Seattle's Painted Traffic Control Boxes 1

Photo by:  Cherri

Today, when I dropped Bruce off downtown, I took another look at the Traffic Control Box next to the Federal Building where he works.  I had seen these painted control boxes often as I drove around the downtown area.  Some of them are quite beautiful and all seem to relate to life here in Seattle.

After I got home I searched the internet at great length to find out more information about them, to no avail.  Of course, I thought they were electrical transformer boxes and that didn't help.  I took the above picture at the northeast corner of 1st and Madison, on all four sides, so that I could find more information about them.  They are found on the corner at almost every traffic signal in the downtown area.  There is some information available on how to apply for permission to paint one of these boxes at the Department of Tranportation. That is found at the following website:  http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/stuse_signalboxart.htm

However, I was unable to come up with any details about the various artists or a map of their locations.  This seems a terrible shame that these local artists don't get more visibility for their work.  Since any kind of organized recognition seems to be lacking, I am going to try to photograph as many as possible and develop some kind of listing of these works of art with photographs and credit for the designers and painters.  I will try to add at least one traffic control box a week.

Check back soon for the latest updates.