Have you ever seen a floating crosswalk?
You can see one at the intersection of Augusta and Northridge Drive in Kansas City, Kansas.
The team of Lideana Laboy, the City Traffic Engineer for the Unified Government, has been working with the locals to improve pedestrian safety. One approach they have tried is a 3D crosswalk.
The 3D crosswalk is painted on the road as a optical illusion, designed to stand out a lot more than ordinary crosswalks so that drivers can more easily see them.
Local resident Greg Bast is a father of two young children and is open-minded about ways to improve safety.
“We have a school right up on top of the hill. [A] lot of children live in the community and we have a lot of blind curves and hills all the way through this main road and you can’t always see to stop in time,” says Bast.
Laboy admits that this 3D crosswalk is not perfect, so her team will continue to observe this test design and collect feedback from the locals before adding anymore 3D crosswalks.
