A glass bridge over Interstate 225 plastered with rainbow-colored speckles that resonates sounds of animals and jazz music from the rafters above. A tornado of used bikes collected from the north Aurora neighborhoods. And an orb full of giant metal wheels that can be touched and turned. These are just a few pieces of interactive station area art that Aurora commuters will experience at each light-rail station by the end of February.

Once the Regional Transportation District’s R-Line opens early 2017, travelers on the 10.5-mile line along the I-225 corridor from the Nine Mile station at Parker Road up to Peoria Avenue can see and experience nine separate sculptures, wind screens and installations arranged at the R-Line’s eight total stations through Aurora.

Each piece was selected and commissioned by Aurora and RTD to characterize each stop and each unique neighborhood through the city.

Installation work for all of the projects started in October,but the national selection process for artists and the execution of each artist’s visions for their piece has been going on for years.

Roberta Bloom, Aurora’s public art coordinator, said the purpose of public art is to help to establish and articulate an identity for a city or a specific community.

“In the case of doing these major projects at public transportation stations, we wanted each of those stations to reflect the individual identity of the neighborhood,” Bloom said. “There were selection committees for each station, and residents from each neighborhood were on those. It was an opportunity from them to have input on how the character of their neighborhood would be reflected.”

For example, the 13th Avenue Station art, “Bike Train,” created by Christopher Fennell, is a spinning, swirling sculpture that has 40 used bikes welded to it.

“The idea was to use used bikes that came from the area so that people could donate bikes and then see them on the sculpture,” Bloom said. “There was an effort made to collect bikes from the area, and then they were shipped to the artist, and then the finished work will be shipped back and installed.”

The total budget for art on the RTD R-Line — which includes eight sculptures and a series of multi-colored wind screens depicting people at each platform — was $1.5 million. That was a shared cost between the city and RTD, who also both had representatives on the art selection panels. In all, RTD contributed $610,000 and Aurora paid $894,000.

“It’s really about enhancing the experience of the patron and giving them something they can take time to look at,” said Matt Druffel, a contract engineer with RTD who serves as technical liaison to the selected artists. “Each one on this line is distinctly different than the next one, and it’s been very interesting watching how the artists interpret the theme.”

The overall theme for the R-Line station area project was “light, color and motion.”

Those particular premises are very familiar to Seattle-based public artist, Koryn Rolstad, whose style of environmental public art and sculpture was chosen for two of the city’s light-rail stations — Fitzsimons and Florida.

“I think ours are the two largest projects, in terms of covering land,” Rolstad said. “The Fitzsimons piece is about 400 feet long with 158 separate sculpture elements of grasses and trees, and the Florida station bridge is about 200 feet long, I believe.”

Rolstad, 63, has been creating art for public transit and gateways to cities across the nation since 1975. She said that when she applied for the projects through the city, she already knew exactly how she wanted to execute each project.

“I broke the Florida bridge into six zones that transition on the bridge from animals to activities in Aurora,” she said. “There are speakers mounted above each zone, and sounds of each theme play from above. There are horse and cattle sounds and then symphony and ballet music and street music and then sounds for medical and military themes as well.”

Other projects along the line include “Sunrise,” a 16-foot diameter interactive solar disk with 24 turning wheels elevated 2 feet above the Aurora Metro Center station. John King of Lyons, is the artist for that sculpture.

The Colfax Avenue bridge project was designed by Tucson, Ariz.,-based artist Joe O’Connell, who is using laser-cut steel and LED lights for his creation, “Stories Interweave.” The piece has eight to 12 suspended sculptures that will pack the south and north platforms of the bridge. The skin of each sculpture will be made up of different languages cut into steel and welded together to create three-dimensional, lantern-like forms intermixing languages and stories.

And along the Fitzsimons stop, light-rail riders will see a small field of giant, rainbow-colored trees and grasses that line the stretch of track leading up to the station. Rolstad will fly into Aurora in the coming weeks to supervise the installation of that large piece.

“I work in a lot of these types of places; places that used to be bedroom communities but are now taking shape as larger cities with their own urban culture,” Rolstad said. “Aurora is another growing, valuable community that is building a voice as to who they are and public art serves an imperative role in the growth and change.”