the pavement temperature is below 60°F or above 120°F if the material manufacturer does not establish temperature requirements."
Pavement temperature, not air temperature, and both a floor and a ceiling. On a hot day the pavement can run well past the air reading, so the ceiling isn't theoretical. Add the moisture rule on top of it. The spec doesn't let you eyeball dry:
"Pavement will be considered dry if, on a sunny day after 15 min., no condensation occurs on the underside of a 1-sq. ft. piece of clear plastic that has been placed on the pavement and weighted on the edges."
That's a real test, on a sunny day, with a 15 minute wait. Between the moisture test and the temperature band, the placeable hours in a day are fewer than a crew schedule built on daylight would suggest.
Alignment tolerance is tight and the guides can't leave a mark.
"Place material in alignment with the guides without deviating from the alignment more than 1 in. per 200 ft. of roadway or more than 2 in. maximum and with no abrupt deviations."
Guide locations have to be verified before placement, and the guide material can't leave a permanent mark on the roadway. That's layout labor on every code.
Waste goes off site daily. The spec requires removing all waste generated from the jobsite before the end of each working day. And the sequence of work and estimated daily production both need approval before you start.
Storage is a facility requirement. Materials get stored in a weatherproof enclosure and protected from damage during storage. Rumble strips have to come from MPL-listed manufacturers.
Grinding is off the table on concrete. The spec allows any approved cleaning method that removes contaminants and anything else hurting adhesion, then rules one out directly: do not clean concrete pavement surfaces by grinding.
TxDOT Item 668 Payment Terms: Subsidiary Work vs. Separately Paid Items
What the unit price covers:
"This price is full compensation for cleaning the pavement by any means other than required abrasive or water-blast cleaning or milling; furnishing and placing materials; and equipment, labor, tools, and incidentals."
And the one carve-out:
"Abrasive or water-blast cleaning and milling, when shown on the plans, will be paid for under Item 678."
Read those two together with the surface preparation article and you get the rule that costs people money on this item.
You are responsible for whatever cleaning it takes to make the marking stick. The spec puts the standard on the outcome, not the method:
"Prepare surface using any approved cleaning method that effectively removes contaminants, loose materials, and conditions deleterious to proper adhesion. Abrasive or water-blast cleaning is not required unless otherwise shown on the plans."
So the aggressive methods are only required when the plans call for them, and they're only paid under Item 678 when the plans call for them. Everything else you do to get that surface ready is inside your marking price. That includes sealing or priming as recommended by the material manufacturer, and adhesive of the type and quality the manufacturer recommends. None of those has a line of its own here.
The comparison worth making is against Item 666, where pavement sealer is a separate bid code with its own unit price. Same family of work, same purpose, different payment treatment. If you've priced striping before and you carry sealer as its own line by habit, that habit is wrong on Item 668. It goes in the marking number.
Now put that next to the performance period. You own adhesion for 30 calendar days after installation. The material can't lift, shift, smear, spread, flow, or tear under traffic. So the spec hands you full responsibility for the marking staying down, gives you responsibility for most of the prep that determines whether it stays down, and pays separately only for the one prep method the plans decided to name. If the plans don't show blast cleaning and the surface really needs it, you're choosing between doing it unpaid and carrying a 30-day failure you replace at your own cost. That decision belongs at bid time, not at placement.
TxDOT Item 668 Quality Gates and Placement Requirements
Item 668 carries a performance period, the same 30-day structure Item 666 and Item 672 carry. It isn't a one-time inspection you pass and forget.
The period, and the part people miss:
"All material must meet the requirements of this Item for at least 30 calendar days after installation. Remove and replace all material that fails to meet requirements at the Contractor's expense, unless otherwise directed. Replace failing material within 30 days of notification. All replacement material must also meet all requirements of this Item for at least 30 calendar days after installation."
The clock restarts on the replacement. A marking that fails on day 28, gets replaced, and fails again on day 25 of the new period is still yours. The obligation rolls until something holds for a full 30 days.
The four things it has to hold to, all of them measurable:
- Durability. No more than 5% material loss in any 1-ft. section, measured per ASTM D913.
- Adhesion. No lifting, shifting, smearing, spreading, flowing, or tearing by traffic action.
- Appearance. Neat and uniform, free of excessive adhesive, ragged edges, and irregular lines or contours.
- Visibility. Uniform and distinctive retroreflectance on Type B and Type C, inspected per Tex-828-B.
The appearance requirement is the one to watch on the money side, because excessive adhesive is named specifically. Using more adhesive to buy yourself adhesion margin can put you out of compliance on appearance. The two requirements pull against each other and the answer is surface prep, not more glue.
Pricing Considerations for Prefabricated Marking Placement
- Price the surface prep you'll actually need, including sealing, priming, and adhesive, since none of them is a separate pay item on this item.
- Carry the blast cleaning question into your bid review, because if the plans don't show it, Item 678 doesn't pay for it and you still own the adhesion result.
- Price fewer placeable hours per day than daylight suggests, given the moisture test and the 60°F to 120°F pavement temperature band.
- Carry a replacement allowance against the 30-day period, and remember the replacement starts a fresh 30 days of exposure.
- Price the specific symbol on the plan sheet, not a blended symbol rate, since size is an explicit pay attribute and the range here is wide.
TxDOT Item 668 Bid Item Pricing Data
Weighted average unit price across TxDOT lettings over the last 24 months, both across every bid submitted and on the low, winning bid specifically. Each code links to its full pricing page, where you can see the spread by competitor, district, and quantity.
