LEWISTON — A downtown intersection will see its simple white crosswalk lines replaced with lines shaped like hot dogs as part of a pilot program to test more whimsical pedestrian crossings.
Councilors on Tuesday said they were fine with a plan to paint a row of white hot dogs on the intersection of Park and Chestnut streets in front of Simones’ Hot Dog Stand.
“My only question is, how are we going to recognize a white hot dog?” City Councilor Joline Beam said.
A second crosswalk, across Adams Avenue at Lisbon Street — will get a similar treatment, according to Sheri Withers of the Union of Maine Visual Artists Lewiston-Auburn branch. The standard white lines of the crosswalk will be replaced with painted shears and similar manufacturing equipment, reminders of the city’s history as a center of textile manufacturing.
“It still has to have linear white lines, so the design will still have that same kind of ladder-like look,” Wither said. “We’ve talked about doing historical tools that have to do with manufacturing.”
The group also got the council’s blessing to add temporary sidewalk murals along Lisbon Street between Pine and Ash streets. Everything should be done in the next few weeks, in time for L/A Arts’ first Art Walk of 2016 on May 27.
The sidewalks and the temporary murals will be torn up some time in June, part of the city’s current Lisbon Street paving project.
“I think it all goes along really well with our efforts to revitalize the arts in downtown Lewiston,” Councilor Kristen Cloutier said.
Wither said stencils for the crosswalks are being designed by a member of the group, and a second member will build them out of wood.
Public Works crews will use the stencils to paint the walks in the next few weeks. Public Works Director David Jones said the work would add $110 to the city’s crosswalk painting budget, but Withers said her group is taking donations to pay the difference.
Misty Parker, Lewiston’s economic development specialist, said the city is testing the idea to see if it’s popular. If it is, they could be used on other intersections.
But Jones said residents shouldn’t expect to see them on any state-supported road, like Lisbon, Main or Sabattus streets.
“We’ll only see creative crosswalks on local streets, not main thoroughfares,” Jones said. “The federal government and the state tend to be kind of sticks-in-the-mud about doing unique things like this. The Uniform Traffic Code has specifics about what crosswalks are and should be and they don’t allow us to do it on bigger streets.”
“My only question is, how are we going to recognize a white hot dog?”
— Joline Beam, Lewiston city councilor
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