Bristol, Rhode Island may be best known for its Independence Day celebration. The town’s annual parade dates back to 1785, when Revolutionary War veteran, Rev. Henry Wright, began the tradition. This year, the town is celebrating the parade’s 240th anniversary.
One unique aspect of the parade is that the parade route is painted year-round with a red, white, and blue center stripe. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways mandates that lines be painted yellow when they are separating lanes of traffic going in opposite directions. However, in 1995, Congress granted Bristol permission to deviate from the yellow paint requirement in the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 (Public Law No. 104-59). According to Section 353 (b) of the statute,
(b) STRIPES.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a red, white, and blue center line in the Main Street of Bristol, Rhode Island, shall be deemed to comply with the requirements of section 3B-1 of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices of the Department of Transportation.
Although other towns repaint their road stripes in red, white, and blue for July 4th, Bristol, RI, home to the oldest Fourth of July parade in the country, has congressional approval to permanently keep the patriotic paint.
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