So, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, in his zeal to stay in Donald Trump’s good graces, last year forced cities within the state of Texas to get rid of any “non-standard” crosswalk designs or risk losing federal funding. While the order affected all kinds of creative crosswalk designs, everybody knew that the target was rainbow crosswalks in the gayborhoods of cities like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
Although that order forced the city of Dallas to destroy rainbow crosswalks in Oak Lawn that had been paid for with private donations, city leaders this week began discussing a way to adhere to Abbott’s anti-LGBTQ+ crosswalk order and at the same time, bring rainbows back to the streets.
(I’m not gonna say they are bringing rainbows back to Oak Lawn, because rainbows never left our Gayborhood. In fact, in the wake of Abbott’s order, rainbows became even more prolific in Oak Lawn as residents and business responded by adding as many rainbows as possible to their own businesses — including the world-famous rainbow steps at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church as well as the new rainbow banners and rainbow bike racks and more installed by the Cedar Springs Merchants Association.)
During a committee meeting on Monday, Sept. 14, Dallas City Council members talked about updating the city’s code on sidewalks to allow for “‘temporary’ markings that could recognize a neighborhood’s identity,” according to a report by KERA written by Pablo Arauz Peña.
District 14 Councilmember Paul Ridley, who chairs the transportation and infrastructure committee and whose district includes much of Oak Lawn, told other councilmembers, “This has been an issue in my district, along with Cedar Springs corridor where the rainbow crosswalks were eliminated under state mandate,” explaining why he was requesting that the ordinance be updated.
“They have been looking at alternatives to identify the district and provide local content without doing so in the street right of way. One of the areas that they’ve looked at is sidewalks,” Ridley said.
Alexandre’s owner and Cedar Springs Merchants Association member Lee Daugherty told WFAA’s David Goins that the sidewalk ordinance update allowing public art would be “a simple fix” that would allow artists to “make this street — and Dallas — a little more beautiful.”
The city’s transportation director, Gus Khankarli said there would need to be some sort of city policy addressing the issue, and that it would be “concerning when that type of approval is in the hands of a director without some sort of policy from the body.”
District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said residents in her Far North Dallas district want to be able to draw stencils — like “hopscotch [and] dinosaur alphabet, that sort of thing” on the sidewalks of the Preston Ridge Trail. Mendelsohn did acknowledge that allowing sidewalk art could lead to First Amendment issues, if someone wanted to decorate a sidewalk with something offensive, such as a swastika.
But William Roth, who represents district 11, came out against the idea completely, insisting the city shouldn’t be in the business of permitting art on city right-of-ways.
Ridley asked city staff to follow up with the transportation committee regarding legal implications of changing the code.
— Tammye Nash