ADA Parking Striping in Portland, Oregon: Bringing Your Lot Up to Code

Restriping a Portland Lot to ADA Standards

Most ADA problems in Portland parking lots are not structural — they are striping problems. The stalls are too narrow, the access aisle is missing its diagonal hatching, the wheelchair symbol has faded to a ghost, or the layout was simply painted back on during the last restripe without anyone checking whether it met code. Restriping is where a non-compliant lot becomes a compliant one, and it is usually the most cost-effective fix available to a Multnomah County property owner.

This page walks through what ADA-compliant striping actually involves in Portland. For the broader legal picture, see our Oregon ADA parking compliance pillar; for the technical paint specs, our Oregon ADA striping requirements for 2026 guide covers the details statewide.

What an ADA-Compliant Stripe Job Includes

A correct accessible stall is more than a blue rectangle. Bringing a Portland lot up to code through striping means getting all of these right:

• Stall width: at least 8 feet for a standard accessible space, 8 feet for a van space paired with the wider aisle (or 11 feet with a 5-foot aisle).
• Access aisle: 5 feet wide for car stalls, 8 feet for van stalls, marked with diagonal hatching and ideally the words "NO PARKING."
• The symbol: the International Symbol of Accessibility painted in each stall, typically in white on a blue field.
• Borders and contrast: blue stall outlines that stay visible against Portland's dark, rain-darkened asphalt.

The access aisle is the single most misunderstood element. It is not a buffer or a spare space — it is the zone a wheelchair user needs to transfer in and out of a vehicle, and it must connect to an accessible route to the door. Our ADA access aisle striping spec explains the hatching pattern and shared-aisle rules in full.

Layout Before Paint

The most valuable part of an ADA restripe in Portland happens before any paint touches the ground: confirming the layout is actually correct. A lot of Portland lots were striped decades ago to standards that no longer apply, and a contractor who simply traces the old lines reproduces the old violations.

A proper layout pass checks the accessible space count against the lot's total, confirms the van-stall ratio (one in six), verifies the access aisles are wide enough and positioned on the correct side, and places stalls on the shortest accessible route to the entrance. For a multi-tenant strip center along a corridor like Sandy Boulevard, that often means distributing accessible stalls across the frontage rather than clustering them at one end.

Paint, Climate, and Durability in Portland

Portland's climate is hard on parking-lot paint. With roughly 36 inches of annual rainfall concentrated in the wet October-to-April stretch, plus summer UV, water-based traffic paint on a Portland lot typically holds clear visibility for only 12 to 24 months before the blue borders and the wheelchair symbol start to wash out.

That matters for compliance because a faded accessible marking can be cited as a violation in its own right. Portland owners have a few durability levers: oil-based traffic paint adheres better and lasts a bit longer, and thermoplastic markings — while several times the cost of latex — can hold up for three to five years even under heavy traffic. For high-turnover lots like grocery anchors or medical offices, the longer-life materials often pay for themselves in fewer restripe cycles.

The other durability factor is timing. The Portland striping season runs from late spring through early fall, when temperatures stay above 50°F and the pavement is dry. Trying to stripe during the wet months risks poor adhesion and premature failure, so most quality restripes here are scheduled between May and September.

Restriping After Sealcoat

Many Portland owners pair an ADA restripe with a fresh sealcoat, and the sequence matters. Sealcoat goes down first, the surface cures, and then the new lines are painted onto the clean, dark, high-contrast surface. A fresh sealcoat is actually the ideal moment to correct an ADA layout, because you are starting from a blank slate with no old lines to work around — the perfect opportunity to fix stall counts, widen aisles, and reposition the van stalls.

Striping Your Portland Lot Right

Whether you are refreshing fading markings or rebuilding a non-compliant layout from scratch, ADA striping in Portland comes down to measuring the lot, confirming the layout against current standards, and applying durable paint during the dry season. The fastest way to know what your lot needs is a site visit.

Cojo Excavation & Asphalt stripes commercial lots across the Portland metro. See our Portland parking lot striping overview, explore our professional striping services, or request a free quote and we will measure your lot and lay out a compliant plan.