TxDOT Item 678 Pavement Surface Preparation for Markings: Bid Code Spec, Pricing and Scope Boundaries
Item 678 pays for getting pavement clean enough to stripe. It's a short spec, four working paragraphs, and it's one of the easiest items on a bid to price wrong, because almost nothing about its scope is decided inside its own pages. Whether prep gets paid here or gets absorbed into the marking item is settled in Items 666 and 668. And the blasting equipment you'd bring for this work is the same equipment you'd bring for Item 677, which pays three to four times as much for what looks like the same pass. Here are the 6 bid codes that show up most in recent TxDOT lettings and what separates one from the next.
TxDOT Item 678 Bid Code Variants: What Determines Pricing
The measurement article gives three bases and rules one out:
"This Item will be measured by the foot for each width specified; by each word, shape, or symbol; or by any other unit except lump sum."
Three things decide what you're pricing:
- Width, on the linear codes. Six, 8, and 24 inch show up in this data. Prep tracks the area you have to clean, so a 24-inch line is four times the surface of a 6-inch line and the pricing reflects that.
- Line or symbol. Arrow and word codes are priced by each. A symbol isn't a wide line, it's a shaped area with its own setup, and the per-each numbers below sit two orders of magnitude above the per-foot numbers.
- No lump sum, ever. The spec allows any other unit the plans specify, then closes the door on one specifically. If someone hands you a prep scope and suggests carrying it as a lump sum, that isn't available under this item.
And the thing that isn't in this spec at all: whether Item 678 appears on your job. The scope of this item is set by the payment articles of the items it supports. That's covered in payment terms below, and it's the part worth reading before you price a foot of anything.
Item 678 is also a plans quantity item, same as Item 666. 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 678 Pricing: Key Takeaways
- The same blasting pass can be Item 678 or Item 677 depending on what it accomplishes. Prep before new markings is 678. Eliminating existing markings is 677, and it prices three to four times higher.
- Whether prep gets paid here is decided in Items 666 and 668, not in this spec.
- Concrete carries an extra step, timed just before the stripe goes down. Air blast after everything else, which means coordinating with the striping crew rather than working ahead.
- There's a real acceptance test, a tape pull, run just before markings go on.
- This item cannot be bid lump sum. The measurement article rules it out by name.
- Item 678 also preps for raised pavement markers, not just markings, which is easy to miss from the item name.
Cost Factors for TxDOT Item 678 Pavement Surface Preparation for Markings
Cost Factors That Vary by Bid Code
Area to be cleaned. Width is the whole variable on the linear codes. On the symbol codes it's the size and shape of the legend. The payment article prices this work "of the type and width as applicable," so width is an explicit pay attribute, not an incidental.
Whether existing markings are present. The spec adds a requirement when they are:
"Remove loose and flaking material when existing pavement markings are present."
That's a different pass than cleaning bare pavement, and it's the point where this item starts to look like Item 677 without becoming it.
Concrete versus asphalt. Concrete gets an additional air blast the spec spells out separately, covered below. Asphalt doesn't carry that step.
Cost Factors That Apply to Every TxDOT Item 678 Bid Code
Method is your choice, but the list is closed.
"Approved pavement surface preparation methods are sweeping, air blasting, flail milling, and blasting methods in accordance with Section 677.4.3., 'Blasting Method,' unless otherwise shown on the plans."
Four methods, and they carry very different equipment and production costs. All of them settle into the same unit price for a given width. The method you pick is a cost decision inside your bid, not a line you get to bid separately. Same structure Item 677 uses for its four elimination methods.
The concrete air blast has an equipment spec with numbers in it.
"Perform air blasting using a compressor capable of generating compressed air at a minimum of 150 cu. ft. per minute and 100 psi using 5/16-in. or larger hosing."
150 cfm, 100 psi, 5/16-inch or larger hose. If your compressor doesn't hit that, it isn't the right compressor for this work.
Air quality is part of the equipment requirement, not a nicety.
"Use moisture and oil traps in air compression equipment to remove all contaminants from the blasting air and prevent the deposition of moisture, oil, or other contaminants on the roadway surface."
Blowing oil onto a surface you're about to stripe undoes the work. Traps are required, maintained, on every job.
Don't damage what you're cleaning. The spec says remove all contamination and loose material and avoid damaging the pavement surface, in the same breath. Aggressive method selection is a real risk here, and unlike Item 677 this spec doesn't give you a numeric damage threshold to work to.
Abrasive and water both have material standards. Commercial abrasive blasting medium capable of producing the specified surface cleanliness, and potable water when water is required.
