The crosswalk is FLOATING!! AHHHH!! (Screenshot courtesy of Gusti Productions/YouTube)
This is Ísafjörður (say EE-sah-fuhr-dur).
It is a tiny fishing village found in northwestern Iceland. It is also popular with tourists to the island nation. Because, look at it.
Surrounded by mountains and pristine ocean water, filled with welcoming residents...it looks like the perfect place to go to escape from everything. Not to mention, enjoy the freshest fish you've ever eaten.
But Ísafjörður is more than just an escape to the edge of the world. It's also home to this...
Stop! In the name of optical illusions!
Yes, that is indeed a crosswalk. And no, you didn't just wake up with your 3D glasses still on from last night's Thor: Ragnarok screening. That is an optical illusion painted on a flat surface.
The idea came to town environmental commissioner Ralf Trylla as a way to slow down traffic without using speed bumps. After all, how fast would you drive into an intersection if it looked like you were about to run into a bunch of floating white rectangular prisms?
The future of slowing down?
This street in Ísafjörður is not the first crosswalk like this. Others exist in some cities in China and India, for example. But it is certainly gaining a lot of attention all the same, even to the point where it's become it's own attraction in the sleepy seaside town.
And does it actually work? Though the intersection wasn't exactly Times Square before this (a.k.a. it is a quiet one-way street), drivers are certainly taking notice! Get a closer look at how this masterful piece of painted trickery works in the promo video below.
Soooooooooooooooo cool!
It looks soooooooooooooooooo cool 🙂
😮 it looks sooo real. I thought that they were actually floating at the start.