A winner will soon be chosen in the community crosswalk design contest.

Dr. Tom Ollila, chairman of the Barrington Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, said the top design will be selected at the BPAC meeting on July 27. 

Once the design is announced, there will be a community crosswalk painting event, where the public will have an opportunity to help paint the winning design on a crosswalk located in the area of Wood Avenue and Waseca Avenue. 

Ollila said Isabella Gillibrand, an official in the town’s planning department, identified a grant opportunity that led to the crosswalk contest. 

“We went through a number of possible ideas,” Ollila said, adding that BPAC members eventually settled on the crosswalk mural design contest. 

“What better way to design a mural than to have a contest?”

Ollila said BPAC reached out to art teachers from local schools who helped with the contest. 

“There were a number of great submissions,” Ollila said. 

BPAC members had a table at the Barrington Street Festival earlier this year and offered the public an opportunity to see the design entries and cast votes for their favorites. Ollila said there were two designs that each captured about 30 percent of the vote. The public’s votes will be taken into consideration for the final voting, Ollila said. 

“I really liked the top two (designs),” Ollila said, “but I really liked all of them.”

The crosswalk design contest is one of the smaller projects BPAC is working on currently. Ollila said the group — it was formed earlier this year — started with a crash course on how streets are designed, the differences between town roads and state roads, and even the work that goes into determining where utility poles are located. 

BPAC is also focused on the pedestrian and bicycle improvements taking place along Lincoln Avenue. 

Ollila said BPAC is focused on making it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists to travel throughout Barrington. The BPAC meeting on July 27 will be held in the Collis Family Gallery at the public library at 6 p.m. 

Ollila said the community crosswalk painting event will likely take place in the middle of September.