Iceland Stuns Road Hogs With Trippy 3D Crosswalk

The three-dimensional crosswalk is painted to look as if it was hovering over the street and is intended to slow down traffic and reduce driving speeds in the narrow residential streets of the fishing town of Ísafjörður located in the Westfjords.

By his own admission, Ísafjörður's environmental commissioner Ralf Trylla came across this idea while investigating innovative ways of slowing down traffic speed, being unhappy with the present speed limit in the narrow residential streets of downtown Ísafjörður, which is set at 30 kilometers per hour (18.6 mph).

Manager Gautur Ívar Halldórsson of the road painting company Vegmálun GÍH admitted to the local news site Vísir that the idea was borrowed from the Indian capital of New Delhi.

The Ísafjörður municipal council has not yet decided whether 3D crosswalks will become more commonplace, but admitted that more might indeed follow, once the experiment proves successful.

​So far, however, the glitchy crosswalk has become a popular selfie destination among curious locals and snooping tourists.

With a population of about 2,600, Ísafjörður is a town in the northwest of the Westfjords peninsula and the seat of the Ísafjarðarbær municipality. Ísafjörður's main industry is fishing, and the town has one of the largest fisheries in Iceland. It hosts a number of festivals annually, including music festivals the Ísafjörður Rock Festival and Við Djúpið and the theater festival Act Alone, as well as the European Swampsoccer Championships.

​Previously, 3D crossings to discipline reckless drivers have been employed in Georgia, China and Kyrgyzstan, among others.

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