TxDOT Item 678 Payment Terms: Subsidiary Work vs. Separately Paid Items
Item 678's own payment article is one sentence and it has no subsidiary language at all:
"This price is full compensation for the cleaning method used, materials, equipment, labor, tools, and incidentals."
That's the whole thing. Which is exactly why this item gets priced wrong. The interesting payment questions on Item 678 are all answered somewhere else.
Whether prep is paid here or absorbed into the marking is decided by the marking item. On Item 666, cleaning on new asphalt with no existing markings, and cleaning for any retrace, is subsidiary to 666. Cleaning on concrete goes to 678. On Item 668, abrasive cleaning, water-blast cleaning, and milling go to 678, but only when the plans show them, and everything else stays in the prefabricated marking price. So the same physical work lands in different places depending on the surface, on whether markings are already there, and on what the plans chose to show.
The practical version: don't decide whether Item 678 is on your job by reading Item 678. Read the payment article of whatever marking item you're bidding, then come back here for the rate.
Now the boundary that costs real money. Item 678's description settles it in one line:
"Item 677, 'Eliminating Existing Pavement Markings and Markers,' governs removal of existing markings."
Prep is not removal. But look at what Item 678 actually asks you to do. Remove loose and flaking material where existing markings are present. Use flail milling or blasting per Section 677.4.3. That's the same crew, the same equipment, and in some cases the same pass over the pavement as an Item 677 elimination. The difference is what you're accomplishing, not what you're operating. If the stripe is coming off, that's 677. If the stripe is already gone or was never there and you're readying the surface, that's 678.
And the two items don't price anything alike, which is what makes getting the boundary wrong expensive in both directions. The comparison is in the pricing analysis below.
One more scope note from the description. This item preps for pavement markings and for raised pavement markers. If your job has RPM work under Item 672, the surface prep for those markers lives here too, not only the prep for stripes.
TxDOT Item 678 Quality Gates and Placement Requirements
Item 678 has something most items in this series don't, a short acceptance procedure written into the spec with a pass condition you can check on site.
The tape pull test, run just before markings go on:
"Step 1. Air blast the surface to be tested, to simulate blasting during application of markings. Step 2. Firmly press a 10-in. long, 2-in. wide strip of monofilament tape onto the surface, leaving approximately 2 in. free. Step 3. Grasp the free end and remove the tape with a sharp pull."
And the pass condition, which is more forgiving than people assume:
"Contaminants up to 0.5 sq. in. may remain if they are not removed by the following test"
Half a square inch of contaminant can stay, as long as the tape pull doesn't lift it. The standard isn't a spotless surface, it's a surface where whatever's left is bonded well enough that a sharp tape pull won't take it off. That's a sensible bar and it's worth knowing before you over-clean to a standard the spec doesn't ask for.
The concrete sequencing requirement is the scheduling risk on this item.
"Air blast concrete pavement surfaces, in addition to the above, after the removal of contamination or existing material and just before placing the stripe."
Just before placing the stripe. Not the day before, not whenever the prep crew is in the area. On concrete you clean, then you air blast again immediately ahead of the striping crew. That's a coordination requirement, and if your prep crew and your striping crew are working on different schedules or are different subs, it's a second mobilization for the same stretch of road.
Pricing Considerations for Surface Preparation
- Price the concrete air blast as a separate trip unless prep and striping run together, since the spec puts it immediately before the stripe.
- Price to the tape pull standard, not to spotless, since contaminants up to half a square inch can remain if they're bonded.
- Confirm which item pays for the prep on each surface before you price it, since 666 and 668 each pull some of this work back into the marking rate.
- Don't carry prep at your Item 677 removal rate, and don't carry removal at your prep rate. The pricing analysis shows how far apart they sit.
TxDOT Item 678 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 678
A note on precision before the comparisons. The linear codes here are reported to the nearest dime, and at 10 and 20 cents that rounding is a large share of the number itself. So the percentage gaps on the 6-inch and 8-inch codes aren't meaningful, and neither is the apparent tie between the two columns on 678-7002. The comparisons below stay on the codes where the numbers can carry them, the 24-inch code and the two symbol codes. 678-6002 is also left out, because its low bid sits above its all-bids average, which isn't how these two figures normally relate.
Removal costs three to four times what prep costs, for the same geometry. This is the number worth carrying out of this guide. Against the averages published on the Item 677 guide:
Five matched geometries, and the ratio lands between 3 and 4 every time. Two different data pulls, so treat the exact multiple as an order-of-magnitude check rather than a rate to price against. What it tells you is worth the caveat: the market prices taking a stripe off at several times what it prices getting the surface ready for one, even though the equipment list overlaps heavily. If your prep and removal numbers on a bid tab sit close together, one of them is wrong.
