More public art is coming to Rahway — and other Union County towns — with three locations selected, including two downtown.

Voting is open until Oct. 7 among five artists’ work for Rahway’s locations as part of Union County’s Art Outside the Box program, which aims to reinvent traffic control boxes around the county.

The three locations selected in Rahway are:

• Irving and Hamilton streets (Central Avenue)

• Lawrence and Milton streets [sic] (East Milton Avenue

• Madison Avenue Park

There’s a $200 honorarium for each artist selected. Almost 70 votes as of today and it looks like a race for second and third place (not unlike some of our reader polls!).

The program already is under way, and art selected, in Elizabeth, Linden and Plainfield.

Rahway would be in good company as cities big and small have employed this type of public art:

• Houston debuted traffic control box art this past summer;

• Seattle has guidelines, describing it as a way to “discourage graffiti while showcasing a neighborhood and business district”;

• Missoula, Mont.;

• Tampa, Fla.;

• Burlington, Vt.

I recall a similar effort in Washington, D.C.’s Golden Triangle business district in 2008 decorating nine historic fire call boxes.

It’s apparently not an entirely new phenomenon either, as this 2006 story from The New York Times describes the trend taking shape in Stamford, Conn., as early as 2003.

That piece even included a map detailing each of the nearly 200 locations

.