If your city isn’t meeting your needs, just hack it. Urban hacktivism is a form of creative, citizen-led problem solving that often goes behind the backs of officials and institutions to get things done. Instead of leaving the task of shaping a given city to governments and developers, who tend to ignore the input of people they’re supposed to be serving, urban hacktivists take matters into their own hands by combining crowdsourced knowledge and skills with cheap, readily available materials. That might mean transforming a long-vacant lot into a neighborhood park, adding public seating to an area where it’s lacking, enhancing the safety of intersections for pedestrians or just making urban environments feel more responsive and fun.

At the heart of this kind of guerrilla urbanism is the ability to see the potential of public spaces to better meet people’s needs, make small changes and possibly convince local governments to make those changes permanent in the process. After all, the people who use those spaces every day know best. If you’re interested in carrying out some DIY urbanism in your own city, the internet is full of examples, guides and tutorials to get you started. These hacks may or may not be legal where you live – whether you choose to find a way around that is up to you, and most of these tools come with an obligatory disclaimer that they’re not suggesting, teaching or condoning any kind of illegal action.

Create DIY Crosswalks

Sometimes, cities just don’t seem to know where crosswalks belong. Maybe they’re not paying attention. Maybe there’s some kind of red tape involved. But a lack of proper crossings can be dangerous for pedestrians who simply aren’t going to take a stupidly long way around. If there’s a common crossing near you that isn’t marked, you can mark it yourself, whether by grabbing some paint and forming your own urban repair squad or setting up a temporary illuminated crosswalk, as laid out at Instructables. For guidance on paint selection and other aspects of this task, check out the Tactical Urbanist’s Guide To Getting it Done, a free resource you can download packed with tips for all sorts of projects.

Customize Street Signs

PHOTOS: These hacked electronic street signs make being stuck in traffic worth it http://t.co/XZkdOV8RdJ pic.twitter.com/pu9sFIx9eJ

— RYOT (@ThisIsRYOT) March 13, 2014

Some cities don’t have enough navigation signs to guide people to significant destinations. Some just aren’t adequately marked, like a misleading exit sign over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles, which one intrepid urban hacker fixed himself with a very convincing facsimile of official Caltrans signage (it stayed up for over eight years.) Street artists frequently “hack” signs just to make them more interesting and fun. And, just to say, electronic road signs are pretty easy to hack into just for the sake of making someone smile on their crappy commute, though of course you should never tamper with these signs, as instructions to do exactly that will warn you.

You can also produce your own street signs that look official at a glance, but actually spread positive messages in unexpected places. Seattle-based guerrilla artist April Soetarman sells her own rugged heavy-duty laminated aluminum signs that say things like “NOTICE: I never stopped loving you. I hope you’re well.” It’s easy to order your own custom street signs through any number of websites, all just a Google away, or you can do it through the Walk Your City Project, which links informational street signs “with web-based campaign management and data collection to complement traditional approaches to way finding.”

Hack Bus Shelter Advertisements

Brandalism, “a revolt against the corporate control of culture and space” by an international collective of artists, wants to help you intervene into ad spaces that usually celebrate consumption in favor of art, political messaging or whatever you’d rather look at instead. Carefully noting that the tools they offer “are handmade art objects and not intended for use,” the group maintains a site called PublicAdCampaign.com illustrating the types of tools required to get into bus shelter ads in various cities across the world. You can purchase these tools – er, art objects – directly from the website.

Build Your Own Bike Lanes

A lack of proper bike lanes is dangerous for everyone on the road, whether you’re a cyclist or a motorist. DIY bike lanes are almost always illegal, but that doesn’t stop people from making them anyway in a form of political vandalism that often forces officials to sit up and pay attention. The tactic can definitely pay off, as it’s not unusual for these temporary lanes – made of traffic cones, flower pots, or even toilet plungers – to eventually become permanent. Tactical Urbanism has a variety of tips in this area, along with case studies that show how it worked out in various cities.

