Three-dimensional crosswalks may come to your neighborhood — but they aren’t a futuristic technological advancement. they’re an optical illusion that could save your life.
Here’s how it works: an artist will take the typical zebra-striped crosswalks you see everywhere, then paint shadows around them. It’s a simple process with a stunning result: To the drivers approaching, it’ll appear as though the blocks are suspended above the asphalt. And the people crossing, they’ll also seem to float.
But 3D crosswalks are more than just a jaw-dropping visual effect: The cities behind them hope they might be eye-catching enough to save your life.
Pedestrian deaths are rising at an alarming rate. The Governors Highway Safety Association estimates 6,227 pedestrian deaths in 2018 as compared to 4,414 in 2008 in the United States — a 35 percent increase. This number is contrasted by a six percent decline in all other traffic deaths. The study cited unsafe infrastructure, speeding and alcohol use as big contributors along with smartphone use.
“I’ve been in this business for 36 years, and I’ve never seen a pattern like this,” Richard Retting, who wrote the report and has worked in a variety of traffic engineering and safety roles, told The New York Times.
The 3D crosswalk’s purpose is to grab the driver’s attention and, as a result, he or she will navigate the intersection carefully.
While the 3D design has been implemented and experimented, there isn’t definitive proof yet that it works. But cities are doing everything they can to reduce pedestrian deaths. And it’s an inexpensive tactic that doesn’t require much additional work for city planners.
This approach to crosswalk safety gained worldwide popularity on social media when the city of Ísafjörður, Iceland, installed 3D crosswalks in 2017.
Ralf Trylla, Ísafjörður’s environmental officer, saw similar crosswalks in India and decided to try it in his city.
“I was looking for other possibilities and different solutions to slow down traffic other than the regular speed bumps,” he told Quartz.
Speed bumps are often criticized for their impact on cars and car owners. And when a study published by the UK National Institute for Health suggested speed bumps contribute to increased air pollution, Trylla decided to give 3D crosswalks a shot.
He said he watched drivers slow down and be more cautious through the intersection. “So in that way, I would say that it’s a success so far.”
Since then, these crosswalks have been painted in China, London, Canada and across the U.S, in Oklahoma, Illinois and, now, Massachusetts.
The city of Medford, near Boston, recently adopted the idea. The first one in the Boston area is painted near Brooks Elementary School, with more crosswalks planned for each elementary school in the city.
Two Brooks students had the idea for the crosswalk near their school. They worked with a teacher and the Brooks Center for Citizen and Social Responsibility to pressure the city into painting the crosswalks.
“When you’re walking across you can tell it’s painted, but what we hope is, when you’re driving down, you’ll see it as 3-D, three dimensional. So it looks real,” Isa, one of the students, told WBZ.
3D crosswalks are not the first public-arts approach to creating safer pedestrian pathways. In Warsaw, Poland, piano keys were painted to replace traditional crossings, and in Seattle, Washington, the crosswalks transformed into rainbows to celebrate LGBTQ pride. Baltimore, Maryland, tried a hopscotch technique to slow local traffic down.
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Tag: street art
How Today’s Street Artists Are Mobilizing Activists
Josh MacPhee grew up looking at art. His father was an artist, and the discipline helped him cope with his teenage years in the mid-1980s, when the DIY punk scene was gaining steam in the U.S.
“Some people were in bands, some people did ’zines and some people, like myself, did artwork,” says MacPhee, now a graphic designer and street artist in Brooklyn, N.Y. “I got involved in politics through that independent culture, using my skills to address the issues and communities I felt were important.”
That was more than 25 years ago. In the decades since, graffiti and street art has gone from underground movement to mainstream acceptance — it’s no longer rare for rogue wheat-pasted and spray-painted art to be sold at Christie’s auction houses, for one. Driving this change are artists like MacPhee, who is also a founder of the radical-art distribution project called Justseeds. Their visual representations of hot-button issues like climate change, immigration and civil rights are more in demand than ever.
There’s a long history of using art to make a political statement. Nearly a century ago, the antiwar Dadaists and painters like Diego Rivera, a dedicated Marxist who advocated for workers’ rights, were creating art meant to drive social change. Today that tradition continues, albeit in a different form. Thanks to the ubiquity of social media and the elevated profiles of world-famous street artists like Banksy, it’s easier than ever for artists to reach the public with their images of protest.
It’s also allowed collectives like the Seattle-based Amplifier to hit upon a unique niche: commissioning mission-driven artists to produce works that can be printed, for free, by activists and others agitating for change, both in the U.S. and around the world.
“I don’t think the world has ever seen an art machine like this: one that does not exist to make money,” says executive director Aaron Huey, who founded Amplifier in 2014. “We turn any money that does come in into more art and awareness. We build campaigns that can and do change the national narrative.”
Huey has friends in high places. He was able to recruit big names like Shepard Fairey — probably best known for his Obama “Hope” poster — and the muralist Mata Ruda to contribute art to campaigns ranging from voting rights to prison reform. Early last year, in the run up to the worldwide Women’s March protests, Amplifier launched a campaign called We The People, placing its artwork in full-page ads in the Washington Post, the New York Times and USA Today. The group also distributed more than 30,000 placards, some of which were also designed by Fairey, in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Half a million more people downloaded and printed the posters themselves. Featuring stylized photographs of a diverse group of Americans, the campaign’s goal is to encourage dialogue about national identity and values.
