Street Murals for Traffic Safety

"Cincinnati launched a program last week, Paint the Streets, which allows citizen groups to paint neighborhood street murals intended to calm traffic," reports Katie Pyzyk.

The Paint the Streets program is intended to improve pedestrian safety as part of the city's Vision Zero efforts, but it features an important distinction from other programs, according to Pyzyk. "Cincinnati's program is a bit different from those in some other cities because it keeps the pavement art out of crosswalks, an area where many other cities have focused their efforts."

As noted by Pyzyk, the Paint the Streets program emerges at a controversial time for projects that add colorful treatments to streets in the name of traffic safety, after the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA)recent efforts to curtail rainbow crosswalks in cities like Ames, Iowa.

Cincinnati isn't waiting to hear what the FHWA has to say about its programs, and painted its first mural in October.