Costa Mesa installs crosswalk on Wilson Street, where a vigilante painted one last year

Costa Mesa Public Works officials on Friday announced the recent installation of a crosswalk on Wilson Street, near Fordham Drive and the city’s Wilson Park, that’s been more than a year in the making.

Complete with a painted walkway and traffic lights that may be set into motion by pedestrians, the High-Intensity Activated CrossWalK — or HAWK signal — is designed to slow the rush of traffic along Wilson to allow easier access to the park and nearby residences.

“The city appreciates the cooperation and support from all its stakeholders in contributing to this project’s completion and success,” officials wrote in a weekly newsletter of the effort, which wrapped Dec. 28.

Costa Mesa resident Jesse Jackson crosses Wilson Street with dog Cooper via a crosswalk an unknown person painted on the busy road in mid-July.

(Susan Hoffman)

While the complex configuration is part of a nearly $2-million Wilson Street Improvement Project approved by the City Council in 2022, it’s technically the second crosswalk to appear at the busy Wilson Street segment in the last six months.

City Hall employees were surprised last July, when an anonymous party spray-painted an illegal crosswalk in the exact location where it had long been promised.

Some active transportation advocates commended the ostensible vandal for committing a bold act of “tactical urbanism,” where citizens or groups create makeshift, sometimes illegal improvements in public rights of way to elicit action from civic leaders.

A newly installed traffic signal and signage on Costa Mesa’s Wilson Street warn drivers to stop for pedestrians.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

Longtime Costa Mesa resident Flo Martin, who serves on the city’s Active Transportation Committee and the board of the nonprofit Costa Mesa Alliance for Better Streets (CMABS), lives near Wilson Park and walks the surrounding area on a daily basis.

“Sometimes, the way to get something done at City Hall — and I’ve been doing it since 1974 — is to rattle cages, to go to city council meetings, go to planning commission meetings and go to the various committee meetings and just raise Cain,” the 81-year-old said Friday.

She shared other examples of more organized incidents of tactical urbanism in Costa Mesa, including a temporary roundabout installed on West 19th Street in 2020 through a collaboration between the city and CMABS to see whether the safety feature would calm traffic.

In an act of legal “tactical urbanism,” Costa Mesa Alliance for Better Streets and city officials installed two temporary traffic circles, or roundabouts on West 19th Street.

(File Photo)

Last July, less than two weeks after the renegade crosswalk appeared on Wilson Street, officials closed down a portion of Placentia Avenue on the last day of the city’s Concerts in the Park series to create a temporary bike lane for non-vehicle travel to and from the event.

Martin said she was pleased during a recent walk to see the Wilson Park HAWK signal was up and running. She approached the crosswalk and pushed the button, which triggered an amber warning light to oncoming cars before displaying two solid red lights requiring a full stop.

Right as she prepared to cross, however, a vehicle driving on Wilson flew through the red light, impeding her travel.

“The HAWK signal works perfectly,” she surmised. “It’s just the drivers who are screwed up.”