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Public art installations for highway underpasses


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#1 BlueMound

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Posted 31 May 2013 - 01:29 PM

Article about a design firm that specializes in art installation for underpasses

http://m.theatlantic...-overpass/5711/

 

One of their projects in Dallas for the Ross Avenue underpass

http://www.jbpublica...venue-underpass

 

5.jpg

 

 



#2 Doohickie

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Posted 31 May 2013 - 01:36 PM

Great idea:  draw the drivers' attention away from the road.  :-\


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#3 RD Milhollin

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Posted 05 June 2013 - 08:26 PM

It looks as though the traffic is going OVER the art, which is installed under the viaduct. If you want to see 'installations" that detract drivers in a very dangerous way note the electronic billboards along SH 183/121 coming west from DFW Airport toward Hurst. A driver really needs to be on the ball to keep up with the swervy lanes dodging unseen obstructions behind crash barricades, but there are full size LED billboards flashing bright, enticing commercial messages often at near-eye level. I have to actively decide not to look at these distractions and I am not a big movie or television watcher. Add to this the drivers trying to text or talk, driving with dogs in their lap, putting on makeup, flicking cigarette ash on themselves, etc. and one has to be surprised there are not more crashes on that road than there are.



#4 Funkutown Retro Retro

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Posted 06 June 2013 - 07:44 AM

Fort worth needs more flash!!! It's too dull around here

#5 Austin55

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Posted 06 June 2013 - 01:44 PM

Dallas has a lot of art under 75 and Woodall Rodgers, especcially between downtown and the AAC and downtown and Deep Ellum.

Where does Fort Worth have such connections? 



#6 BlueMound

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Posted 06 June 2013 - 04:17 PM

I-30 overpass over University

820 overpass over Hulen

I-30 overpasses over Jennings & South Main Street - that take you from downtown to downtown south.

I-30 overpass over Henderson Street - next to Henderson St Public Market

Future I-30 overpass over Lamar/Hemphill connector (Next to T&P Warehouse) - a future connector from downtown to downtown south 



#7 BlueMound

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Posted 12 January 2015 - 03:05 PM

Here is what San Pedro, CA did.
Using lighting to transform an underpass into a 'gateway'.

I could see the downtown underpasses becoming 'gateways' to Downtown South.

http://m.la.curbed.c...e_too_great.php

#8 Austin55

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Posted 12 January 2015 - 07:20 PM

I agree the tunnels from downtown to Southside need work. They are dark, smell like urine, and often have homeless sleeping in them. They are one of the few places I don't go alone.

Hemphill-Lamar will have artwork in it.

Perhaps some of the overpasses jnt the rock island area could benefit as well.

#9 Fort Worthology

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Posted 13 January 2015 - 10:27 AM

Best solution is to dynamite I-30.  :)

 

That being said, there's been a lot of talk about the underpasses between Downtown and the Near Southside.  The South Main one is in the South Main urban village master plan, with talk of art and/or lighting, but I don't know if there's anything actually planned in a concrete fashion yet.

 

The existing lighting in those tunnels is a mess - the city only maintains the *car* lighting and lets the lighting in the pedestrian tunnels remain broken, with their reasoning being that "the homeless will just break it again anyway," so nothing ever gets fixed for pedestrians.  I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done to make those tunnels better (short of removing the freeway and re-designing the underpasses under the railroad to be a lot more open and less cave-like), so I wonder if it wouldn't wind up being better to construct new, better-lit paths on the existing street instead of the tunnels.  I can picture a redesigned street where the bike lanes are physically separated rather than just being paint, and new sidewalks are included next to them.  Just one idea, of course.


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#10 BlueMound

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Posted 17 April 2015 - 04:57 PM

'D.C. has embraced some of its creepiest infrastructure as an opportunity for art.'

http://www.citylab.c...eatment/390813/



#11 BlueMound

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Posted 17 April 2015 - 07:55 PM

Here are some of the other design finalists for the D.C. underpass art project.

http://greatergreate...as-underpasses/

#12 lcbrownz

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Posted 05 May 2015 - 06:08 AM

There are many cities that have concrete footbridges underneath the road bridge with decorative lighting. The underside of the westside  of the new 7th Street bridge could be adorned with a plaza with decorative lighting and art.



#13 BlueMound

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Posted 04 July 2015 - 01:38 PM

Lighting and art for Ross Avenue underpass in Dallas
http://www.dallasnew...green-light.ece

#14 BlueMound

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Posted 29 July 2015 - 06:21 PM

Illuminating the underneath of Chicago's 'L' tracks

http://www.citylab.c...-tracks/399719/

#15 Austin55

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Posted 30 March 2016 - 12:01 AM

Awesome rainbow lit underpasses in Birmingham AL. Birmingham! The Southside connecting tunnels would look incredible with something like this.

 

http://www.thomaslch...w-light-tunnels

 

10448417684_0139d8abef_b.jpg



#16 dangr.dave

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Posted 31 March 2016 - 12:15 PM

I think the tunnels could use some new lighting for sure, but I also think they should get a treatment similar to what Deep Ellum did with its 42 murals project, which allowed independent local artists to propose designs, be selected, and then have at a wall with their paintbrushes...thus showcasing a lot of the best local free art.  I'd give however many local artists that can propose a quality design for a mural 20 or 30 feet of wall in the tunnels and then, when they are done, close off the tunnels for a day while local bands and food trucks set up and everyone brings craft beer and has a huge free party.

 

Unfortunately, if art does go into the tunnels, there will probably be a commission that does a $300k feasibility study, before issuing a nationwide call to artists that results, sometime in 2017, in the selection of something boring and totally not "Fort Worth" from some guy out of New Mexico or Oregon, which will cost $2.5 million and 2 years to realize (before the $1 million 6-month change order to incorporate the rhinestone embellishments), followed by a $50 per person artist meet-and-greet that you won't be able to afford and which you will only see when that one guy takes a hundred photos of it and posts it to Facebook (photos to include only men in tuxedos and power suits, women in miniskirts, some old rich-looking ladies in ball gowns and the artist who will be wearing white pants, mandals, a large shirt unbuttoned to his navel with freshly shorn chest, gold chains, a fedora, pony tail, aviation sunglasses and waxed mustache and soul patch).



#17 RD Milhollin

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Posted 01 April 2016 - 11:53 AM

In this particular case I would not object if the plan for public art (the "centipede) were shelved and the projected cost put toward filling the funding gap for the infrastructure. This doesn't look like a prime location for such art; and if art was still needed here a mural would be more recognizable as such since the only people likely to notice it are speeding through traffic into a tunnel. Why not put public art in public spaces where people are better able too interact with it. IMO art, like advertising, shouldn't be placed so as to be a potential distraction to already distracted drivers. Please don't get me started on misleading signage...  :glare: ... :laugh:






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