Forced to remove rainbow crosswalks under a state edict to erase “political” messages from their streets, some Texas cities are finding new and colorful ways to celebrate Pride and their LGBTQ+ communities.
In El Paso, street lamps have been wrapped in Pride flags. Dallas recently unveiled public library steps adorned in multicolor fashion. In Austin, residents last week painted hearts of all shades onto a downtown mural. All of the permanent displays channeled support for LGBTQ+ residents in the same spaces the crosswalks once memorialized.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said the mural is meant to help Austin residents show solidarity with their LGBTQ+ neighbors while pushing back against the crosswalk removal.
“We’re going to do more to show our love and our respect and our appreciation for all of our people, and we’re going to do it in a way that’s clearly Austin,” Watson said. “A beauty of the mural was also that we could encourage others to come down and be part of it.”
Many of Texas’ major municipalities have used rainbow crosswalks to mark areas steeped in LGBTQ+ history. But after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Department of Transportation to withhold federal and state road money unless local officials eliminated colorful road displays, cities are being more intentional as they find new ways to uplift LGBTQ+ residents.
Abbott’s October order sought to promote safety by eliminating roadway art that might “advance political agendas” and followed a directive from the Federal Highway Administration that established similar requirements.
Many LGBTQ+ advocates believed the order targeted Pride-inspired rainbow crosswalks, but it also caused other designs to be removed, including painted yellow letters spelling “Black Artists Matter” in Texas’ first Black cultural heritage district in Austin, crosswalks honoring the Guadalupe River in Kerrville and others that are scheduled to be removed or are already gone.
Local officials could apply for exemptions to the removal order, but it’s unclear whether any were granted by the state, and the transportation department denied all of the applications to keep rainbow crosswalks. The agency did not answer questions about whether any roadway art was granted an exemption.
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Fresh paint and new flags are far from the end of the cities’ and organizers’ commitment to memorialize support for LGBTQ+ residents. Austin plans to install a historical marker in August to enshrine the area’s importance as a longtime hub for the city’s LGBTQ+ community.
In Dallas, 18 rainbow-wrapped bike racks were installed by the Cedar Springs Merchants Association, with a “fun, campy ribbon cutting” set for June 29. In El Paso, Perez said community organizers hope to install similar rainbow bike racks.
Austin plans to scrape its rainbow crosswalk off the downtown intersection by the end of July, according to a city memo sent to TxDOT. The new murals at Colorado and Fourth streets are intended to keep the area colorful, but Watson said it has also instilled a new vigilance in the community’s support for its residents.
“This has created a focus that we can’t be complacent, and so we will continue to keep that focus,” Watson said.
See here for all the previous blogging on this topic. I note that there was zero mention of anything in Houston. Make of that what you will. In the meantime, it is my fond wish that someday, when Greg Abbott is consigned to the dustbin of history, every intersection within a five-mile radius of his home has a rainbow crosswalk painted on it.
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