Make Modular Structures Out of Found Objects

Hacking cities needn’t (and arguably shouldn’t) involve the purchase of expensive, heavy, potentially waste-producing materials. DIY urbanists are encouraged, instead, to “hack” into existing modular systems to make them work for new purposes. Examples include Mifactori’s “Circular Street Waste” workshop, in which discarded furniture and other trash collected from the city streets is transformed into versatile multi-use parts that could become tables, benches, shelters and more.

Similarly, the 3erlin Grid (say “Berlin Grid”) offers a grid-based decentralized open standard for building objects and structures that always leaves a distance of 3cm between holes for nuts and bolts so all parts always fit together and can be combined in infinite ways. So if one person builds, say, a DIY table for a city, someone else can come along and add to it. They’re often based on children’s toys, found objects that can be easily modified, like fencing and scaffolding. The principles follow those of OpenStructures, which include using recyclable materials, designing for disassembly and making components as cross-compatible as possible.

Many tactical urbanism projects are self-explanatory, and easy to recreate just by looking at what other people have accomplished. Check out some of our previous posts on urban hacking for a whole lot of inspiration.

Tactical Urbanism: 15 Low-Cost City Hacks for Fun & Functionality

The Rotten Apple Project: Quick & Dirty Urban Hacks

City Hacktivism: 12 Fun DIY Urban Interventions

Hack Your City: Guerrilla Grafter’s Guide for Making Ornamental Trees Edible

Street Re-View: Hacking Google with Theatrical Performances

Abandoned Bridge Amphitheater Reclaims Public Space

Filling the city with art by literally painting right onto the streets makes it feel like everyone is immersed in an illustration, acting out some kind of larger-than-life story. Formerly bare patches of asphalt and concrete get splashes of color, patterns and imagery that can be humorous, fun or politically pointed. Roadsworth is among the street artists best known for this style, and recently debuted a new piece referencing the refugee crisis.

“A new record: as of today, the UN has counted 65 million refugees in the world,” he says. “I painted this in recognition of this tragic fact. Walls and Fences are for painting and climbing not for dividing and obstructing.”

In this particular mural, painted onto a street in Montréal, passersby are confronted with massive hands cling to a chain-link fence, effectively forcing them to recognize and think about the subject matter.

Other Roadsworth murals are more playful, like a stop-animation squirrel that appears to run down the street when the images are stacked in a GIF, and a crosswalk that has been turned into a rope bridge. A giant pink ice cream cone melts onto the pavement.

Prints can be purchased at Roadsworth.com, and you can keep up with the artist’s work on Instagram.

Optical illusions that seem to produce real 3D speed bumps on a flat street may enhance safety by encouraging drivers to slow down, but such colorful crosswalk paintings could soon become extinct in the United States. Now that the Federal Highway Administration started cracking down on anything that distracts from the contrast of bright white crosswalk lines, citing concerns that drivers will get confused, attempts to make intersections more interesting could come to a screeching halt. Bright patterns on asphalt may fade, but other crosswalk interventions will live on, like interactive dancing signals, fist-bump buttons and roll-out guerrilla-style crosswalks for busy areas.

Colorful Crosswalks by Carlos Cruz-Diez

Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez has been painting crosswalk interventions since the 1970s, creating potentially disorienting effects for the pedestrians who walk along them. Some of the street paintings seem to morph in color and shape, taking on movements of their own, as you cross. “The daily journey through urban spaces changes our personality and makes us into habitual beings who obey rules that nobody questions,” says Cruz-Diez. “The artist can create ephemeral expressions that, by generating completely new events, transform urban ‘linearity’ and at the same time inject an element of surprise into urban routine. These ephemeral works are a way of producing different readings of urban spaces and of deconsecrating the utilitarian objects of urban furniture.”

Faux Roadblocks Encourage Drivers to Stop

Drivers might actually slow down for pedestrians trying to cross the street if they think their car could get damaged by barreling forward – or at least, so hope two women in India who created this illusion. As you approach the intersection, it looks like there’s a roadblock, but it’s an anamorphic effect. As seen in the second photo, the technique has also been used in China.

