Public Street Art builds Community

3/21/2017

Update!

September 20, 2017: The City of Oakland is moving forward with a pilot program after all! They will be selecting 30 sites in the coming months to kick off the Paint the Town program. This is exciting news as it will bring color and community out into our streets.

We are thankful that we had an opportunity to share our ideas (listed below) with OakDOT staff in person, and we're especially pleased that our proposed name for the program was selected as the winning name!

Our original post is below.

The City of Oakland just announced their new program: Paint the Town!

Let's Paint the Town safer.

As part of Oakland's new transportation strategic plan, one of the top priorities is to “Integrate art and playfulness into Oakland’s infrastructure.” As we've recently learned, the Great Streets Division is responsible for following up and developing a formal program

This priority fits right in with our Play Oakland belief that playful places build better bonds—among kids, neighbors, and communities—and those relationships are the foundation for thriving neighborhoods. It also fits in with our safe streets plan to improve pedestrian safety, particularly around schools.

Painted intersections and playful crosswalks are fun, attractive, and achieve multiple goals. Not only are they a traffic calming intervention, but when completed in collaboration with residents they can also increase neighborhood pride and strengthen community stewardship.

A few community-driven painted streets have popped up around town over the years, but now that art + play + infrastructure is an explicit priority, we're hoping to see a lot more in the near future.

Learn More about Safe Streets

A Head Start

Thankfully, Oakland doesn't have to start from scratch to develop a painted streets policy. Portland has a colorful street paintings program, Seattle has a standard approval process, and KaBoom, the leader of the Play Everywhere movement, has sponsored multiple playful street and sidewalk projects in cities around the country.

In fact, there are no shortage of cities that have already implemented programs and we can review their policies when drafting our own. See below for a list of cities and links to their programs and policies.

Oakland also knows how to run a community stewardship program! Our City's award-winning Adopt-A-Spot program empowers citizens to plant gardens in street medians, maintain storm drains and beautify litter containers and utility boxes with mosaics and murals. OakDOT can learn from this program, and build on its success.

Next Steps

According to the OakDOT plan, the next step is to develop an arts policy for integrating art into our infrastructure, produce guidance for materials and maintenance and implement a pilot project. However, according to our recent meeting with city staff, the City is no longer planning on implementing a pilot program. Instead, they are actively working on drafting guidance for projects which will clarify City requirements and the process for seeking approval. The program guidelines will be brought to the Public Works Committee for approval sometime this year.

p. 51 of OakDOT's Strategic Plan

p. 27 of OakDOT's Strategic Plan

Our Recommendations

Recently, Family Friendly Oakland, Keep Oakland Beautiful, the KaBoom Foundation, and the Golden Gate Community Association had a chance to meet with the OakDOT staff developing the program guidelines for "temporary plazas," which would include painted intersections and crosswalks. Here's a summary of our suggestions discussed with City:

Engage the community in the development of the guidelines. In advance of any public hearings, circulate a draft to artists and community groups likely to implement these programs, meet with Keep Oakland Beautiful, Business Improvement Districts, and neighborhood groups who have completed a painted streets project to seek lessons learned and feedback.
Develop a painless process for approval. Seek to understand the typical experience of a community member seeking approval through the City's Adopt-A-Spot program, versus the Green Wall program run through individual Council offices. Clarify the role of the Public Arts Committee and if/how approval will be incorporated.
Support the program with money and materials. Consider funding sources or providing supplies and equipment to support projects and accelerate volunteer engagement. Seek a permanent funding source for these projects to supplement community fundraising. Review program budgets of other cities that provide small grants through a competitive process.
Ensure equitable access and outcomes. Ideally, projects should be completed in all neighborhoods, not just the well resourced ones, or ones with improvement or commercial districts. The program's success should in part be measured by the extent to which Oaklanders of all ages and incomes benefit.
Nurture a community network of community stewards. The mosaic trash can movement has been passed on from neighborhood to neighborhood, in part because the City's efforts to build a sustainability movement that empowers and connects everyday citizens to make a difference in their neighborhood. Groups should have an easy way to connect with others that have paved the way.
Incorporate playful themes and goals into the guidance. Playability for all ages builds better cities for all. Join the Play Everywhere movement led by KaBoom and encourage opportunities for kids to "play along the way" by promoting transit ridership and walking with painted projects at bus stops and on sidewalks where children frequently walk. Playful infrastructure does not need to be only for kids and some of the best playful designs engage everyone every generation in a unique way.
Encourage and support school-neighborhood partnerships. This program offers a tremendous opportunity for schools to.connect with neighborhood residents in order to improve pedestrian, bike and street safety by slowing cars down. Support sharing amongst school sites working on similar projects, and consider additional support and guidance for crosswalks and sidewalks near schools.
Think beyond painted plazas and streets. Crosswalks, intersections, sidewalks, concrete bulb-outs, storm drains are all a potential canvass for expression, neighborhood identity and beautification. Segment the requirements by project type so that a small group of volunteers can accomplish a quick and easy project.
Provide pre-approved art templates for community use. In order to accelerate the number of projects, consider providing some standardized stencils for replication across the city. For example, a crosswalk pattern stencil that could then be customized with colors by the neighborhood, would give volunteers a starting point.