Soon after John Ito moved to Bellingham a year ago for his job as a designer at Mindport Exhibits, he became smitten by the decorative crosswalks downtown.

So smitten that he has crafted an 8-foot-tall, 5-foot-wide windup kinetic sculpture inspired by the crosswalks. Rotate the large wooden key and a system of gears and pulleys - visible behind a clear plastic cover - activate a painted fiberboard replica of the crosswalk on the other side.

"It's something that people see everyday," Ito said of the star-and-circle crosswalk pattern. "Everybody can relate to it."

Once wound, large stars in the sculpture's design spin one direction, while smaller stars underneath spin the opposite direction and side panels with a brick pattern move up and down.

Ito's sculpture is on now on permanent display at Mindport, which is more than can be said about the crosswalks that inspired him.

EARLY OBSOLESCENCE

Four years ago, six intersections on Holly Street - from the intersection at Lakeway Drive and Ellis Street downhill to the intersection at State Street - had the intricate crosswalk patterns installed as part of a "streetscape" project.

Besides being decorative, the crosswalks were supposed to be money-savers because the heat-applied thermoplastic patterns were installed about a quarter of an inch below the new asphalt surface. Typical sidewalk stripes are heat-applied on top of asphalt.

The idea was that the decorative crosswalks, while more expensive to install, would need to be replaced less often because vehicles would have to wear down the asphalt before they would start to wear away the pattern.

When the crosswalks were installed, the expectation was that they might last up to eight years. Instead, parts of the design began rubbing away within a few years, with the worst damage at Ellis, Lakeway and Holly, where half of the pattern is gone.

"They were advertised to last six to eight years, but they haven't lived up to that," said Steve Haugen, traffic operations engineer at Bellingham Public Works Department.

It cost $119,000 to design and install the pattern crosswalks, nearly $20,000 per intersection.

If Bellingham had installed its standard crosswalk - wide stripes parallel to the direction of travel - it would have cost about $4,500 per intersection, Haugen said.

The decorative crosswalks were covered by a one-year maintenance warranty on the streetscape project, but might not be covered by any longer-term warranty, he said.

The crosswalks were made by Integrated Paving Concepts of Surrey, B.C. Asked for comment, an employee referred inquiries to Flint Trading Inc., a North Carolina company that bought Integrated's thermoplastics division last May.

Daniel Lang, vice president for business development at Flint, said he was unaware of problems in Bellingham, but said someone from the company would contact the city to evaluate the situation.

Bellingham already buys traffic-marking materials from Flint and has good relations with the company, Haugen said.

As for the crosswalks, Bellingham will continue to maintain the wide stripes that the city had separately installed on each side of the decorative crossings, but doesn't plan to replace the vanishing patterns inside, Haugen said.

FUN TO WATCH

Spending public money on pricey crosswalks that erode ahead of schedule is no laughing matter.

Ito's sculpture, on the other hand, exhibits several touches of whimsy. A bicycle bell inside dings when the design moves, and a desk "attention bell" dings when the sculpture is fully wound. And while it unwinds, several miniature high heels bob up and down inside.

"Nothing really 'pops' like ladies' high heels," Ito explained.

Even the name of the piece is playful: Bella Stella.

"If you crank this thing, you get 23 seconds of pure joy," Ito said.

There is a glimpse of reality, however, if you peer inside. On the back side of the rotating segments, visible through the plastic, are small star-and-circle patterns. The patterns start intact, but fade in increments to nothing, until the intact pattern circles into view again.

"Nothing lasts forever," Ito said. "Everything disappears."

DETAILS

• Mindport Exhibits, an interactive gallery at 210 W. Holly St., Bellingham, is open noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $2. Details: 360-647-5614 or mindport.org.

• Check out more of John Ito's creations on his YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/kwanito.

WATCH VIDEO: THE MAKING OF BELLA STELLA