The city of Hyattsville is using colorful art to improve pedestrian safety.
On Saturday, Baltimore-based Graham Projects will paint a series of colorful murals around the intersection of Church Place and Gallatin Street.
The asphalt art, which stretches from the sidewalk about the width of a car into the street, is designed to make the road feel narrower for drivers and focus their attention on the potential for foot traffic in the area.
Research from the Asphalt Art Initiative shows that these kinds of projects lead to a 50 percent decrease in the rate of crashes involving pedestrians, a 37 percent decrease in the rate of crashes that lead to injuries and a 17 percent decrease in overall crashes.
Drivers are asked to be careful when passing by the area on Saturday. Pyramid Atlantic Art Center will be holding a free art activity from 1 to 3 p.m. for families.
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What will improve overall safety is enforcing the existing traffic laws… including speeding and running stop signs…. particularly in the residential parts of our neighborhoods… It is getting to the point at some streets (Kennedy and 42nd for instance) that both cars and bicyclists are now not even slowing down at stop signs… they are blasting through the intersections at high speeds. Blinking spot signs do not work because the type of people running the stop signs are aware there are stop signs there… they simply do not care !!! I’ve seen countless cars and bikes blow through intersections with blinking stop signs. What we need are more speed bumps, raised speed bump cross walks at stop signs, as well as considering putting in stop sign cameras like they are doing in DC… Again people will continue to break the law as long as they know they can get away with breaking the law !!! Hopefully it will not take someone getting killed or seriously injured before the city starts to take this problem seriously !