Fall River is painting a mural inside this chaotic intersection. What should it look like?

Dan Medeiros, The Herald News
·3 min read
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FALL RIVER — The city is gearing up to install a mural inside a major, hazardous street intersection — on the pavement itself — and has posted a survey seeking ideas for a subject.

It’s not only a way to enliven the intersection of South Main Street and Bradford Avenue. It’s also a chance to gauge if people think driving and walking through there is safe.

Last year, the city and the Fall River Arts and Culture Coalition won a $25,000 grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies to create the mural.

Fall River was one of 25 communities in North America given money as part of its Asphalt Art Initiative last year. The program’s goal is to beautify public space and improve street and pedestrian safety.

Here's what you need to know about the project and how to take the survey:

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Cars and a bus zip through the corner of Bradford Avenue and South Main Street in Fall River on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. The intersection will be getting a mural painted on the asphalt thanks to a grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Cars and a bus zip through the corner of Bradford Avenue and South Main Street in Fall River on Tuesday, June 18, 2024. The intersection will be getting a mural painted on the asphalt thanks to a grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Where is this intersection and what is it like?

The mural is going on the intersection of South Main Street and Bradford Avenue.

It’s a notoriously chaotic spot for drivers. Bradford Avenue has two-way traffic made more complicated by a one-way park drive separated by a median strip that lets out traffic into the intersection. Drivers headed south on South Main sometimes form two lanes, with one headed straight and another into the park drive on Kennedy Park’s east side.

According to the city's survey, the intersection is controlled by one stop sign. However, the intersection has no stop signs.

Cars coming from Bradford must turn onto South Main by finding gaps in traffic. Pedestrians have two crosswalks, and the one across Bradford Avenue is about 100 feet long — about three times as wide as a typical street.

When the city got the grant last year, the initial plan was to place the mural inside the intersection of Broadway and Bradford Avenue; that plan has changed.

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A street art project near the Children's Museum in Tucson, Arizona, conducted in collaboration between Living Streets Alliance and the Tucson DOT funded in part by a Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative grant.
A street art project near the Children's Museum in Tucson, Arizona, conducted in collaboration between Living Streets Alliance and the Tucson DOT funded in part by a Bloomberg Philanthropies' Asphalt Art Initiative grant.

Isn’t a painting on the street going to be distracting to drivers?

The intent is for the art to be striking but not distracting — just enough to calm traffic.

In an interview last year, city grant writer Jasmine Pereira said, "The point is to use eye-catching visuals to prompt people to slow down and pay attention."

Bloomberg Philanthropies’ website features multiple examples of cities that installed murals on their roads and in crosswalks. East Providence, Rhode Island, installed art inside two crosswalks in 2022, and according to a survey pedestrian safety increased from 59% to 91%. One example of a street mural in Durham, North Carolina, caused vehicle-pedestrian conflicts to fall by 30%, and the number of people surveyed who felt it was unsafe fell from 85% to 6%.

What is the survey asking?

The city is looking for answers on three topics:

  • How people use the intersection now

  • What kind of art people would like to see there

  • How safe people think that intersection is now

Take the survey at tinyurl.com/FallRiverAsphaltArt. It is also available in Portuguese and Spanish.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Fall River gets Bloomberg grant for road safety mural; survey online