Interactive Dancing Crosswalk Signal

Tiny car manufacturer Smart hopes pedestrians will be so mesmerized by their animated dancing crosswalks signal, they’ll forget to jaywalk. A nearby dancing booth translates the dance moves of passersby into the ‘don’t walk’ silhouette, adding an element of interactivity and making the performance entirely unpredictable. Smart says 81% more people stopped at the light instead of walking out into the street while it was installed.

Virtual Speed Bumps

The idea with faux speed bumps like these is to catch drivers’ attention just briefly enough to get them to slow down, but not so much that they cause a traffic disruption. Philadelphia hoped to boost safety in the streets with these triangular 3D markings, which cost a fraction of real speed bumps and require very little maintenance.

Virtual Wall Crosswalk

If the illusion of road bumps isn’t enough for you, maybe a virtual wall projected right in front of your car will get you to hit the brakes when approaching a pedestrian crossing. This concept by designer Hanyoung Lee uses plasma laser beams to project oversized pedestrians in front of vehicles, making it very clear that they need to wait a minute before continuing.

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Walk On The Wild Side 13 Crosswalk Illusions Interventions

Pedestrians approaching a crosswalk button that has been modified with a silicone fist knew exactly what to do in order to get across the street. Anthropomorphizing a common urban fixture, designer duo Alfredo and Alberto make a walk through Los Angeles a lot more fun with nothing more than some silicone, glue and a #walkbump sticker printed with the simple instructions “fist bump to cross.”

The designers captured video of pedestrians as they encountered the guerrilla installation. Nearly everybody seems game to play along, some snapping selfies. While the Spanish-born designers don’t explain exactly how they made it, all it likely took to create was taking a quick clay mold of the button for a seamless fit, and a separate one of a fist, casting them into one piece in an eye-catching yellow hue.

This ‘quick and dirty’ urban intervention calls to mind the Rotten Apple Project, a series of cheap projects that anyone can replicate in their own cities, from turning a bike rack into a folding seat to screwing coat hooks onto bus stop signs. This kind of active participation in how cities look and function – often without the permission of officials – can enliven public spaces, whether the installations are just for fun or create new uses for existing structures. Check out 12 more creative DIY urban interventions.

Where did the pedestrian cross the road? Unless he or she’s a jaywalker, at the crosswalk of course! These ten creative crosswalks or, as they’re known in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, Zebra Crossings, are as much a part of modern society as bar codes and show just as much clever variation.

Chengdu, China’s Love Zebra Crossing

(images via: IntroCN and Xinhuanet)

Crossing the street in China can be an adventure in itself, albeit one that doesn’t always come to a satisfying conclusion, and those who venture across run-of-the-mill black & white crosswalks in the central Chinese city of Chengdu don’t always get the respectful attention they deserve from drivers. Enter the Love Zebra Crossing, literally, and you’re at least assured of leaving this world in the arms of your one true love.

(image via: Buka Gambar)

Big, bold and beautiful, Chengdu’s Love Zebra Crossing was set up in an area of town close to where two rivers meet – get it? The crossing has proven to be so popular its presence has actually increased pedestrian traffic, some of whom dress for the occasion. We’re not sure how Chinese drivers feel about the design but one hopes it’s not a hit.

Lafayette Elementary’s Crosswalk, North Admiral, Seattle

(images via: West Seattle Blog)

Kudos to the kids at West Seattle’s Lafayette Elementary School for this triumph of street-level urban design and a pat on the back to Dennis Ross of the Admiral Neighborhood Association for coaxing the city’s beancounters into funding the project. View more images of the crosswalk at Jet City Orange‘s Flickr photostream.

(images via: SDOT Photos)

Though the intricate design appears to have been applied with colored chalk, it’s actually Dura-Therm, a pavement marking system that involves impressing a pattern into softened asphalt, filling the impressions with special plastic, then melting the plastic through a heat-transfer process.

Zebra Crossing Concept, Mataro, Spain

(image via: Advertolog)

Now here’s a crosswalk we’d like to see, and if the future of zebra crossings is this bright then by all means you’ve gotta wear shades! Alas, the colorful crosswalk never progressed beyond a 2004 print rendering by the Contrapunto advertising agency for a road safety campaign conducted by Mataro City Council in Mataro, Spain.

