San Antonio is asking the state to maintain the rainbow crosswalk it put in in June of 2018, arguing town has seen no indication the transfer made the intersection at North Principal Avenue and East Evergreen Road much less protected.
Security was among the many issues Gov. Greg Abbott cited when he joined different red-state leaders in ordering cities and counties to take away “any and all political ideologies from our streets” earlier this month — within the curiosity of retaining “Texans shifting safely and free from distraction.”
Cities have been speculated to work with their TxDOT district engineer to determine locations the place they is perhaps out of compliance and resolve them inside 30 days, or threat shedding state and federal grant cash.
However some exceptions could also be granted, TxDOT’s Government Director Mark Williams stated in an Oct. 8 letter to metropolis leaders, “primarily based on a demonstrated public security profit or compelling justification.”
That’s precisely what San Antonio is hoping to show, First Assistant Metropolis Lawyer Liz Provencio advised town’s LGBTQ+ Advisory Fee Monday evening, in accordance with Texas Public Radio.
Town plans to current proof that there’s really been a discount within the variety of visitors incidents because the brightly-colored crosswalk was accomplished greater than seven years in the past.
“In that whole timeframe, we’ve had two (incidents) so there’s no indication that it’s made it any much less protected,” Provencio advised TPR.
When Abbott’s proclamation was first introduced, metropolis leaders didn’t appear optimistic about getting to maintain the sidewalk.
“We don’t want crosswalks for pleasure, proper?” Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones stated on the time. “They’re good to have, however that pleasure rolls on.”
However the request for an exception is available in distinction to town of Houston, the place the mayor has taken a decidedly non-confrontational method to Republican leaders, and already painted over a rainbow crosswalk at 2:30 a.m. on Monday. (Residents recreated it with chalk hours later.)
It’s unclear whether or not San Antonio has another out-of-compliance installations past the crosswalk on the metropolis’s Satisfaction Cultural Heritage District.
Along with “ornamental crosswalks,” TxDOT advised town it was trying into “murals, or markings conveying paintings or different messages are prohibited on journey lanes, shoulders, intersections, and crosswalks except they serve a direct visitors management or security perform.”
