MYNORTHWEST NEWS

More cultural crosswalks coming for Seattle pedestrians

Jun 13, 2016, 4:16 PM | Updated: 4:23 pm

The City of Seattle and mayor held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Pan-African crosswalk over the w...

The City of Seattle and mayor held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Pan-African crosswalk over the weekend. (City of Seattle)

(City of Seattle)

The City of Seattle held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Pan-African crosswalk in the city's Central District in March. It will redo this crosswalk and install a new design in June 2016. New Pan-African crosswalks will be installed at these locations - phase 1 map. (City of Seattle) New Pan-African crosswalks will be installed at these locations - phase 2 map. (City of Seattle) The crosswalk celebrates the cultural heritage of the area.

In March, the City of Seattle installed one crosswalk boasting Pan-African colors in the Central District. The city is now creating 10 more for pedestrians throughout the neighborhood.

Related: Jason Rantz wants American flag-themed crosswalks in Seattle

The first crosswalk was installed at 23rd Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It is striped with black, green and red — the Pan-African colors. Throughout June, the Seattle Department of Transportation plans to install the new crosswalks, but will first remodel the already painted walkway from March. While the original design had colored lines similar to regular crosswalks, the new ones will have solid colors laterally crossing the street.

Seattle, crosswalk, pan-african

The new Pan-African crosswalks will be modeled after this pattern. (City of Seattle)

The city will continue by installing the crosswalks at Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Alder Street before moving on to others. The existing crosswalks will be torn up over one or two days and replaced with temporary paint. Then the new crosswalks will be installed as weather permits.

Seattle’s crosswalks program

The move to paint crosswalks according to each neighborhood’s unique characteristics began when locals on Capitol Hill redesigned their crosswalks with rainbow colors in recognition of the area’s LGBTQ community. Those 11 street crossings cost the city $6,000 per crosswalk — or $66,000 altogether.

Since then, the city has developed a program for neighborhoods to implement their own unique crosswalks.

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More cultural crosswalks coming for Seattle pedestrians