Liquidação Shopping Curitiba

(images via: Ads of the World)

When is a crosswalk not a crosswalk? When it’s a guerrilla art advertisement for Shopping Curitiba, a shopping center in the city of Curitiba, Brazil. Shopping Curitiba applied for and received a special authorization from Curitiba’s City Hall to place the ad for a limited time in August of 2007.

(image via: Andy Troc)

The ad was designed by Diego Pianaro and Cintya Reese of the OpusMúltipla agency. After the sale the faux crosswalk was painted over, and there were no reports of any pedestrians faking injuries during its operation.

3d Zebra Crossing, Sichuan, China

(images via: ITPAC, Express UK and HiSupplier)

Think the spicy food in Sichuan, China jumps out at you? Try driving home after your meal. The blue, white & yellow zebra crossing shown here is, dare we say, overkill when it comes to grabbing drivers’ attention… not to mention the effect on drunk pedestrians trying to negotiate it.

Oakland Chinatown Pedestrian Scramble

(images via: CoLab Radio and Oakland North)

What looks like a giant board game at the intersections of 8th and 9th at Franklin and Webster Streets in Oakland’s Chinatown is actually one of four new pedestrian “scrambles” intended to cut down on accidents and injuries when traffic gets heavy.

(image via: Deb Roby)

The intersection’s traffic signal lights have been retimed and now feature a 15-second all-pedestrian phase. It’s called a scramble because during the 15 seconds when vehicular traffic stops, pedestrians are free to cross in any direction including diagonally. The intersection above comes alive with colorful crosswalks designed by Cleveland-born artist Deb Roby. But this crossing has seen quite a bit of controversy despite the beautiful road markings. There have been a few accidents involving pedestrians because drivers get confused about the “scramble” that happens. If you have been hit while using a crossing then you might want legal representation from someone like this Forth Worth Personal Injury Lawyer to see if you could get compensation for what happened. Perhaps all this crossing needs are clearer signs for the drivers to explain how the system works.

Supersize This!

(image via: Inhouse Recipes)

During the 2010 edition of Zurichfest, Switzerland’s largest public festival, McDonald’s made sure festival-goers got fries with that, and by “that” we mean the act of walking across the street. One has to wonder, though, if the advertorial art would be in better taste in winter when the roads are salted.

Chopin’s 200th Birthday Crosswalks

(images via: Flourish Creative, ClassicalMusic.us and RomeoAD)

Ah, the music of the streets… and if the streets are in Warsaw, the music must be Chopin. In honor of the 200th anniversary of the Polish-born composer’s birth in 1810, the City of Warsaw repainted a significant number of zebra crossings to resemble piano keys.

(image via: Redpolkadot)

With the anniversary looming and pressure rising to suitably commemorate one of the city & country’s favorite sons, the City of Warsaw Promotion Bureau and the Department of Industrial Design at the Fine Arts Academy of Warsaw decided to hold a design competition and invited submissions. The simple yet evocative zebra crossings were conceived by Helena Czernek and Klara Jankiewicz.

Zebra Zebra Crossing Crossing

(images via: Canis Major)

Someone at the Paintworks Centre near Arnos Vale, Bristol, UK has a wicked sense of humor and, of course, access to copious amounts of white paint. Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky as things could have been worse: the UK also has Toucan Crossings, Pelican Crossings, Puffin Crossings, Tiger Crossings and Penguin Crossings… but unaccountably no Chicken Crossings.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

(image via: My China Views)

The intersection of Fengzhuang Road at Nansan Road in Zhengzhou, China, sends mixed messages to puzzled pedestrians. Does one cross Fengzhuang Road on the zebra crossing or risk being ticketed for ignoring “Keep Off the Grass” signs? Judging from the pedestrians depicted above, the answer is “neither”.

(image via: Is This Real Life?)

Who’s to say there aren’t zebras crossing at any of the world’s many zebra crossings at any time? Would we be able to see them if they were? Then again, would drivers? Guess you’re not so smart after all, are you, zebras?