Pedestrians in downtown Middlebury are following the yellow brick road — and the red, green, purple, orange or blue ones. Since early June, ordinary crosswalks have been transformed with bright splashes of color, like the Vermont version of the gateway to Oz. Using buckets of paint and rollers, the town’s public works department transformed 16 crosswalks on several streets, painting each a different color inside the traditional white lines.
“When I drove into town that first morning, it was like a surprise — and so delightful — because this so elevates our little town,” said Peter Cousineau, owner of Toad Hall Flowers, a downtown florist. “What I’m seeing in Middlebury in general is a whole new wave of excitement over taking care of our town.”
The project is a creative, vibrant and low-cost way of sprucing up Middlebury and improving pedestrian safety, according to town manager Mark Pruhenski.
“The cost of the colorful paint was $1,660 total — an increase of only $360 over the cost of white paint,” Pruhenski said.
Many local establishments celebrated the makeover, applauding the colorful change in comments on photos posted to the town’s Instagram account. Some want public works to replicate the treatment on crosswalks in other parts of town. Others wondered how the colors will be maintained.
The positive feedback will likely drive the town to expand the effort, Pruhenski told Seven Days. The Better Middlebury Partnership board came up with the idea in February and hoped to have it completed before the Memorial Day parade in late May. But wet weather delayed the project.
Kathryn Torres, codirector of the partnership, said not all of the feedback has been positive. Some residents expressed sharp criticism. But that is to be expected with a bold change like this one, she noted.
In a post on its website, the partnership said, “It caught us off guard how something as seemingly simple as color could stir up deeper, even political, emotions.”
“Still, we hold onto this: community isn’t about everyone agreeing all the time,” the post says. “It’s about being willing to move through disagreement, together.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Middlebury’s Palette”
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This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2025.
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