McKinleyville intersection to become community street mural June 26

Drivers, pedestrians and nearby residents at Hiller Road and McKinleyville Avenue will see a different kind of construction starting June 26: local artists will turn the intersection into a community street mural while traffic controls briefly reshape how people move through the corner. The work is scheduled to run June 26-28 and is designed to make one of McKinleyville’s busiest neighborhood crossroads more colorful, more visible and more closely tied to the county’s active transportation plans.

Humboldt County says the McKinleyville Community Street Art Project is a partnership between the Department of Public Works, the McKinleyville Municipal Advisory Committee’s Subcommittee for Active Transportation and Sea Goat Farmstand & Folk School. The county says the project will beautify the Hiller Road and McKinleyville Avenue intersection while celebrating local culture, community identity and active transportation.

The mural is not arriving on its own. It is tied to the Hiller Road Quick-Build Project, which county officials describe as the first quick-build of its kind for Humboldt County Public Works. That effort is funded by Measure O tax dollars and is meant to test road-safety design features, gather community feedback and add color and creativity along Hiller Road between Central Avenue and McKinleyville Avenue. Earlier planning materials for the corridor also included a temporary roundabout, buffered bicycle lanes, new signage and public art murals.

The mural project had already been in active discussion by the MMAC Subcommittee for Active Transportation on May 13, when members reviewed grant applications, estimated the painted area of the bulb-outs and discussed contacts with artists and Two Feathers. That planning work shows the June installation is part of a longer effort to reshape the street, not a one-day decoration.

Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said, “We are excited to bring this community-driven art project to McKinleyville.” County officials also said project partners thanked local organizations and individuals for helping make the community vision a reality.

For McKinleyville, the timing matters. Hiller Road has become a test case for how road design, pedestrian comfort and neighborhood identity can be folded together in one corridor, and the mural will put that experiment directly in front of people who use the intersection every day. As the paint goes down, the county is betting that a public-facing artwork can do more than decorate pavement: it can help signal that the street is meant to be shared.