Pricing Analysis: Key Cost Comparisons Across TxDOT Item 668
Every code here is Type C and white, so type and color are held constant across the whole table. What moves is geometry.
The symbol codes scale with how much roadway the symbol covers.
A word prices 26% above an arrow, and that 26% holds on both columns, all bids and low bid alike. A railroad crossing symbol prices 2.6 times a word on all bids and 2.4 times on low bids. That tracks what the symbols physically are, an RR XING marking covers a lane where a word covers part of one, and the spec's payment article treats size as a pay attribute rather than an incidental.
Don't compare the line code to anything else in the table. At $14.50 the 24-inch solid line looks like the cheap code, and against a $715.80 railroad crossing it's about 50 times smaller. That comparison means nothing. One is a foot of line, the other is a complete symbol. Same trap Item 540 carries between per-foot fence and per-each transitions.
Low-bid gaps vary by a factor of four across these five codes.
The two line-and-shape codes at the ends of the table, the 24-inch solid and the 36-inch yield triangle, sit at opposite extremes, 4% and 16%. The two symbol codes in the middle both land at 7%. If you price all five off one markup, the 24-inch solid line is where it costs you, since winning bids there are only 4% under the average.
Prefabricated prices well above thermoplastic for the same symbol. Against the averages published on the Item 666 guide, a prefabricated arrow runs about 30% above a Type I thermoplastic arrow, and a prefabricated word about 40% above. A 24-inch white solid line runs $14.50 prefabricated against $8.00 for Type I thermoplastic, roughly 1.8 times. Two different data pulls, so treat this as an order-of-magnitude check rather than a ratio to price against. What it's useful for is a bid review question: if the plans call for prefabricated and someone priced it off a striping rate, this is roughly the size of the hole.
Executing TxDOT Item 668: Avoiding Rework and Ensuring Payment
Same spec, laid out as things to actually do on the job.
Rework Triggers Under TxDOT Item 668
- Material that lifts, shifts, smears, spreads, flows, or tears under traffic inside the 30-day period
- More than 5% material loss in any 1-ft. section under ASTM D913
- Excessive adhesive, ragged edges, or irregular lines, which fail the appearance requirement
- Material placed on pavement that isn't completely dry by the clear plastic test
- Placement outside the 60°F to 120°F pavement temperature band when the manufacturer sets no limits
- Alignment off by more than 1 in. per 200 ft., more than 2 in. total, or any abrupt deviation
- Guide material that leaves a permanent mark on the roadway
- Concrete pavement cleaned by grinding
Field Compliance Requirements for TxDOT Item 668
- Get the sequence of work and estimated daily production approved before starting
- Run the clear plastic moisture test, don't judge dryness by eye
- Check pavement temperature, not air temperature, against the manufacturer's limits or the 60°F to 120°F default
- Establish guides for lateral location and have the guide locations verified before placing
- Prepare the surface by an approved cleaning method, then seal or prime as the manufacturer recommends
- Place in conformance with the color, length, width, shape, and configuration shown on the plans
- Store all material in a weatherproof enclosure
- Remove all waste from the jobsite before the end of each working day
Pay Application Requirements for TxDOT Item 668
- Confirm the unit on every line, since longitudinal markings bill by the foot, transverse markings bill transversely, and words, shapes, and symbols bill by each
- Bill abrasive cleaning, water-blast cleaning, and milling under Item 678, and only when the plans show them
- Don't invoice sealing, priming, or adhesive separately, they're inside the marking unit price
- Track the 30-day performance period per placement date, including a fresh 30 days on anything replaced
- Confirm plans quantity versus field-adjusted quantity before final pay application, since this is a plans quantity item by default
Built for people pricing and executing TxDOT prefabricated pavement marking work
Frequently asked questions about TxDOT Item 668
What is TxDOT Item 668, Prefabricated Pavement Markings and Rumble Strips?
The TxDOT spec for furnishing and placing retroreflectorized or non-reflectorized contrast prefabricated pavement markings and prefabricated rumble strips, covering the material standards, placement limitations, and a 30-day performance period.
How is Item 668 measured?
By the foot for markings, with longitudinal markings measured longitudinally and transverse markings measured transversely, or by each word, shape, or symbol. Rumble strips are measured transversely across the roadway, including all strips of material placed across the surface. It's also a plans quantity item.
What's the difference between Type B and Type C prefabricated markings?
Type B has a pressure-sensitive adhesive pre-coated on the back. Type C is heat-applied and may require additional beads during application. Both are furnished under DMS-8240.
Is surface cleaning included in the Item 668 price?
Mostly yes. Cleaning by any means other than abrasive cleaning, water-blast cleaning, or milling is inside the unit price. Those three get paid under Item 678, but only when the plans show them.
Is pavement sealer a separate bid item on Item 668?
No. Sealing or priming as recommended by the material manufacturer is inside the marking unit price here. That's different from Item 666, where pavement sealer is its own bid code.
How long am I responsible for prefabricated markings after placement?
At least 30 calendar days. Anything that fails gets removed and replaced at your expense within 30 days of notification, and the replacement carries its own fresh 30-day obligation.
What are the temperature limits for placing prefabricated markings?
Follow the material manufacturer's pavement and ambient air temperature requirements. If the manufacturer doesn't set them, don't place below 60°F or above 120°F pavement temperature.
How does TxDOT define dry pavement for this item?
Place a 1-sq. ft. piece of clear plastic on the pavement, weighted at the edges, on a sunny day. If no condensation forms on the underside after 15 minutes, the pavement counts as dry.
Is this pricing data free to use?
Yes. Every bid item pricing page linked above is free, no account needed.