Crosswalk drama rolls on

University Park designed an entire intersection featuring SMU’s mascot but the crosswalks don’t meet TxDOT standards.

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com

Suddenly, colorful crosswalks that welcome everyone to shop at Kroger and dance at the Round-Up or see a show in the Rose Room have become a matter of national urgency.
First Florida rid the state of its street ornamentations — most notably in front of Pulse, the former nightclub where more than 50 people were murdered and another 50 injured in a mass shooting.

Now Texas, most notably Gov. Greg Abbott, not to be outdone by his political rival to the southeast, has picked up on the emergency and ordered the state to rid itself of all rainbows within 30 days.

Dallas City Manager Kimberly Tolbert is spending her time responding to a letter received on October 8 from the Texas Department of Transportation “regarding compliance with pavement marking standards on public roads in Texas.” The letter states uniformity requirements for traffic control devices, which apparently includes crosswalks.

“Local jurisdictions,” Tolbert wrote, “are directed to correct non-compliant markings within 30 days unless exception is granted by TxDOT’s Traffic Safety Division.”

Dallas has a long history of installing non-compliant crosswalks that are anything other than white lines. In the early 2000s, Mayor Laura Miller pushed through funding to add period lighting, landscaping and new crosswalks to Bishop Arts, which jumpstarted growth and development in that area. Those non-compliant crosswalks will have to go.

So successful was that upgrade effort that it was duplicated on Lower Greenville where new bars and restaurants and the city’s first Trader Joes soon opened. Those non-compliant crosswalks will have to go.

And on the corner of Lemmon and McKinney Avenue, an odd green, yellow and blue design was laid across the street to create interesting and apparently illegal crosswalks to set apart West Village in the Uptown area of Oak Lawn. Those illegal crosswalks will have to go.

And a newly installed set of crosswalks and middle of the street design in University Park will have to be removed as well. The corner of Hillcrest and Daniel, just off the SMU campus, dangerously displays a mustang in the middle of the street and features brown on brown stripes connecting the corners that no one would realize were meant to guide pedestrians across the street.

Interestingly, TxDOT cites safety. Drivers shouldn’t have to look for something different in every neighborhood to indicate pedestrians have the right of way. But what TxDOT doesn’t cite is any traffic study that changing the color or construction material of crosswalks jeopardizes safety.

On Cedar Springs Road, where there are now 10 rainbow crosswalks, no pedestrian-involved accidents have been reported since the rainbows have been installed. In years prior to rainbow crosswalks, a number of fatalities and serious injuries involving pedestrians occurred.

TxDOT is warning that “failure to comply may result in withholding or denial of state or federal funding,” and “suspension of agreements between TxDOT and the local jurisdiction.”
Tolbert wrote that the Transportation and Public Works team is reviewing current infrastructure and determining if any exceptions apply.

One exception may be that the Dallas rainbow crosswalks — both the originals and the newly replaced crosswalks — were paid for with private money that was raised by the LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the Cedar Springs Merchants Association and other neighborhood groups.

The Cedar Springs Merchants Association is interested in knowing if the new rainbows are removed, will the organization get its money back.

But as far as Kevin Miller, president of the Cedar Springs Merchants Association is concerned, “Gay isn’t going away on the strip. Merchants know there are other ways to welcome the community other than crosswalks. Flags may fly from buildings and poles. And no regulations could be found for sidewalks that the city may decide need to turn into rainbows.”

“The Chamber Foundation was the key organization that did fundraising for the crosswalks,” said Chamber President and CEO Tony Vedda. “We’re working with a coalition of organizations and community leaders to see what the next steps for us is.”

Meanwhile, official responses from two council members — Paul Ridley, who represents parts of Oak Lawn, and Adam Bazaldua — support leaving the crosswalks in place.
Ridley said that the idea rainbow crosswalks are a safety concern is “unsupported and highly questionable.”

He calls Abbott’s assertion that painting rainbows on streets inserts “ideology” into publics spaces “a bit hypocritical. Isn’t Abbott’s law requiring that the 10 Commandments be displayed in all public schools in Texas the same thing? The LGBTQ+ community in particular is being targeted to score political points, inflame divisions and please a political base, and it’s just not right.”

And Bazaldua adds to Ridley’s comments, saying, “His justification that such crosswalks ‘incorporate political ideology’ ignores a simple truth: A rainbow is not a political statement.”

“I will not fold to bully tactics, and I hope our city stands firm against the egregious overreach,” he wrote and suggests the governor concern himself with issues like leading the nation in uninsured residents, our shortage of mental health resources, maternal mortality continuing to rise and our housing crisis.

He calls the governor’s actions political games.

A letter signed by the 12 members of Dallas County’s Democratic delegation in the Legislature voiced their concern at Abbott’s “misplaced priorities.”

“The rainbow crosswalk in Dallas’ Cedar Springs neighborhood is not a political statement; it is a profound symbol of unity, hope and the deep-seated resiliency of the North Texas LGBTQ community,” they wrote. “To demand its removal by threatening to withhold critical infrastructire funding is abhorrent and will inflict needless damage and hurt upon many of our constituents and Texans across the state.”

And Tolbert, officially neutral on the issue, has asked the city attorney for guidance and a legal opinion and promised to provide updates to the city council — all of whom have better things to do with their time than worry about crosswalks that are working in the city’s entertainment districts.

What’s baffling is why all of a sudden crosswalks have become a political issue. Could it be Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have kicked off their 2028 presidential bids by showing just how “tough” they can be on the LGBTQ community?

On Saturday, Oct. 18 at 5 p.m., a rally called One City, Many Colors: Let’s stand up for our communities and freedom of expression, organized by a large group of community members, takes place at the Legacy of Love monument on Cedar Springs Road at Oak Lawn Avenue.