Prep runs roughly a tenth of the marking it supports. Against the averages published on the Item 666 and Item 668 guides, a prep arrow at $19.70 is about 12% of a Type I thermoplastic arrow and about 9% of a prefabricated one. The word codes land in the same place, 12% and 9%. Same caveat on the data pulls, but it gives you a sanity check: if prep is showing up as a third of your marking cost, or as one percent of it, something is off.
Symbols price above lines by two orders of magnitude, as they should. A word at $23.70 each against a 24-inch line at $1.20 a foot isn't a cost comparison, it's two different units. Confirm the basis on every code before you put any two of these numbers next to each other.
A word preps about 20% above an arrow on all bids and 30% above on low bids. The two columns don't agree closely here, so take the direction, a word costs more than an arrow, rather than a specific premium. For reference, Item 677 shows a much narrower gap between the same two shapes on removal work.
Executing TxDOT Item 678: Avoiding Rework and Ensuring Payment
Same spec, laid out as things to actually do on the job.
Rework Triggers Under TxDOT Item 678
- Contamination or loose material left on the surface that the tape pull test lifts
- Damage to the pavement surface caused by the cleaning method
- Moisture or oil deposited on the roadway from air compression equipment without working traps
- Concrete air blasted too early, so contamination lands back on the surface before the stripe
- A blasting method that doesn't conform to Section 677.4.3
Field Compliance Requirements for TxDOT Item 678
- Prepare enough surface for the markings or RPMs shown on the plans, no more and no less
- Use only sweeping, air blasting, flail milling, or blasting per Section 677.4.3, unless the plans show otherwise
- Keep moisture and oil traps working on air compression equipment
- Meet the 150 cfm, 100 psi, 5/16-in. hose minimum for concrete air blasting
- Air blast concrete immediately before the stripe goes down, after all other cleaning
- Run the tape pull test just before markings are applied
- Use potable water whenever water is required
Pay Application Requirements for TxDOT Item 678
- Bill by width and by shape as specified, since the payment article prices this work by type and width, not at one flat rate
- Never submit this item as a lump sum, the measurement article rules that unit out by name
- Confirm the prep is payable under 678 and not subsidiary to the marking item before invoicing, since 666 and 668 each pull some prep back into the marking price
- Keep removal of existing markings on Item 677 lines, not here, even when the same crew and equipment did both
- 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 pavement surface preparation
Frequently asked questions about TxDOT Item 678
What is TxDOT Item 678, Pavement Surface Preparation for Markings?
The TxDOT spec for preparing pavement surface areas before pavement markings and raised pavement markers go down. It covers the approved cleaning methods, the equipment requirements, and the acceptance test, and it's priced by width or by each shape.
How is Item 678 measured?
By the foot for each width specified, by each word, shape, or symbol, or by any other unit the plans specify, except lump sum. It's also a plans quantity item, so you're paid the proposal quantity unless Article 9.2 applies.
What's the difference between Item 678 and Item 677?
Item 678 prepares a surface for new markings. Item 677 eliminates existing markings. The methods overlap heavily, Item 678 even points to Item 677's blasting method spec, but the two are separate pay items and removal prices several times higher than prep.
What cleaning methods does TxDOT approve for Item 678?
Sweeping, air blasting, flail milling, and blasting in accordance with Section 677.4.3, unless the plans show otherwise. All four are paid at the same unit price for a given width.
Does concrete pavement need extra preparation?
Yes. Concrete surfaces get air blasted after all other cleaning and just before the stripe is placed, using a compressor rated at a minimum of 150 cubic feet per minute and 100 psi through 5/16-inch or larger hosing.
How clean does the surface actually have to be?
Contaminants up to half a square inch may remain if a tape pull test doesn't remove them. The test is run just before markings go on, air blast the area, press a 10-inch strip of 2-inch monofilament tape onto it, and pull it off sharply.
Is surface preparation always paid under Item 678?
No. Item 666 makes cleaning subsidiary to the marking on new asphalt with no existing markings and on any retrace. Item 668 sends abrasive cleaning, water-blast cleaning, and milling to Item 678, but only when the plans show them. Check the marking item's payment article.
Can Item 678 be bid as a lump sum?
No. The measurement article allows any other unit shown on the plans except lump sum.
Is this pricing data free to use?
Yes. Every bid item pricing page linked above is free, no account needed.