Dallas Crews Erasing Rainbow and BLM Crosswalks On Governor’s Orders
On Monday, TxDOT started water-blasting Pride and Black Lives Matters crosswalks following a mandate to remove 30 decorated crossings in South Dallas.
Featured Image: via FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth (YouTube)
In what Texas officials plan to be the first of 30 erasures of decorative Pride crossings, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) unleashed a massive power-washer truck on a rainbow crossing in the gayborhood of Oak Lawn on Monday. According to local reporting, the entirety of the project will take about 3 weeks. The blasting is part of a crackdown on what is deemed political messaging, and purportedly, to comply with street safety mandates.
In a letter issued last year by TxDOT, the justification was framed around the idea that non-standard markings that don’t directly support traffic control or safety “may cause confusion, reduce roadway uniformity, and impair the effectiveness of both human and automated vehicle navigation.”
First work occurred Monday morning, March 23, at the intersection of Throckmorton Street and Cedar Springs Drive with the BLM crosswalk in Fair Park scheduled next, plus other crosswalks Uptown. The washings are a continuation of an initiative that officially got underway last October, when Gov. Greg Abbott effectively banned symbols, flags or other designs that convey “social, political, or ideological messages” on Texas roadways.
Cities that refuse are under threat of losing federal and state funding – a strong-arm strategy aligned with the Trump admin approach toward institutions that support diversity and equity. Case in point: as GO reported last December, Texas cities faced a deadline to erase rainbow-colored crosswalks or risk losing millions in transportation funding. But some cities have made it clear: they aren’t backing down without a fight.
As for Oak Lawn, by Tuesday morning, one man had been arrested, per local FOX 4 News, for attempting to repaint the crosswalk.
Abbott’s directive is also in lock-step with Trump admin’s U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean. “Roads are for safety, not political messages or artwork. Today I am calling on governors in every state to ensure that roadways, intersections, and crosswalks are kept free of distractions,” Duffy wrote in a letter to governors in July of last year.
Related: Texas Cities Face Deadline To Remove Rainbow Pride Crosswalks — And One Isn’t Backing Down
Image: Activist protests at Houston’s rainbow crosswalk shortly before it was removed, by Jason Fochtman via Getty Images
To be clear, the government is not financing Dallas crosswalks. Most have been funded with private money. The LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce had raised over $120,000 for such installations in 2020. They also raised another $45,000 for repainting them in 2025, only months before Abbott had them them scrubbed. “All Black Lives Matter” crosswalks in South Dallas were funded with private money. Dallas-based nonprofit Abounding Prosperity, Inc. paid for multiple crosswalks in 2022, including one with a red, yellow and black design at the intersection of Malcolm X Boulevard and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard in South Dallas.
The unveiling of that particular crosswalk coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations in the area, honoring the man whose words hold as true today, as they did in 1963: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