“It’s an opportunity to represent marginalized groups and to get stories out that aren’t always in the mainstream press,” says Chip Thomas, who works under the name Jetsonorama in Arizona. He’s known for wheat-pasting enlarged photos of residents of the Navajo nation, where he also works as a family doctor, onto the sides of buildings, water tanks, grain silos and fences around the reservation. His work was highlighted by Amplifier last spring during the People’s Climate March in D.C. and hundreds of other cities around the world.
“The most I can hope for is that [my work] would stimulate people to see some things differently and not just think about taking action, but actually doing it,” says Thomas.
For MacPhee, whose designs were also featured in Amplifier’s climate-change crusade, the most effective campaigns aren’t the ones tied to large national demonstrations, but rather those targeted to local communities.
“I’m happy Amplifier did what it did with the Women’s March, but I try not to spend my time doing grandiose cultural work,” MacPhee says. “[Change happens] in actual physical places, not on the internet, so it has to connect to people on the ground.”
Last year, MacPhee partnered with Amplifier to design and distribute oversized foam fists for the New York–based Close Rikers campaign. The props were carried by demonstrators during a series of protests in the city against the massive Rikers Island jail complex.
“They were used over and over again. They just have become a staple of the campaign,” says MacPhee, who will be an artist in residency at Amplifier’s Seattle headquarters in 2018. “One of the things I’ve always wanted — and I think many artists who work in this space want — is to print 20,000 posters and bring them out on palettes to demonstrations and have them disappear. One of the things about Amplifier is that they’ve been able to actualize that.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that MacPhee runs Justseeds and is currently an artist in residence at Amplify and that Amplify started in 2010. NationSwell apologizes for these errors.
Detroit’s Newest Parking Garage Becomes An Unlikely Canvas
Several years ago, the only words that came to mind when someone mentioned Detroit were American car companies, urban decay, and vacant houses.
But now, Detroit is quickly becoming a hotbed for turning public places into art spaces, and one of its newest commercial developments is no exception.
“The Z” is a 535,00 square foot building, named for its zigzag shape stretching from the corner of Broadway and East Grand River to the corner of Gratiot and Library streets. But unlike any other nearby structures, the 10-story space houses 1,300 parking spots set against a backdrop of vibrant murals commissioned from more than 27 artists across the world. Bedrock Real Estate teamed up with the garage owner and art gallery Library Street Collective for the project, which opened in January.
The featured artists include Maya Hayuk, Interesni Kazki, Cyrcle, Sam Friedman, Augustine Kofie, Dabs Myla, Smash 137, Gaia, Pose and Revok, according to the gallery, and all come from a street or contemporary background.
“The project pretty much encapsulates the building that we’re in,” said Anthony Curis, of the Library Street Collectiv, on the gallery’s website. “It’s a very nontraditional space, but Detroit is a very nontraditional city.”
As drivers wind through each floor, they’ll find expansive murals, which are highlighted in a documentary displayed on a television screen near the lot’s first floor elevators. Making it all the way to the top not only gives those behind the wheel a glimpse of the whole project, but a 360-view of downtown Detroit as well.
Since its inception, “The Z” is now home to a gastro-pub and recently announced the forthcoming additions of a collectible sneaker store, Nojo Kicks; a farm-to-fork eatery, 7 Greens; and yoga studio Citizen Yoga, according to mlive.com.
Though it may only be a parking lot, “The Z” art project gives Detroit residents one more reason to love their city — and a new idea of how other American cities can innovate when it comes to public space.
MORE: From Trash to Transit: Detroit’s Innovative Uses for Demolished Homes
The Only Time You’ll Want to See Graffiti All Over Your Neighborhood
Graffiti usually involves defacing a clean surface. But for a growing number of street artists, a dirty wall is a blank canvas just waiting to be washed. Instead of tagging city walls with spray paint, these artists are power-washing dirt, grime and dust from outdoor surfaces, while using stencils to create stunning works of art. The trend, dubbed reverse graffiti, has gained popularity in recent years, thanks in part to Paul “Moose” Curtis — the unofficial “godfather” of this style of street art. A native of England, Curtis has created some of the most iconic pieces of “clean tagging” in the U.S. In 2008, he was commissioned by Green Works, the maker of plant-based cleaning products, to wash a 140-foot mural onto a filthy wall in downtown San Francisco’s Broadway Tunnel. Curtis chose images of plants that were once indigenous to California to give the project a theme of green living. “Every mark is an environmental message, in whatever I do,” he told Modern Hieroglyphics. “It’s written in our dirt so it has a resonance to it, like the truth appearing semi-ghostlike from the fabric of the city.”
MORE: How Kitesurfing Sparked a Green Energy Revolution
The idea of creating clean art in place of traditional graffiti, which is often seen as destructive, has resonated with environmentally conscious artists around the country. In New York City, a trio of green activists launched the Greene Street NYC project in order to spread awareness about clean art. The project, which recently reached its fundraising goal on Kickstarter, aims to make clean art along Houston Street. And in St. Petersburg, Fla., artist Carrie Matteoli was awarded a $1,000 grant by Awesome Tampa Bay, a group of philanthropists, “to identify and transform dirty, dirty locations around the Tampa Bay area” through reverse graffiti. Her first piece was completed just before Thanksgiving.
While Moose says he’s been arrested a few times in pursuit of his art, he hopes it can change the way people think about graffiti. “I replaced the criminal element of graffiti with a positive process,” he says, “restoring a surface, rather than spraying and damaging it.”
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